Openglad can be tricky to play! This manual should hopefully make it easier.
Openglad runs on Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, and in the browser. Grab a build from the releases page on GitHub, or play it in your browser, which needs no install and works on phones and tablets too.
Your companies, settings, and key bindings are stored on the machine you play on. The browser version keeps them in the browser's own storage, so clearing site data will wipe them; see cloud saves if you want to move a company between devices.
Openglad is a gauntlet style, real-time arcade game where you (the red team) must set out to destroy your enemies (and pick up treasure!) in a variety of scenarios. You get to sharpen the skills of your team as you progress through the levels, and each character class (Soldier, Mage, etc.) has a number of special abilities which come into play as your character gains levels.
You control one character at a time and switch between them at will; the rest of your company fights under its own AI. Up to four players can share one keyboard, and many more can play together online.
Each player has a number of 'action' keys, such as movement or attacking, and also a personal options menu, which controls things like game speed or viewport size. All of it can be remapped.
Players use four-direction controls by default, with four movement keys each. Hold two of them together to move diagonally.
Player 1 Player 2 Player 3 Player 4 -------- -------- -------- -------- W UP I T | | | | A- -D LT- -RT J- -L F- -H | | | | S DN K G
If you prefer dedicated diagonal keys, switch a player to "8-DIRECTION" (see remapping below). Each player has a separate 4- and 8-direction key map, so switching between them never disturbs the other layout.
| Action | Player 1 | Player 2 | Player 3 | Player 4 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fire | Left Ctrl | Period . | Space | 5 |
| Special | Left Alt | Slash / | Semicolon ; | 6 |
| Switch character | Backquote ` | Enter | - | = |
| Switch special | Tab | Quote ' | 9 | 7 |
| Yell | E | Backslash \ | U | Y |
| Shifter | Left Shift | Right Shift | 0 | 8 |
| Look up (hold) | V | Right Ctrl | P | B |
| Options menu | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
Digits are the top-row number keys, not the numeric keypad.
Each player's options key opens their own options menu mid-mission. Some settings are personal, some affect everyone:
+/- : Game speed, slower or faster (numeric keypad; everyone) [/] : Your viewscreen size </> : Screen brightness (everyone) C : Color cycling on or off (everyone) F : Foes/allies display on or off H : Cycle the hitpoint/magic display modes R : Radar display on or off S : Score/experience display on or off T : Bring up an overview of your team's status J : Joystick mode
Gamepads and joysticks are supported and can be assigned per player. On phones and tablets, the browser version shows an on-screen overlay with a movement stick, FIRE and SPC (special) buttons, and a row for LOOK, CHAR (switch character), YELL, ALT (shifter), and SP+ (switch special).
Choose "GAME" on the main menu, then "CONTROLS". Each of the four local players gets a row showing its current keys, a "4-DIRECTION"/"8-DIRECTION" toggle, and a "REMAP" button; "RESET ALL" restores the factory layouts. The same options are available per seat inside Base Camp. Control settings belong to the game rather than to a company, so they follow you across every save.
A saved game in Openglad is a "company": a named band with its own roster, gold, campaign progress, and match settings.
There are no save slots to keep track of. The game saves itself whenever something changes, such as hiring, training, renaming, deploying, changing a setting, or winning a level. Every win also files a backup snapshot beforehand, so if a battle goes badly wrong you can open the company's backup list and rewind to an earlier point. Restoring takes a snapshot of the current state first, so you can always change your mind.
Base Camp is where you run your company between missions. The roster shows eight characters at a time with columns for deploy, team, name, class, level, and experience.
A company holds at most 24 characters, and only deployed characters enter a mission. If you overfill it, benched veterans are kept before fresh recruits.
A new company starts with 5000 gold. The "HIRE" screen shows one recruit at a time, with their name, class, statistics, and price, and the "PREV" and "NEXT" buttons walk through the fourteen classes you can recruit. Raise or lower a recruit's stats before buying to get exactly the fighter you want, then press "HIRE ME" and give them a name (Enter accepts the default, something like SOLDIER1).
