Apps by SEMPITE.
Five free games, built in house by SEMPITE in New York. Download them for Android, add them to an iPhone home screen, or play in a browser. No accounts, no ads, no in-app purchases, and nothing to sign up for.
Each one is a single codebase that ships to all three places: the same file you play in the browser is the file inside the Android app. That is the point of putting them here. They are the shop window for the way we build software for clients, and every one of them was designed and written by Jacob Ezra Gerrish.
Download and play.
Holdfast
Build an underground shelter in three worlds: a shelter after the bombs, a dwarven hold or a Mars colony. Put people in the jobs they are best at, keep power, food and water flowing, raise families, send explorers out and hold the door against raiders.
Frontline
A squad runner on a five-lane road. Shoot down walls for weapon, rank and squad upgrades, dodge red cards and barricades, and stop the boss before it crushes you. Five maps, from the US Army to Cats vs Dogs, plus an endless mode.
Gammon!
Backgammon with the whole rulebook: hitting and the bar, bearing off, the doubling cube, and gammons and backgammons scored properly. Play the computer on three levels or pass and play with a friend, on a classic or a neon board.
GetLow!
A card game where the lowest score wins. Swap, flip and match a column to wipe it out. Play friends online, pass one device around for up to four people, or take on computer rivals, in Racing, Fall or Pup themes.
Hold The Base
Isometric tower defense across ten maps: a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a medieval kingdom, a city bank heist, two free-build sandboxes and a limited-edition Halloween night.
| Game | What it is | Players | APK size | Version |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Holdfast In development | Shelter builder, three worlds | 1 | 167 KB | 1.4 |
| Frontline | Squad runner, five maps | 1 | 94 KB | 1.1 |
| Gammon! | Backgammon with the doubling cube | 1 or 2 | 77 KB | 1.0 |
| GetLow! · Google Play · Amazon | Card game, lowest score wins | 1 to 4, or online | Google Play | 4.1 |
| Hold The Base | Isometric tower defense | 1, or 2 online | 543 KB | 7.0 |
How do you install a SEMPITE app?
Android
Open the app's page and tap Download for Android. Open the file when it lands, and allow your browser to install apps if Android asks, which it only does the first time. Every APK is signed by SEMPITE, so updates install over the old one.
iPhone and iPad
There is no App Store download. Open the play link in Safari, tap Share, then Add to Home Screen. It launches full screen from its own icon and keeps working with no signal, because the whole game is cached on the first visit.
Any computer
Click Play in browser. Chrome, Edge, Safari and Firefox all work, and the layout fits itself to the window you have. Nothing installs and nothing is uploaded.
What they cost
Nothing. They are free to download, free to play, and there is no paid tier hiding behind them. They exist to show what a small team can ship, and to be fun.
Games are how we prove the build.
A game is an unforgiving brief. It has to load in a second on a five-year-old phone, run at sixty frames, survive a lost connection, work with a thumb and with a mouse, and be readable on a 320 pixel screen and a desktop monitor. The habits that come out of that, one codebase, no frameworks to keep alive, assets measured in kilobytes, are the same habits behind the client sites and tools we ship.
If your business needs an Android app, an iPhone web app, a branded game for a campaign, or an internal tool your team will actually use, that is a service we sell: App Development.
Questions about the apps.
Are the SEMPITE apps really free?
Yes. All five are free to download and free to play, with no ads, no in-app purchases, no accounts and no email required.
Are they on Google Play or the App Store?
GetLow! is on Google Play and the Amazon Appstore. The other four are distributed directly from sempite.com, and each Android build is signed by SEMPITE. On iPhone you add the web app to your home screen instead of installing from the App Store.
Do they work offline?
Yes. The Android apps hold the whole game, and the browser versions cache themselves on the first visit, so they keep working on a plane or in a basement.
Do they collect any data?
No. There are no accounts and no analytics inside the games. Scores and settings are stored on your own device and never leave it.
Can two people play on one device?
Yes, in two of them. GetLow! seats up to four people in pass and play, and Gammon! seats two. Hold The Base can be played online with a friend. Frontline and Holdfast are single player games.
How big are the downloads?
Small: Gammon! is 77 KB, Frontline 94 KB, Holdfast 167 KB and Hold The Base 543 KB. GetLow! installs from Google Play. All five need Android 7.0 or newer.
Who made them?
Jacob Ezra Gerrish, the founder of SEMPITE, a boutique digital studio in New York. They are written in plain HTML, CSS and JavaScript and wrapped for Android, with no game engine underneath.
Can SEMPITE build an app for my business?
Yes. That is our App Development service: one codebase that ships to Android, iPhone and the web, built and maintained by the same person who designs it.