How would you classify Bloodsport Coliseum? What kind of game is it?

It’s basically a fantasy sports game, at its core, but with a lot of role-playing elements. Much like a fantasy football game, you take on the role of the manager of a team. But instead of something boring like football players, you get to manage gladiators in the future who fight battles as if they were in ancient Rome!!! How cool is that? Futuristic but also like… retro!

The basic premise is fantasy sports, but there’s a lot more of a role-playing edge in Bloodsport Coliseum than most traditional fantasy sports games, as well as a more impermanent system. Gladiators can, and will, die. Even those who don’t die will slowly grow weaker as scars of previous battles take their toll. Eventually you have no choice but to scrap the old gladiators to make room for fresh meat. As you gain fame, you’ll find new places to recruit gladiators, and better equipment available.

Okay, so what’s the point? How do I win the game?

Bloodsport Coliseum isn’t the kind of game that can be “won”. The purpose is to get yourself a kick-ass team of gladiators that nobody can beat, and then start crushing the life out of every newbie you can find!

Okay, maybe that’s not the point… but it is the general idea – you want to make yourself rich and powerful by having tough gladiators.

If I gain enough fame to buy nice weapons, but then I lose fame so that I don’t have access to those stores anymore, do I get to keep my weapons still?

Great question! Weapons and shields become your property once you purchase them, and the stores have no say in the matter. This wasn’t always the case, however….

There was a legal battle about ten years ago involving the rights of the managers over the equipment they bought. The stores were angry that a manager with low fame was able to parade around with a custom-built item that they didn’t want represented by a “certain type” of manager. They made claims that the managers were losing money for them due to the increase in disreputable clients using their gear. They even went so far as to claim that a manager was only paying for the license to use their gear indefinitely, not the actual rights to the gear.

For a short while, when the GEAA (Gladiator Equipment Association of America) was really powerful, they were building implants into the gear to give a large electric shock to gladiators they didn’t approve of. The really low-fame managers would of course get special “modification chips” installed to get around the implants, which of course meant that the only people who were punished were the honest managers who lost a little too much fame.

After the final major dispute, when even the corrupt politicians were getting sick of the GEAA, an international court brought up the issue and determined that the GEAA was a worthless organization. Their leaders were executed (starting with Jacquelline Valenti, the CEO at that time), and no new organizations have (yet) taken their place. As one can expect, not only are managers generally happier, but the stores themselves have realized that because they aren’t being forced into crazy licensing schemes for each “technology” their equipment implements, they can sell for less and still make more money.

Yes, things are better now that the GEAA have been brutally murdered.

What are the prices for becoming a premium member?

The game costs “tokens” to play, where 1 token will buy you a single day of play. Tokens sell at a rate of 15 for a dollar (with a $6 minimum purchase). Bulk purchases get bonus tokens:

• After $10 are spent, you get 35 tokens free.
• After $18 are spent, you get an extra 65 tokens free in addition to what you already got for spending $10.

In other words:

• 90 tokens / just under 3 months: $6
• 185 tokens / just over 6 months: $10
• 370 tokens / just over 1 year: $18

Eventually there might be more uses for tokens, such as for unique in-game perks. Then again, there might not be. Who knows?

What does a premium account get me?

A premium account will give you full access to the game. Premium players will get a maximum of 5 gladiators instead of 2, and space for 20 pieces of equipment, instead of 5. Premium players can store up more challenges (non-premium players have to use challenges every day or lose the extras). Non-premium players’ high-level gladiators can’t fight outside the Green arena (very low xp/skill/credit gains).

So if I don’t have the money, I may as well not play, right?

Not true! While the premium accounts are far better for serious players, you can actually get a lot of play for free. You won’t be able to have as many gladiators, and they won’t be able to become as powerful, but you can still play a “mini” version of the game. You can recruit, equip, train, and set up your gladiators as normal, but when they get too high in rank and can no longer be used in the real arenas, you can fire them and start again!

The premium players are doing the exact same thing, they simply get more gladiators and more room to grow those gladiators.

Obviously premium players will get more features; that’s how I keep the game running. But don’t give up on Bloodsport Colosseum just because it’s not completely free!

What payment methods do you accept?

At the moment, just PayPal. But luckily for you, PayPal also accepts just about every major credit card! Don’t worry if you don’t have a PayPal account – they don’t require that for payments. Just go to the Purchase Tokens section and you can see all the links there for purchasing game time.

Why isn’t Bloodsport Coliseum free like other nerdbucket.com games?

Unlike the other games that I’ve built, this one required a great amount of time. Planning alone took over 100 hours, and programming time was significantly more than that: around 400 hours just to launch the beta! To put it in perspective, Murder Manor took less than 200 hours from start to finish, including bug fixes, and up until it was created was the single largest project I’d ever worked on (for Nerdbucket.com).

Additionally, in a user-centric game such as B.C., the game needs a good number users in order to be fun. This means I need to advertise, which is not free.

One final thought: by charging a fee to play B.C., I am much more inspired to keep working on it, unlike my free games, where I’ve traditionally had a “write it and forget it” attitude.

What do I get for referring other players?

At the moment, referrals are solely a way to earn free play. For each referral that eventually becomes a premium member, you’ll get 1 token for every 5 he or she purchases. FOREVER. These can be redeemed for free time at a rate of 1 token per day of play. Eventually there might be more uses for tokens, such as for unique in-game perks.

Why didn’t my gladiator fight? I set him up in the X arena well before the last tick ended!

All fights have a one-tick delay. This delay means that when first scheduling a gladiator for a fight, or changing his schedule from one arena to another, you will have to wait one tick for the fight to be scheduled, and then another before the scheduled fight takes place. Each tick, all gladiators’ schedules are processed, and fights are planned for the next tick. After scheduling is dealt with, the previous tick’s scheduled fights take place.

After fights are scheduled, you can actually view the list of next tick’s fights in the Upcoming Battles section (under Arena in the left navbar). This allows you to see who you’ll be fighting, and possibly switch weapons or do last minute training. Eventually there will also be a betting area, so that you can place bets on fights that are about to take place.