You run a dinosaur fighting stable. Buy dinos at the market, hire riders at the scout hut, pair them up, and assign training — strength, speed or special. Dinos train, eat and sleep on their own; use the speed controls to skip ahead. Every day's end bills feed and wages — if you can't pay, the stable goes hungry, and a dino left starving for three days dies.
THE FIVE RIGS
Three rigs raise one stat each. The sparring pit takes two dinos and works both of them at once — strength and special for each, slower than a solo rig, and both riders' bond climbs fast; alone in the ring a dino only shadow-drills. The bond stable costs no gold at all: the rider grooms the animal, which rests while bond climbs faster than anywhere else. Bond is what makes a special actually land, so a broke stable can still get better.
ARMS AND TACK
The market sells kit for both halves of a pair. Saddles are fitted to an animal for life and make it harder to throw its rider. Weapons belong to the RIDER, who carries one, and there are now four — each a different way to fight, never just a bigger number. A riding lance couches for a charge: enormous reach, a knock that throws riders, and a nasty moment of over-exposure if it misses. A horn bow only works at range, loosing arrows at anything more than six paces off and doing nothing at all in a scrum. A hunting bola is whirled up and thrown at the other animal's legs: it barely hurts, but a hit tangles them where they stand for a moment and kills a charge dead — the answer to anything that comes at you fast. An unseating hook does no damage whatsoever: at biting range the rider leans out, hooks the OTHER rider, cuts straight through whatever saddle they bought and hauls for the throw — and if it catches nothing, it is your own rider hanging out over the flank. Rival stables arm their riders too, from about rung 3. A weapon leaves with the rider who carries it when they retire.
PAIRS
A dino fights best with a rider aboard. Bond grows the longer a pair stays together — keep pairs stable and they multiply each other, and the bond stable and sparring pit grow it fastest. Big hits can unseat a rider mid-round.
SPECIES
Six species, and each fights its own way: raptors chain fast combos and poison, stegos tank and quake, pteranodons strike from the sky and leave bleeding wounds, ankylosaurs club the floor apart and change where the fight can be had, therizinosaurs seize the other animal in metre-long claws and hurl it across the arena, and the rex — unlocked with honor at the monument — burns everything in front of it.
SPECIALS
Every species has one, and it announces itself: the ground lights up in that species' colour, the animal glows, and the move's name flashes on screen — VENOM CYCLONE, SEISMIC SLAM, TALON SKYFALL, GROUNDBREAKER, SCYTHE HURL, DRAGONBREATH — along with whatever it leaves behind. A pteranodon climbing for a skyfall paints a ring on the sand where it means to land, so you can see it coming from the moment it takes off.
THE LADDER
Tap the coliseum gate (or FIGHT) to face the next rung. Fights run themselves — your only call is the order between rounds. Reach rung 10 to be crowned Grand Champion.
THE THREE VENUES
The circuit does not fight everywhere the same. The coliseum closes a ring of fire in on the sand: step outside and you burn at once, step back in and it is over. The tar pits flood instead — out past the crust nothing hurts you, you are just slow, and slower the deeper you wade, until past the shelf you start to drown; the mistake is cheap and the way back is expensive. The sinkhole takes the floor away. Its shelf is laid in plates, and you can see every seam: one cracks, sags, and drops into the cave below, leaving a hole that never comes back. Nothing shrinks — the arena just loses ground, anywhere, including under your feet and between you and the animal you are trying to bite. Get caught on a plate when it goes and you lose a chunk of health and a long moment climbing out. A pteranodon in the air does not care.
WHAT A WIN TEACHES
Every fight you win advances the pair as well as the purse: the dino comes back +1 in one stat, and which one depends on how you won — land two specials and it learns SPECIAL, take it 2-0 and it learns SPEED, grind it out and it learns STRENGTH. If the animal is already at your training gear's cap, the pair banks bond instead.
SAVING
There is nothing to do. Your stable saves itself every few seconds and at every purchase, fight and day's end — the green SAVED chip in the top bar lights each time it happens. Close the tab whenever you like and pick CONTINUE RUN when you come back; the menu tells you which day and rung you left off on.
THREE STRIKES
Every lost fight is a strike. Let a league date pass and the clock stops until you choose: fight now, or skip it, pay a fine and cool the crowd — and if you had a pair fit to ride, ducking it is a strike too. Three strikes and the league expels you — run over. Losers get injured. But Honor is forever: spend it at the monument on facilities, the Rex unlock, and permanent perks.
CONTROLS
Click / tap everything. Drag to pan, wheel or pinch to zoom. Double-click a dino's card to follow it around the ranch. SPACE pause · 1/2/3 speed · ESC close panel · M mute · F9 photo mode (freeze + free camera) · F10 save a screenshot.