The third game, Swords & Sandals III: Solo Ultratus (2008), would introduce a new art style and different races, more weapon and armor types and a large cast of unique arena champions to defeat, such as cyborgs and demons. But the free demo was a short and satisfying challenge that became extremely popular across other portals, with crazy numbers like 37 million plays at Y8.com. The full game required a paid subscription at the Playaholics game portal, and was quite long and grindy, with hundreds of battles and dozens of arena masters. It also added the ability to use special attacks, enchant your weapons, buy potions and entertain the arena’s audience to earn better rewards. In the first game it was easy to win by focusing only on damage, but now a slow brute would be easily destroyed by a gladiator with a ranged weapon or a spellcaster. The sequel, Swords and Sandals 2: Emperor’s Reign (2007) expanded the game, offering more interesting playstyles and challenges. If you lose a fight, your character dies and gets deleted, so there’s an addicting roguelike aspect of dying and trying different builds, or competing with friends to see who can get further. Stats play a central role, as a character with no agility will walk very slowly, while an agile one can close large distances in a single leap. It’s easy to learn and presented in a very accessible way. Each action drains stamina, which can be recovered by resting. Quick attacks are easier to land but deal less damage, heavy attacks are the opposite.
The core of the combat is quite simple: characters can move forward or backwards, charge, taunt and attack. One of the titles that dominated these games portals was Swords and Sandals, a game about making a goofy-looking gladiator and fighting a series of turn-based battles in an arena, earning XP and gold to level up your stats and buy better gear for the next fight. It was also the rise of online game portals, offering thousands of Flash games (sometimes licensed, often stolen) for users to play freely, earning ad revenue from page views.
The mid-2000s was when Flash games began to break into the mainstream, with games like N (2005), Dad ‘n Me (2005) and Line Rider (2006) earning awards and headlines across the world.
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