The "TRAIN" screen looks similar, but works on characters you already own. Your changes are not paid for, and do not become permanent, until you press "ACCEPT". You can also "RENAME" a character, read their full "DETAILS", set which team they play on, or "SELL" them back.
Clicking the "+" or "-" buttons with the left mouse button changes a stat by one; the right button changes it by five.
The statistics you can buy are:
Affects your melee (hand-to-hand) combat, as well as things like your weapon range.
Increases your hitpoints and rate of healing, and affects other combat-related skills.
Improves your ability to dodge, your weapon's accuracy, your speed, and other related skills.
Controls how much magic power you have, how fast it regenerates, and the success of your special abilities.
Like shielding: the more you have, the less damage you take from a given blow.
Determined by experience, and it affects every stat as well as which special abilities the character can perform. While it may look very expensive to buy a level for your character, the cost decreases the closer they are to the next level, so it can be useful when they're "almost there" and you want the increase.
Alongside those, the screens show the derived numbers they produce: hitpoints, magic points, attack, defense, speed, and attack speed.
Generally, new abilities come every three levels (at levels 1, 4, 7, and 10). Sometimes you'll also have 'alternate' abilities granted at a given level, reached with the shifter key; these often have other restrictions of use. For example, the mage gets an alternate special -- teleport marker -- at level 1, but he must have at least 75 Intelligence before it becomes usable. A mage who reaches level 6 can also be promoted into an Archmage.
The "SCENARIO" menu in Base Camp decides where your company fights next:
Progress is tracked per campaign, so you can keep a run going in several campaigns with the same company.
The main menu's "DIFFICULTY" screen holds the rules for your next battle. In an online game only the host can change them, and the lobby pushes them to everyone.
Skirmish, Battle, or Slaughter. Skirmish halves enemy hitpoints, magic, and damage; Slaughter doubles them.
Off, Heroes (player-controlled characters only), Team 1 Heroes, or Everyone. With respawns on, a level can't be lost to a team wipe.
How long a respawn takes: Fast, Normal, or Slow.
On by default, so the fallen are gone for good. Turn it off to keep fallen heroes on your roster after a mission.
How fast enemy generators (tents, towers, and the like) produce reinforcements: Calm, Normal, or Frenzy.
Turns off the money constraint entirely, if you'd rather just build the squad you want and fight.
The "GAME" menu holds everything else: sound, display mode and resolution, sprite sheets, control settings, and three pages of optional effects. These cover gameplay (hit recoil, attack lunge), the interface (mini HP bars, damage and healing numbers), and graphics (shadows, reflections, weather, gore, screen shake, depth fog, and more).
When a level loads, a briefing appears in the middle of the screen. It often explains the level's goal or drops a hint. Scroll it with the arrow keys, Page Up/Down, Home/End, or the scrollbar, and hit ESC to continue. Shift+/ brings it back later.
Openglad uses an angled, mostly overhead view. Your team wears red, and the bad guys wear a variety of colors depending on their team. Normally, when you fire, your shots will pass over your teammates and hit your enemies; use this to your advantage!
At the top left is the name of the character you're controlling, with "HP" and "MP" numbers and bar graphs below it. Be careful -- when your hitpoints go to zero, you're dead!
At the bottom left, "SC" is your score for the current level and "XP" is that character's experience (NPCs show their level instead). Above them, "SPC" displays your currently selected special ability. If it prints in yellow you can perform this action; if it's red you can't right now, most often because you don't have the magic points. "ALT" shows the shifter version of the special, where there is one.
The numbers following "TEAM" and "FOES" in the upper right are the number of members left alive on your team and the number of foes left. A trailing "(+n)" on the foe count means reinforcements are still due, and "NEXT WAVE" counts down to them. On multi-floor levels, an "FLR" readout shows which floor you're on.
Finally, the lower right corner holds a radar map. This map shows a larger portion of the playing area than can fit on a screen, and can help you determine where enemies and allies are. Your team members are shown as red dots, other teams as dots of their respective colors, and weapons and explosions flicker past in grey.
Some levels are stacked across several floors. Stairs and ladders move you between them, glass floors let you see through, and air tiles drop you to the floor below, where the fall does damage. Floors below you are drawn faded so that holes read as height; hold your look-up key to fade in the floors above. Enemies use the stairs too.
