Lightward: The Lantern Road

Recruit and merge heroes, choose a formation, then watch your party fight. Pick upgrades between waves and adapt your team.

Free browser prototype · Desktop + mouse · English / 简体中文.

Try Stage 1 and tell me where you got stuck: team setup, battle clarity, or returning from rewards.

R2 native-rendered preparation screen — controlled in-game preview (seed 731).

Promotional illustration, not a gameplay screenshot.

First Merge Guidance · 26 October 2026

A dismissible English/Chinese drag-and-drop hint appears when a valid merge is available. After a successful merge, it stays out of the way for the current game session; reloading can show it again. The seed selector is now labeled Adventure seed / 冒险种子. Seed behavior, combat balance, saves, and statistics settings are unchanged.

R2 · Battle clarity · 26 October 2026

Small, lossless UI portraits now avoid unnecessary battle-atlas decoding; full battle artwork is unchanged. Preparation and combat show the existing simulation-time limit and explain that running out of time without winning counts as a loss. A long-fight reminder suggests adding damage during the next preparation phase. Combat balance and the simulation clock are unchanged.

The counter uses simulation time, not wall-clock time. Whole-screen loading speed is not yet benchmarked. Online gameplay statistics remain off and unconfigured.

The current playtest

This package opens the new 20-stage buildcraft prototype, with three encounters per stage. It uses a separate save from the earlier campaign; old campaign progress is not transferred into this prototype.

• Six regions, from the frontier waystation through windmill country, marshland, the copper city, and snowy roads to the capital.
• Five hero classes: Guard, Ranger, Mage, Healer, and Spear. Recruit matching heroes and merge them through three star levels.
• Core build choices that connect your party through marks, shield counters, and merge-triggered commands.
• An explicit enemy-information entry to inspect traits and understand targeting.
• Camp choices with displayed costs and selections to review before committing.
• English and Simplified Chinese interface options.

Playtest update · 26 October 2026

• Melee units now approach a central engagement area. This build adds rear-view walking for Guard, Spear, and Slime, with health bars and rank markers following the actors.
• Battle sound effects have separate mute and volume controls from music.
• Fixed a browser persistence error when withdrawing optional statistics consent. Optional statistics remain off, and this build has no online analytics collection configured.
• Removed duplicate stored resource payloads without reducing artwork quality.

Focused checks covered the first battle, reward selection and back navigation, saved-result restoration, and consent withdrawal after reload. Full-campaign balance, real-device performance, and listening checks are still in progress. Some units may visually overlap while passing.

Still in development

This is a work-in-progress prototype. Balance, pacing, and the clarity of build choices still need player feedback. You do not need to finish the campaign to help.

Controls and browser play

Prepare your team before each fight; combat runs automatically. If all deployed heroes fall while reserves remain, combat pauses for rescue deployment and team management until you field a hero.

Use a mouse on a desktop or laptop. Click the interface to recruit and make choices, and combine matching heroes to merge them.

The first load may take a while. Desktop browser play is the current focus; mobile and controller support are not promised.

Music and sound effects start after your first input. Each has its own mute and volume controls in Audio for the current session. Switching away pauses the audio; returning resumes it. Switching away does not deliberately pause combat. Browsers and operating systems may slow or suspend a background tab. Background progress is not guaranteed, and rewards and choices still require your input.

Save and data notes

• This prototype uses its own save location. Progress from the earlier campaign does not migrate into it.
• Completed-run progress and result summaries are saved locally in this browser; an interrupted battle is not resumed. Storage can be unavailable in some browsers or private-browsing modes. Saves do not sync between devices. Clearing browser site data can remove local progress; do not clear it just to try this update.

Made with Godot, with AI assistance in development and asset creation, including code, graphics, sound, and text. Promotional character and Boss illustrations are labeled separately from gameplay captures.

Feedback that helps

Where did you stop, and why? Could you find enemy information before deciding how to build your party? Was it clear what triggered a core effect and which hero or enemy it affected? At camp, could you tell what you were choosing and paying for?

For bugs, include the stage and encounter, browser and operating system, what you did, and what happened. Mention whether this was a fresh prototype run or a returning prototype save. A screenshot or short recording helps. Please leave out private account details.

The page gallery includes captures from the earlier campaign. Those captures do not show every feature of this prototype. Audio listening checks and the new Chinese/narrow-screen Audio panel review are still incomplete.