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Steel Colosseum is now live on Kickstarter! Steel Colosseum is a competitive team combat arena game for 2-4 players, featuring a series of scraps between two teams of two customisable fighting robots. Designed by Needy Cat Games, Steel Colosseum is also Zatu Games' very first publishing deal.
Following our very first robot debut, the fast and agile Relay, we're here to introduce the second member of the Steel Colosseum cast.
Introducing Shiba Zero
Are you a dog person? Well, you're about to become a robot person.
Shiba Zero is a scrappy little robot with a good balance of power and agility. It may not be the toughest, but it shoulders a good amount of armour - and you can teach it all kinds of tricks. In fact, Shiba Zero was originally designed to rescue people after disasters. That means Shiba Zero is an expert at tearing up bits of scrap metal. It's even clever enough to keep the scraps for upgrades. Shiba Zero's other abilities include:
- Restrain lets Shiba make a Unique Action, grabbing onto an enemy robot and preventing it from moving away. This is great for keeping faster robots in check, or lining up a target for your other robot’s attack!
- Play Dead is a good one if Shiba’s backed into a corner - it fakes a shutdown, preventing enemy robots from attacking it for this round.
- Fetch is a utility card, letting Shiba gather a whole heap of Scrap at once.
In the World of Steel Colosseum
Lake narrowed their eyes, watching the neon countdown timer for the second bout. The last fight may have been a knockout after Indira pulled that stunt against Insectoid, but Lake was an innovator. Every defeat is an opportunity to learn, and they had a few ideas...
Lake let the roar of the crowd wash over them as the bombastic announcer whipped the audience into frenzied waves of excitement. The arena’s lasers sliced through the coloured smoke as the fighter gates rose up on heavy tracks, revealing the combatants in their hangar bays.
‘Okay. Let’s see what you can do, Shiba Zero,’ Lake muttered as the robot bounded out. It was originally designed for disaster rescue - perhaps it could save this game, they thought wryly.
Indira was a skilled operator, weaving her robots around theirs, but Lake had a plan. They needed to get in close… and hope that Indira didn’t spot the ambush. Lake sent Shiba pouncing toward Relay, jaws snapping. As expected, the agile data-runner hopped up onto the arena obstacles and skittered along up high. Lake slammed Shiba’s gyro-matrix and activated the Blipper they’d patched on. The short-range teleporter glitched Shiba directly to the empty terrain that Relay was about to jump down into. Lake frowned, furiously manipulating buttons. This had to look like a convincing overload. Shiba suddenly slumped, and the crowd gasped.
Seizing the apparent opportunity, Relay leapt, fists drawn back, ready to take advantage of the stricken opponent.
And then Lake rolled Shiba up onto its mechanical paws. The robot leapt, jaws wide, seizing Relay on its right-hand weak spot. It shook the stricken datarunner like a dog worrying a toy, tearing off several sections of armour plating, before bounding out of range.
Indira yelped. ‘How did I not see that coming?’
Lake sat back and laughed. ‘I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks.’
Meet the Robots
There are five other robots to learn about, as well as four operators, so be sure to check out the whole Meet the Robots series. We also have a series of blogs on the team behind Steel Colosseum, which give some insight into how the game was made - and some sneak peeks at what's coming next!
And, of course, you can check out our Kickstarter page to learn everything you need to know about Steel Colosseum.
Editors note: This blog was originally published on February 26th, 2022. Updated on May 17th, 2022 to improve the information available.