Clear the field and look for the exit, which looks like four glowing arrows pointing at each other. Most exits won't function until you have killed all the enemies, so if you step on one and nothing happens, kill more foes! Stepping onto a live exit asks whether you want to leave for the destination level. It's often good to answer no and check a completed level to see if there are any hidden treasures -- such as gold bars or food -- left around.
Don't be too upset if all your men are slaughtered and you lose the scenario. There's no penalty; you're simply returned to Base Camp, and can try the level again. When a character dies, a 'heart gem' will appear over the corpse, and any teammate who picks it up gains back the majority of what it cost to outfit and train that character.
If your controlled character dies while others fight on, you switch to another; in an online game a player with nobody to control can follow a teammate instead.
Every mission ends on the results screen, which reports the verdict, the score, and the battle's MVP. From there you can page through an "OVERVIEW" of the fight or a look at your "TROOPS", and, in modes that allow it, hit "RETRY". Leaving the screen banks your winnings, saves your company, and drops you back in Base Camp.
Some campaigns let you walk back through levels you've already finished. There's no treasure or opposition left in them, but they work as passages and rest stops between the areas you've cleared and the ones you haven't.
The standard Openglad multi-player system is cooperative: you're all on the same team, score is shared between the team, and experience goes to the character who earned it. Once you've learned the basics, try two player!
Players are managed from the "SEATS" rail at the bottom of Base Camp. Press "+" at the far right to add a local player; one machine can seat four. Each seat gets a "P#" card, and opening one of your own cards lets you:
The rail shows four cards at a time, with "<" and ">" to page through bigger lobbies. Click "SEATS" itself for the full matchup overview. Seats and their team choices belong to the current session rather than to a company, but they do survive leaving Base Camp and coming back through "CONTINUE".
Press "NETWORK" in Base Camp to host or join. There are two ways in:
Everyone brings their own company, and the lobby merges the deployed rosters. Player numbers are shared across the lobby: your own cards read "YOU", while cards belonging to another machine show that company's abbreviation and are read-only. The host can't start until every machine is ready and each local view has a character to control, and the game will tell you which of those is missing.
A machine with no seats stays connected as a spectator and can follow any active hero; pressing "+" puts it back in the game. Mission winnings are split by each machine's share of the deployed roster, and each player's own company records only the progress it actually earned. The host can also allow cross-control from "MATCHUP", letting players take over eligible characters owned by other machines.
Every seat picks a combat team, and characters can be assigned to teams individually from the train screen. Put several seats on the same team to play cooperatively, or split them up for a versus match. Mixed arrangements work the same way, whether that's two players against two, or two players and their squads against a third. A team color is combat allegiance, so moving a player between seats never recolors anybody's roster.
For dedicated deathmatch maps, the Multiplayer arenas campaign starts at level 300, and Capture the Flag is a mode of its own.
Openglad ships with eight campaigns, selectable from "SCENARIO", then "SET CAMPAIGN":
| Campaign | What it is |
|---|---|
| Gladiator | The original campaign. You lead a band of mercenaries seeking glory and gold, starting with the money you stole from an imperial guardsman. |
| The Tryxian Chronicles | Explore the mysteries of the fallen Tryxian Empire. This series of tough levels will test your advanced team. |
| War of the Westlands | A small burden crosses a great war: forest, mountain road, sieges, marsh and ash, and a reckoning at the Mountain of Fire. |
| The Long Season | A year of contract work for the Brass Kettle Company: dikes in spring, armies in summer, mines in autumn, snow passes in winter, all paid in the same strange warm coin. |
| Capture the Flag | Ten CTF arenas for up to four teams. |
| Multiplayer arenas | The classic set of versus arenas. |
| The Endless Tower | An endless, seeded climb: every floor is generated when you reach it, and every run ends. Gold and veterans carry over between runs. |
| Concept Playground | A sampler of the multi-floor features: stacked floors, air holes you fall through, glass floors, and arcing projectiles, ending in a scripted boss court. |
Each team's flag stands at its base. Touch an enemy flag to pick it up, then carry it back to your own stand to capture. Your own flag has to be home for that to count, so somebody has to defend it. First team to the capture limit wins.
