VENATIO: Beast Hunts of the Colosseum

VENATIO — Beast Hunts of the Colosseum

Best played on PC with a mouse and keyboard. Phones and tablets work with touch controls, but every parry and roll was tuned for a mouse.

In the morning, before the gladiators fought each other, Rome watched the venatio: the beast hunt. Lions from Numidia, tigers from Hyrcania, bears from Caledonia — brought across the empire to die on the sand, or to kill the one who faced them. When the Colosseum opened in AD 80, Cassius Dio wrote that nine thousand animals were slain in its hundred days of games.

You are one of the hunters.

Every beast is a boss. Each one fights the way its kind really hunts. Wolves circle and strike from behind while the alpha howls the pack into a closing ring. Hyenas cackle and swarm whoever stumbles. A leopard vanishes and comes back at your back. A brown bear never stops pushing. Read the red warning, block, parry, roll — and strike in the gap.

Ten trials of the Flavian Amphitheatre, each named for a myth or record the Romans told about the animal: the Trial of Lycaon, the Trial of Mars, the Trial of the Crocotta, the Trial of Cybele… ending at Nemea, where something walks in after everything else has fallen.

Trained at the Ludus Magnus. Before your first trial you go through the gladiators’ school beside the Colosseum. Your trainer is Hermes, the gladiator Martial praised as skilled in every weapon (Epigrams 5.24). He puts each of the six weapons in your hand, sends a starving wolf and a pack of painted dogs at you, and ends with a wooden-sword bout that he does not intend to lose.

Six kinds of fighter, six ways to survive.

• Murmillo — great shield and gladius. The only fighter who can strike with the shield still raised; the third blow is a shield bash that staggers even a bear.
• Thraex — curved sica and small parma. Fast, a sharp parry, deadly from behind.
• Venator — the true beast hunter. Brace the spear and let the charge impale itself.
• Retiarius — trident and net. Bind the beast, dance away, strike again.
• Sagittarius — composite bow and barbed arrows. Kite, wound, never let them close.
• Noxius — a condemned man with a dagger. For those who already know everything.

The crowd is watching. Clever parries, close dodges and clean kills raise their favour. Stall, and they boo. In the Ludi, from the fifth trial on, if you fall, the emperor decides: missio or death. Their favour tips his thumb.

Gifts of the gods between trials — the wrath of Mars, the strength of Hercules, the wings of Mercury, the hunt of Diana and more. A fall sends you back to the first trial with nothing.

Three stages of the games: the Vivarium (starved beasts from the holding pens), the Ludi Romani, and the Ludi Triumphales of Trajan, with the finest beasts in the empire. Each one you complete earns a title, from Bestiarius to Hercules Romanus. Clear the Ludi Romani and two more arenas open: the Circus Maximus, where four-horse chariots tear down the track mid-fight (lure the beasts into their path), and the Naumachia, where the sluices open and the water rises around you. The Ludi Triumphales are there for those who want a real challenge.

The Bestiarium: 22 beasts to record. Every beast you meet goes into your bestiary as a silhouette; slay it and the page fills in with its scientific name, its weight, and what the Romans wrote about it, from Pliny’s crocotta that mimics human voices to the rhinoceros that tossed a bear like a ball in Martial’s verse. One beast appears in no Roman record at all. Its name is revealed only to those who bring it down.

Also: Daily Games with a shared seed, a Hall of Fame, a beast practice yard (Ludus Matutinus), and short pixel-art scenes before the great trials.

Controls (keyboard & mouse)

• Move: WASD / arrow keys · Aim: mouse
• Attack: left click / J
• Shield, parry or class skill: right click / K / Shift
• Roll (invulnerable while rolling): Space / L
• Pause: Esc / P

Touch controls work on phones and tablets, but the game is made for a mouse and keyboard.

Made by Haon · Historia Ludens Studio. Sources for the history (Pliny the Elder, Martial, Ovid, Cassius Dio, Herodian and others) are listed in the in-game credits.

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