Swords and Sandals

October 19, 2006 11:37 AM

Swords and Sandals.. Create a gladiator, arm him up with a variety of armour and weapons, and send him into battle against a horde of crazy gladiators. [note: flash]
posted by crunchland (25 comments total)

I get to do the same thing in Soul Caliber III, only with a vibrating controller.
posted by hermitosis at 11:44 AM on October 19, 2006

I played this when it was on digg. It's okay, kind of. But there's a lot of luck, and it's not fun to have to start over if you lose one time.
posted by empath at 12:07 PM on October 19, 2006

This is fun. I sent my dude in there with no features except his charisma amped to 11. He chopped off the guy's leg. There's a lesson in all this somewhere.
posted by hermitosis at 12:08 PM on October 19, 2006

It's far too short.
posted by ktrey at 12:12 PM on October 19, 2006

Way, way too short.
posted by Faint of Butt at 12:14 PM on October 19, 2006

The blood is brown.

Racism?
posted by aliasless at 12:15 PM on October 19, 2006

If you put all of your points into strength, you can go in unarmed and without armor and kill a guy with a single punch.
posted by Astro Zombie at 12:29 PM on October 19, 2006

I kinda like the basic set up, but seems to me the balance is out of whack - too much luck involved, not enough strategy. With a bit of tweaking it'd be more fun, and I can imagine multiplayer would be good.
posted by MetaMonkey at 12:52 PM on October 19, 2006

Tauning people to death is funny though, and quite successful
posted by MetaMonkey at 1:06 PM on October 19, 2006

Just when I thought I was getting started I beat the game.
posted by xammerboy at 1:42 PM on October 19, 2006

If you put all of your points into strength, you can go in unarmed and without armor and kill a guy with a single punch.

I did that, then started just obtaining items from the champions I defeated until I could go buy awesome armor. Got up to level 4 before some dude TOTALLY got lucky.
posted by beaucoupkevin at 1:43 PM on October 19, 2006

This is shit.
posted by Krrrlson at 2:34 PM on October 19, 2006

Uh, at one point after defeating two arena champions, I beat some dude and then it said I lost and the game ended.

/cry
posted by The God Complex at 2:39 PM on October 19, 2006

Yeah, the mucho charisma is the way to go. Lots of $$ for upgrades in armor - I won all the way through with pretty much only charisma at 16.
posted by pumpkin at 3:00 PM on October 19, 2006

That must be one of the most vile sorts of bugs - telling you you've lost and kicking you out when you won, you WON, YOU WON!
posted by kahboom at 3:26 PM on October 19, 2006

I saw it kill me when I won too. It also seemed to randomly taunt when attacking and other times, kind of noisy, but fun. I'll try the strength option now...
posted by pumpkin at 3:30 PM on October 19, 2006

I believe that this is actually the full version of the game, and the FPP link is actually just a demo....

It appears that way, at least....
posted by MythMaker at 5:13 PM on October 19, 2006

Most annoying bug ever. How do you even _code_ a bug like that? I'm really curious!
posted by Laen at 5:29 PM on October 19, 2006

The blood is brown.

Racism?

Heh. I remember playing Microsoft’s “Gladiators of Rome” for the first time. I was over-eager to get into the arena, and the game brought me up sharply thus: “You must buy slaves first.”

Huh? Oh, of course. Silly me.

Course, my slaves came in all colours, so it wasn’t racism per se (and you could buy the coolest armour for your Gallic slaves). All in all a crappy game, but I would play it because there’s not much else out there in the gladiator theme. Looking forward to trying this after work.
posted by dreamsign at 6:19 PM on October 19, 2006

I love this game.
posted by agropyron at 8:56 PM on October 19, 2006

MetaMonkey: "I kinda like the basic set up, but seems to me the balance is out of whack - too much luck involved, not enough strategy. With a bit of tweaking it'd be more fun, and I can imagine multiplayer would be good."

I agree - there's just not enough you can do with the little time you're given between championship bouts. I'd really like slower progression through the ranks which would give you time to armor up and get better weapons; as it is it depends too much on getting single lucky hits in.
Oh, and saving games would be a lovely feature, so you could see if your strategy really worked and the opponent just got lucky or if you created abad character.
posted by PontifexPrimus at 2:23 AM on October 20, 2006

Uh. Well I signed up for a free membership to play the full length version, and it's ok, but that site sucks ass. It's the slowest site I've ever experienced that wasn't actually broken.

As for the game, well, when I put a bunch of points on strength, suddenly every fighter who walks in the arena has 50+ armour. That kinda sucks. Have to see if there is a pattern. Most annoyingly, however, if you "want to play again" you start with a guy with 9 skill points, not 10. Presumably the next time, 8, and so on. So great, worse and worse chances to get even as far as last time? The only way to play again from scratch is to get out of the game and reload, which takes forever.

Fun, otherwise.
posted by dreamsign at 3:33 AM on October 20, 2006

nice
posted by Smedleyman at 12:09 AM on October 21, 2006

Here are some comment by the games creator:

Comments by the Author(s) of Swords and Sandals
(Rated 4.09/5.00 by our users).
Hey everyone. Thanks for your kind reviews.

As you are probably aware by now , this is a cut down version of the game. The wording at the end of the game wasn't great - but it is *not* a bug, the game just ends after 9 battles, win or lose.

I'm working on the sequel at the moment which will include the much requested SAVE feature as well as a stack of other good stuff - and less of the dumb luck :)

In the meantime, the rest of this version of the game can be played for free at www.playaholics.com ...still no savegame alas but you can get a bit further.

I'll upload the sequel round about December hopefully.

Cheers

posted by Chuckles at 6:29 PM on October 22, 2006

Oh, worth noting that the "version" at Playaholics is much harder than the one linked here. I thought it was my imagination till I accidentally played this one again (and cursed as it came to a premature end) but found it clearly easier, including a different 2nd level boss.

The "real" game can be a bit frustrating in terms of difficulty. (and game balance, Chuckles, if you're still reading -- I've played it maybe 100 times now, and I've sworn off ever putting points into attack or defence, since with a high enough strength, I need never attempt anything other than a light attack to do decent damage, and no amount of defence ever seems to make any difference)
posted by dreamsign at 9:38 AM on October 24, 2006