With the CTF campaign active, "MATCHUP" gains three settings: how many teams take the field (automatic, or forced to 2, 3, or 4), the capture limit (the map's own, or 1 to 10), and whether to use the level's own fighters or only the players' companies. Teams without human players are filled by AI squads that play the objective, fielding attackers, escorts, defenders, interceptors, and a retriever that races for dropped flags.
The Tower is a single-player climb up procedurally generated floors. There are no second lives inside it, and a run ends when your crew is wiped out, times out, or quits. Gold, veterans, and your best depth persist between runs, so the next attempt starts from a stronger company. The HUD shows the floor number you've reached.
Fourteen classes can be recruited. In general, each character has about three 'special abilities', although it often requires gaining several levels before the later ones become available. Abilities marked SHIFTER are alternate forms, reached by holding the shifter key.
Your basic grunt, can absorb and deal damage and moves moderately fast. A good all-around fighter. A soldier's normal weapon is a magical returning blade. While effective at dealing damage, the downside to this is that the soldier must wait for the blade to return before throwing it again.
Specials:
Barbarians are tough fighters, but possess more will than skill. In general, they possess strong constitutions and impressive strength, but, lacking the training of the standard Soldiers, tend to bash their way through trouble. Barbarians fight with a heavy iron hammer, both in melee and ranged combat.
One thing which makes Barbarians unique is their ability to resist magical attacks. While they bleed like any other mortal, magic attacks, more often than not, fade off their skin without a trace.
Specials:
Elves are small and relatively weak, but are harder to hit than most classes. Alone of all the standard classes, elves possess the 'ForestWalk' ability. This ability allows them to walk through dense forests, passing barriers and avoiding enemies. The more dexterous an elf is, the easier she will be able to journey through forest land. Elves generally throw stones for their ranged attack.
Specials:
Archers are fleet of foot, and their arrows have a long range. Although they're not as strong or healthy as soldiers, they can also be a good squad backbone.
Specials:
Mages are slow, nearly defenseless, and horrible at hand-to-hand combat, but their magical energy balls pack a big punch. All mages, regardless of level, possess the ability to teleport out of (or into!) danger, providing they've saved enough magic. A mage who reaches level 6 may be promoted to an Archmage.
Specials:
SHIFTER: The alternate, more advanced teleport is really a form of 'Dimension Door,' and allows the mage to pick a location, memorize it, and return there at will. This skill requires more intelligence than even a normal mage, and the number of uses of the memorized spot is also determined by intelligence.
When a Mage has reached the sixth level or higher, she may choose to specialize and become an Archmage. An Archmage takes the learnings of the Magi one step further, possessing extraordinary firepower at the expense of physical weakness.
Even more than for a normal Mage, an Archmage's powers all hinge upon how much Intelligence is possessed. An Archmage shares some spells with the standard Mage class, but quickly gains other spells for high damage.
Specials:
SHIFTER: By using the alternate version of an Archmage's second-level ability, the spell 'Chain Lightning' is called forth. Here, the Archmage shoots out a bolt of lightning, powered by excess mana. The bolt will seek out a nearby enemy, and upon impact, split into multiple new bolts, which will seek their own targets. In crowded quarters, this spell can incinerate an entire room of the foe with one continuous blast!
SHIFTER: More powerful than illusion, a strong Archmage may summon forth an elemental of fire. This spell, however, comes with both a blessing and a curse -- for the lifeforce of this elemental is linked to that of the Archmage, and while this may infuse the daemon with extra sustaining health, it can also weaken the archmage to a perilous condition!
Clerics, like mages, are slow, but have a stronger hand-to-hand attack. Clerics possess abilities related to healing and, on the darker side, interaction with the dead. Clerics have the unique ability to generate fields which their teammates can pass through, but which foes must hack down to pass.
Specials:
NOTE: clerics controlled by the computer who are on your team will automatically attempt to heal any wounded team member who 'bumps' them.
