Glødkeeper · the tour
Inside Glødkeeper
A walk through the game, page by page, as it is in the closed alpha. Screenshots are taken on a phone. Things move around during an alpha, so treat this as a snapshot rather than a promise.
The toolbar
One strip along the top of every page, so nothing is ever more than a tap away.
The toolbar follows you everywhere in the game. From left to right:
- The logo. Opens the guided tours: short walk-throughs of the toolbar, the team, the collection and more. They never start by themselves.
- Signal bars. Whether the game can reach the server right now. Tap them for the details.
- The page picture. What this page is for and how it works, in plain words.
- Rewards. Your balances, what you can still earn today and when the day resets.
- Trials. The stories and quests you have on the go. It only appears when you have some.
- Schedule. What is on today and this week, so you know when to drop in.
- Notifications. Quest updates, results and unlocks. Tap one to jump to it.
- Your avatar. Your account and settings.
- Home. Back to the home screen from anywhere.
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The toolbar
Home
Everything else hangs off one screen of tiles.
The home screen is eight tiles: Progress, Stories, Games, Team, World, Money Matters, Well-being and Friends. Each one opens a part of the game, and the sections below follow the same order.
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The home screen
Your team
Fifty-three Glødkin on one snowflake-shaped board, and every game draws on it.
Your team is laid out on a board shaped like a snowflake, with your Architect at the centre and branches running out from it. Where a Glødkin sits matters. A run of linked places held by the same squad forms a chain worth bonus points, Glødkin who get on lift the team, and rivals placed next to each other drag it down. The bar along the top reads out the team's score and what is pushing it up or down.
- Built for you on day one. A new player's team is assembled the moment they join, so you can play straight away.
- Auto-Build. One tap builds a strong team from your collection.
- Fine-tuning. Switch to Edit Mode and drag one Glødkin onto another to swap them, chase a longer squad chain, or split up a pair who can't stand each other. Undo steps back through your changes one at a time, and the score updates as you go.
- More than one team. Keep spare team slots for different games.
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The team board
The collection
Every Glødkin in the game, and which ones are yours.
The collection shows the whole cast two ways. The album is a sticker book, one page per squad, with the ones you haven't found shown darkened so you can see what you're missing. The table is for sorting and comparing traits.
- Six rarities. From Common to Mythic. Rarer is stronger, but a Common with one brilliant trait can be exactly what a game needs.
- Every squad. The art page shows each squad's lettering, card frame and one of its Glødkin.
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The album
One Glødkin, up close
Tap any Glødkin, anywhere in the game, and its card opens.
Every Glødkin has a card of its own, framed in its squad's colours. Tabs along the card turn it over to show more.
- Traits. Sixteen scores, from strength and energy to humour, empathy and wisdom. Every game leans on different ones.
- Lore. Who this Glødkin is, in a few lines of its own.
- Likes and dislikes. The topics it enjoys and the ones it can't stand. They decide how it gets on in the Lounge, and so who it bonds with and who it falls out with.
- Specialisation and trinkets. What it is best at, and what it is carrying.
- Games. How it has done in each game it has played.
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The front of the card -
Traits -
Likes and dislikes
Trinkets
Curios your Glødkin carry, and a second thing to collect.
A trinket is a small item that lifts a couple of traits for the Glødkin carrying it: a lucky whistle, a rubber chicken, an oath medal. Each one comes in six rarities, and a Glødkin can only carry a trinket as rare as itself, so your best trinkets go to your best cards. The trinket album has a row for every kind and a column for every rarity, with silhouettes for the ones you haven't found and where in the world each one turns up.
- Matched to squads. A joke book does far more for a Clown than for a Knight.
- Found on your travels. Trinkets turn up on quests and in territory battles.
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The trinket album
The games room
A box of mini-games, all played with the same collection.
The games room sorts the box into solo, versus, cards, arcade, puzzle and sports, with a favourites filter for the ones you keep coming back to. Each game has a How to play guide and shows what you can win today. A team built for one game will struggle in another, which is the point: the question is always how to build a collection that holds up everywhere. These are the games in the box today.
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The games room
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Glødstone
Cards · versus
The card battler. Build a deck from your collection, play Glødkin onto the board and bring down the other side's champion.
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Trait Clash
Cards · versus
Your team is your deck. Fight another player's team trait by trait, and choose your cards carefully.
