Bloodsport Colosseum

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.

Premium Membership

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.

Battles

General

Premium Membership

Battles