The market
Men are cheap, good men are not. Each one comes with five statistics, a school and a temper — and a man who dies in the arena does not come back, however much you paid for him.
0 % The game
You don't play
the gladiator. You
play the man who owns him.
Capua, 71 BC. A legate rigged a contract, buried you in debt and put your best man in an arena he should never have entered. You have some sand, a few slaves and three seasons to rebuild.
Buy men at the market, break them, forge them, and send them to die in front of the crowd. Every victory becomes coin, reputation and favour; every defeat costs a man — and the men you lose, you lose for good. At the end of the third season, if one of your champions is still standing, you go after the legate.
25 % The ludus
Every week, the purse
decides who fights.
The forge
A trident or a steel cuirass — this season or the next. Weapons change how a man fights: the net and the trident hold the distance, the scythe sweeps everyone in its arc, the twin blades never stop.
The colosseum
A new card of bouts every week: a safe duel, a man against a beast, one against two. Pick one, set your wager, and cheat from the stands — the other master is doing the same.
50 % The arena
Then you go
down to the sand
yourself.
The fights are played in real time, with the controls of a MOBA: right-click to move, the basic attack locks onto your target, and four skills go where your cursor points.
Four schools — retiarius, secutor, thraex, murmillo — each with four skills that set each other up. One skill puts the target in a state; another one exploits it, hits harder, and gives back part of the first skill's cooldown. The order of your keys is the whole game.
- RetiariusThe net snares — the long thrust becomes the Harpoon.
- SecutorThe shield charge stuns — the short thrust becomes the Nail.
- ThraexThe cut makes him bleed — the scythe reopens the wound, all at once.
- MurmilloA feint or a clean parry exposes him — the heavy blow becomes the Crush.
Combos have names
When a combo lands, the world stops for a beat and its name is written over the target. That is how you learn the order of your keys: by seeing it pay.
Read the floor
Bosses draw their attacks on the sand before they fall: circles that roll after you, volleys of pila that stay planted, rings you must step out of. Nothing hits you without warning — but a lot of it hits hard.
Bosses don't wait
A boss in the middle of a skill cannot be stunned. It chains its moves, punishes you for keeping your distance, and every phase opens with a roar that throws everyone around it back.
75 % The trial of the sand
His own house,
room by room.
The last fight is not in the arena. It is in the legate's villa, at night — his kennels, his great hall, his palaestra — with his guard, his standard-bearer and his champion standing between you and him.
He runs when it turns bad. Cut him off before he reaches the door, and the crowd gets the only ending it came for.
100 % What is in the box
3Seasons
4Schools
16Skills
3Bosses
7Languages
0Second chances
The zero is the point. A man who loses an arm keeps fighting without it, or never fights again. A man who dies stays dead. The crowd paid to see exactly that, and so did you.
Pollice verso Press & contact
Still being
built. Come and
watch it bleed.
LUDUS MASTER has no store page yet. If you want a build — to play it, or to write about it — the address below reaches the person who writes it.
- contact@anquri.net
- Status
- In development
- Genre
- Gladiator management · roguelite · real-time arena
- Languages
- English · French · German · Dutch · Russian · Japanese · Spanish
- Engine
- Godot 4.7 · Windows
- Studio
- ANQURI · Belgium