Copy the data file from the original game to the same directory as freeserf. Alternatively you can put the data file in ~/.local/share/freeserf. The data file is called SPAE.PA, SPAD.PA, SPAF.PA or SPAU.PA, depending on the language of the game.

Keyboard gameplay controls:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5: Activate one of the five buttons in the panel.
• b: Toggle overlay showing possibilities for constructions.
• TAB/SHIFT-TAB: Open next notification message; or return from last message.
• +/-: Increase/decrease game speed.
• 0: Reset game speed.
• p: Pause game.

Other keyboard controls:

• F10: Return to main menu to start a new game
• s: Enable/disable sounds playback
• m: Enable/disable music playback
• CTRL+f: Switch fullscreen mode on/off.
• CTRL+z: Save game in current directory.

To play back the sound track that is included in the original data files, SDL2_mixer has to be enabled at compile-time and a set of sound patches for SDL2_mixer has to be available at runtime. See the SDL2_mixer documentation for more information.

To load a save game file:

$ freeserf -l FILE

Freeserf will (try to) load save games from the original game, as well as saves from freeserf itself. The game is paused after loading so press p to start the game.

Run freeserf -h for more info on command line options.

Please report bugs at https://github.com/freeserf/freeserf/issues.

The main source repository for this project is at https://github.com/freeserf/freeserf. See the HACKING document in the source code root for information on how to compile and how to contribute.