[1] The game is free and open-source software and has been ported to many mobile and non-mobile operating systems such as Windows, MacOS, Symbian[2] and Android[3] over the years.

After being originally a private university project by Andreas Umbach in June 1998, the game's open-source development started when the source code was put to SourceForge around 1999 under the GPL-2.0-or-later software license.

The game's soundtrack features the track Revenge of the Cats, which was composed and performed by Finnish musician Peter Hajba, who is also known by his demoscene nickname Skaven.

"Booster" has an extra button for boosting, in addition to the standard left, right, glance left, glance right buttons, while "Wall ride" increases a player's light cycle's speed automatically depending on how close they are to an opponent's wall.

In 2006, GLTron was recommended by The Mac Observer for its graphics and sound, considered good for a free software game, and support for different screen resolutions and input devices.