Questions

Mantle is a real-time strategy game where your army starts with nothing. Every unit in it is one you design, working with an aid, and then you take them to war.

How do I play?

Pick who you'll work with. Describe a unit you want, in your own words, and your aid proposes one: what it is, what it can do, what it costs, and a picture of it. Talk it over until it's right, then keep it. Choose a roster of up to five designs, and take them to the front.

The front is a run of maps, each harder than the last, each held by a rival. Every match starts paused, so you can look around and give your first orders. From then on it's real time: hold deposits for matter, build from your roster, and break the rival's base.

Who are the aids?

Dr. Wen Hollis is a biologist who grows living war-beasts in vats. Ansel Brackett is an engineer who builds war machines in a shop. Each has their own abilities to offer, their own limits, and things that come cheap or dear to them: flesh is easy to grow, armor is easy to bolt on. They differ in kind more than in strength. You can switch any time; your designs with each are kept.

How is it kept fair, if I can design anything?

A unit's price comes from what it is, by the same fixed rules for everyone. Your aid doesn't set it and can't bend it. Stronger, bigger and abler units cost more matter, take longer to make and use more of your supply. Units that are good at everything cost much more than ones that are great at one thing, and abilities cost more the more of them a unit carries.

The more you ask of a design, the longer your aid takes to make it. That wait is part of the game.

Why do I need to connect OpenRouter?

Your aid thinks and draws with AI models. Mantle doesn't sell those or lend its own: you connect your own OpenRouter account, and OpenRouter charges it for what your aid uses. A unit usually costs a few cents, depending on how long you talk it over. Your key stays in your browser, which talks to OpenRouter directly. You can disconnect any time.

You don't need it to play the front with designs you already have.

Can other people see my designs?

Yes. Designs are public, and each one is marked as yours. Only you can change or delete yours. Multiplayer is coming, and other commanders will meet your army there.

Why did my designs disappear?

There are no accounts. You're a commander in this browser, remembered by a cookie. A different browser or device is a different commander, and clearing this site's cookies makes you a new one. Your old designs are still kept, but they're no longer yours to use.

Can I play on my phone?

Yes. Tap to select and to order, drag to look around, pinch to zoom. The buttons along the bottom draw a box, set a rally point, switch between fighting and moving, and select your whole army.

What can I make?

War-beasts and war machines. Hollis's creatures are living things; Brackett's machines are built, with no living parts. Don't steer an aid toward real people, sexual content or hateful imagery. Every picture Mantle keeps is scanned by Cloudflare for child sexual abuse material, which is reported to the authorities.

What does it cost?

Mantle is free. The only cost is what your aid uses on your OpenRouter account.