Openglad

Openglad is a port of the open-sourced dos game known as Gladiator (http://fsgames.com/glad/). It is a top-view gauntlet style RPG that features fast paced multiplayer action, several different classes, and a scenario editor. This port adds networked multiplayer, five more campaigns, seven versus modes, a browser build and a modding API in Lua.

Play in your browser: https://openglad.pages.dev · Download: latest release (Linux, Windows, macOS) · Build from source: docs/INSTALL.md

Versions are 2.<commit count>. The main menu shows the version and the commit of the build you are running.

What's in it

Playing

• Seven campaigns. The original Gladiator (37 scenarios) and The Tryxian Chronicles (13) as released in 2002, plus five written for this port: War of the Westlands (25), The Long Season (19), Imaginations (a kid-submitted dream level), The Endless Tower (floors generated as you climb) and the Multiplayer Arenas package. Each campaign is a plain source tree under campaigns/, composed into a .glad archive at build time.
• Seven versus modes, 40 arenas — Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, Onslaught, Soccer, Basketball, Mutant and Free-for-All. Rules, scoring and bot behaviour are campaign Lua, and every mode works split-screen, online, in the terminal client and in the browser (docs/mp-game-modes.md).
• Multi-floor levels — stairs, drops, and a camera that glides between floors (docs/z-axis-design.md, docs/floor-glide-design.md).
• Difficulty, respawns and a real pause menu — respawn rules (off / heroes / everyone) and permadeath per match, a PAUSED menu with per-player settings, named keyboard layouts and joystick support (docs/game-modes.md, docs/pause-menu-design.md).

Multiplayer

• Four players on one screen, sixteen seats in a lobby — local seats and networked machines in the same match; the simulation is server-authoritative, and players can join a session already in progress (docs/ARCHITECTURE.md § Networking).
• A public relay, no port forwarding — host a room, share its GLAD-XXXX code, friends join from any client; the relay is a Cloudflare Worker in relay/ that also holds cloud saves (relay/README.md).
• Base Camp — companies that persist across sessions, hiring and training, a seats rail for local and remote players, and campaign zones a campaign's own Lua can decorate (docs/company-basecamp-design.md).

Modding

• Every class, weapon, effect and treasure is a Lua class pack in packs/core/, loaded through the same path third-party packs use (docs/modding/api-reference.md, docs/lua-classpacks-design.md).
• Scriptable levels and campaigns — per-level hooks, scenario pickers and persistent company decisions, so a campaign can remember what you did (docs/campaign-scripting-design.md).
• Openscen, the built-in level editor, and an indexed-PNG sprite pipeline that round-trips through Aseprite (docs/scen.txt, docs/sprite-format.md).

Ways to run it

• Browser — the WebAssembly build at openglad.pages.dev runs on desktop and phone and can be added to a phone's home screen (it ships a web app manifest); every version deployed stays playable from openglad.pages.dev/versions (docs/INSTALL.md § Web Build).
• Terminal — openglad_curses, a zero-SDL roguelike-style client with the same menus, saves and online play (docs/ncurses-client.md).
• Headless — openglad_server hosts dedicated matches and openglad_text drives the game from a script, for servers and CI (docs/INSTALL.md § Build Targets).
• Native — Linux, Windows and macOS builds on every release, and a Nix flake.

Under the hood

• C++20 in five components with an enforced dependency direction, GoogleTest unit and integration groups, a byte-exact parity harness that pins gameplay against the classic simulation, and a coverage gate at 98 % of lines and 100 % of functions over src/ and the pack Lua (docs/ARCHITECTURE.md, docs/GAMEPLAY_FIXES_FROM_CLASSIC.md).
• Every build stamps v2.<commit count> and its git hash on the main menu; each push to master becomes a GitHub release and a versioned web URL automatically.

Note: as of July 1st, 2002, Gladiator is open sourced under the GPL. The Forgotten Sages Development Team has graciously open sourced it, and the developers of the Snowstorm team are sincerely thankful for all the work that was saved.

Thank you, FSGames.

Playing

The manual at openglad.org/manual covers the classes, controls, items, and scenarios. Pressing F1 in a level opens the in-game help, whose Controls page lists the current keys. glad.hlp is the original 2002 manual, kept as it was; its key list predates the keys below.

Controls

Up to four players share one keyboard. The default keys (4-direction movement; the in-game help lists the 8-direction ones):

	Player 1	Player 2	Player 3	Player 4
Move	W A S D	arrows	I J K L	T F G H
Attack	Left Ctrl (browser: Z)	Right Shift	Space	V
Abilities	1 2 3	[ ] \	8 9 0	4 5 6
Shifter	Left Shift	/	M	B
Yell	E	Enter	O	Y
Look up (hold)	Q	Right Ctrl	U	R
Switch character	`	'	-	N

Each ability key casts the ability on it, and holding Shifter gives a second row of three. TRAIN > ABILITIES in Base Camp chooses which ability sits on which key; mid-mission, ABILITIES on your player screen in the PAUSED menu changes it for the character you are playing. KEYMAP on a player's screen shows every local player's keys on one keyboard picture. Turning off Game Settings > UI FX > New Ability Select brings back the original rules on the same keys: the first ability key casts the selected special, the second changes it, and Shifter casts the alternate. On a player's screen (open the player's P# card in Base Camp, or the PAUSED menu), click one key in the key list to change only that key, or press REMAP ALL to change every key in turn; gamepads work too. Esc pauses. The design is in docs/ability-select-design.md.

Multiplayer setup

Use + on Base Camp's SEATS rail to add local players. Open one of your P# cards to choose that player's team and controls, or to remove the seat. Put seats on the same team for co-op, or choose different teams for a versus or mixed-team match. Use < and > when more than four seats are connected. Seat count and team choices belong to the current session and are not stored in a company save.

Player numbers are shared across the lobby. Your cards say YOU; cards owned by another network client show its company abbreviation and are read-only. Open SCENARIO → VIEW LEVEL for the complete seat and team overview; the host's match settings sit on SCENARIO itself and cross-control on DIFFICULTY. See Companies and Base Camp for the full multiplayer behavior.

Documentation

• Install / Build — CMake presets, native, web, previews and releases
• Architecture — components, dependency rules, data flow, networking, CI
• Modding API and the class-pack design
• Game modes
• ncurses client
• Manual
• Editing with Openscen
• Cheats
• Gladiator ver. 3.8 manual & revision history (written by FSGames)

License

GPL v2 — see LICENSE.