SHIFTER: Although normally beings of peace, even Clerics sometimes need a strong defense to keep their lifeblood flowing. Thus, every Cleric soon learns the 'Mystic Mace' spell, which conjures an ethereal mace to defend against blows, and strike any foe who gets too close. Although several of these 'maces' may be summoned at one time, the strength of each is determined by the amount of magical energy put into it, and thus one strong mace may be more effective than several weaker ones.
SHIFTER: The reverse of raise undead, Turn Undead has the power to ultimately send the walking dead back to their realm.
Raise Ghost: This stronger version of Raise Undead brings back not the bodies of those who have fallen, but the spirit. Such a ghost has the advantage of being ethereal and traveling anywhere, as well has possessing stronger powers of attack than a mere zombie.
SHIFTER: As with Raise Undead, a knowledgeable cleric has the power not only to bring forth spirits, but also to lay them to rest. This level of Turn Undead will affect both zombies and ethereal spirits.
Thieves are fast and stronger of constitution than the magic-wielders, though not so potent as the soldier. Like soldiers, thieves wield stabbing and throwing blades. Although their blades are not magical, they possess an unlimited supply and can throw them in rapid succession.
Specials:
SHIFTER: When not taunting their enemies, thieves may be charming them instead. Masters of inducing paranoia and charm, a clever thief can at times convince his worst enemy to help him out for a while.
Druids are the magicians of nature, and have special powers over natural events. Druids can throw lightning bolts at their foes; the bolts have long range and are very fast.
Specials:
Orcs are your basic 'grunt' fighter; strong and hard to hurt, but without much intelligence or ability to do more than inflict pain. Basic orcs don't have a ranged attack, but their damage at close range is impressive.
Specials:
Fire elementals have been known to strike terror into even the toughest of warriors. Strong and relatively quick, their flaming meteors can inflict hideous wounds upon an enemy, and their speed and size make them dangerous opponents even without this ability.
Specials:
Skeletons are the pathetic remains of those who once were among the living. Although they are not particularly dangerous, they move with blinding speed, and often surround a living enemy to take it to the grave.
Specials:
A more fearsome type of undead, ghosts can pass through walls, trees, and anything else that gets in their way. Although they cannot inflict damage from a distance, their chilling touch can bring death quickly at close range.
Specials:
The flying faerie are diminutive in stature, flying above friends and enemies alike unnoticed. Although they are delicate and easily destroyed, faeries can sprinkle a magic powder which can freeze their enemies in place.
It is hard to say if a slime is truly intelligent, or simply some form of lichen too agitated to remain still. Although generally peaceful in nature, slimes can make dangerous enemies when disturbed. From what has been observed of slimes, they begin life as small, relatively harmless patches of ooze which grow until they are bigger than a man. These large patches of slime then split into two or more small slimes, thus increasing the population. Slimes are particularly vulnerable to fire or magical attacks.
Specials:
The main menu's "CLOUD" screen backs a company up off your machine. This is the easiest way to carry a game from a desktop build to the browser, or between devices.
Set a "PASSPHRASE", then "UPLOAD" your active company or "DOWNLOAD" whatever that passphrase holds. One passphrase stores one company, so use a different passphrase for each company you want to keep. Your passphrase never leaves your machine; only a value derived from it is sent. It controls access but doesn't encrypt anything, so don't keep anything secret in a cloud save.
The scenario editor is built into the game: pick "Level Editor" on the main menu, or run the standalone openscen tool. Each level consists of a map layer, which holds the terrain, and an object layer, which holds the characters, generators, treasure, exits, keys, doors, and player start markers. For quick help while in the editor, press 'H'. The Editor tab of the in-game help has the full key reference.
Some things to know before you start. Begin from an existing scenario to inherit its map dimensions. An exit's level number is the scenario it leads to, so add return exits if you want players to be able to retreat. A key's level is the door level it opens, and same-level teleporters form a loop. Save often!
You can go further than levels. Character classes are Lua declarations in hot-pluggable packs, campaigns are packaged archives that can carry their own packs and level scripts, and the game can load custom sprite sheets (choose one under "GAME", then "Sprite Sheet"). In multiplayer, missing packs transfer from host to client automatically.
The GitHub repository has the details, including the scripting API reference and the campaign and pack formats.