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Trait Trumps
Cards · versus
Pick your card's best trait to beat theirs. Burn a weak card to keep a streak alive, and a long enough streak wins outright.
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Mechmatch
Cards · versus
Heads-up blackjack where your team is the deck, dealt from one shoe all match, so remembering what has gone pays off.
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Brawl
Versus
Three Glødkin against three, turn by turn. Type advantages, abilities and squad passives decide it.
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Team Bash
Versus
Attack another player's team tier by tier, choosing who goes in and which trait they fight with.
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Mindout
Puzzle · versus
Race another player up a hidden minefield of hexes. Your team's traits are your health and your collection is your radar.
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Memory Match
Puzzle
Flip cards and match pairs of Glødkin before time runs out. Rarer Glødkin flip back faster.
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Cascade
Puzzle
Match three or more on a grid, with rarity and trait bonuses multiplying your score, in a race to a target.
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Trait TriPeaks
Solo · cards
Solitaire with your collection. Pick a trait to rank by, then chain cards to clear the peaks.
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Smashlings
Arcade · solo
Bat and ball against a wall of Glødkin blocks, with power-ups to catch. The reels pick your level.
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Glodball
Sports · coming soon
Football where you are the manager. Pick your eleven, call plays from the whiteboard and choose how to defend.
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Lobbers
Versus · coming soon
Two teams and a hill. Guard your Architect with a wall of Glødkin while everyone else lobs things at the other side.
Stories and quests
Illustrated stories set around the world, with parts you play where they happen.
Stories are read chapter by chapter in a frame drawn for their region, and your place is kept. Some are just for reading. Others stop at a moment where your Glødkin are needed: a quest. To take part you travel to the place the story is set, then pick a small team and, step by step, choose who attempts what. Each choice tests a few traits, and leaning on one hero stops working fast, so spreading the load across the team is what wins.
- Read anywhere, play there. Reading works wherever you are. The tasks wait at the story's own location.
- Questions along the way. Chapters can end on a question about what you've read.
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The first page of a story
The world
Six regions, each with its own squads, places, stories and trinkets.
The world map is six floating islands. Tap one to travel there. Where you are changes the backdrop of every page, which Glødkin turn up near you and which stories you can play. Each region has field notes on its history and a set of notable places to read about.
- Territory. Rounds of battle for control of a region's places on its own map, against other players' teams.
- Delves. Short runs into a region, each on a map of its own with a twist of its own.
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The world map -
A Territory map -
A delve
Progress
How you are doing, all in one place.
The Progress menu holds your collection, your trinkets, your achievements and the league table.
- League table. Season rankings for the versus games, from a rating that rises when you beat people and falls when you lose. Divisions run from Bronze to Diamond, and every season is a fresh climb.
- Achievements. Milestones across everything you do, each with a progress bar, so you can chase the nearly-finished ones first.
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The Progress menu -
The league table
Well-being and relationships
Your Glødkin have feelings about each other, and they matter.
Glødkin like some things and dislike others, and they form opinions of each other. The Lounge is always on: your Glødkin sit together and talk about the topics of the day, and how each conversation goes earns them glow, even while you're away. Training sends a Glødkin to learn to ride a good mood, keep its cool, or charm a room.
- Relationships. Every bond and rivalry your Glødkin are part of, one pair at a time, shown as symbols flying between them: hearts for like, cross faces for dislike, and more of them for stronger feelings. Feelings run each way separately.
- Counselling. Pay a counsellor to work on a pair. Feelings are shared across the whole world, so mending a rivalry changes it for everyone.
- It reaches the team. Bonds lift the score of a team that fields both Glødkin together, and rivalries dent it.
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The Well-being menu -
Relationships
Friends
The people you know, and a league of your own.
Add friends by swapping a code. There is no chat between players, ever, so there is nothing to moderate and nothing for a child to stumble into. What you can do is play each other and set up a mini-league for your friends, family or class.
Money matters
Spending and earning the game's own currencies.
The game has its own currencies, earned by playing. The Store sells boosts and items for them, Earn is a free way to top up, and the Auction House is where players buy and sell Glødkin with each other. Nothing is sold for real money during the alpha, and random items, the kind you pay for without knowing what you'll get, never will be.
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The Money Matters menu
Want to see it for yourself?