Would anybody play this...? (warning: long post)

[TerranRich]

I've had this idea floating about in my head for a while now. It's a game where you control your own brand and wrestlers and whatnot... it'd be kind of like TEW (Total Extreme Wrestling (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_Warfare)), but different.

It would be almost like an RPG, in that you build up stats for your wrestlers. It would also share some features of GM Mode / 24/7 Mode of Smackdown vs Raw where your wrestlers could sustain injuries. But then, it would also kind of be like a Create-a-Wrestler, where you could customize the look of your guys, their initial stats (you'd have X amount of points to start with), and other trivial details.

You would be able to let the game sim the matches for you, or you could choose your own winners... haven't quite figured out how that would affect the game overall, which choice would be "right" at which points. Like I said, it's just an idea.

What would TPWW think of such a game? It'd be like an RPG, CAW, GM Mode, and TEW, all wrapped into one game.

I don't know if I'd give the player the option of just being a wrestler and trying to get the heavyweight championship to win the game... or play as the booker and try to take your fledgling promotion off the ground and make it huge... or both? Though I think giving both options would be far too much work.

The only thing I really can't do is actually play out a match... not even Fire Pro Wrestling style animation... that's beyond my skills, because you have to script the moves, collision detection, etc. Maybe in the far future.

What would you guys think of such a game? Do you guys have any ideas for how the game would go?

[TerranRich]

Before anyone else replies, I'm starting to lean more toward the role of a wrestler, where you play one wrestler in an entire league, trying to build your way up in terms of stats, avoiding injuries (and thus losing crowd reaction), having random scenarios pop up, etc.

It's just a very crude idea I had. It may already be inferior to TEW 2008 (which I havne't tried yet), but this would just be for fun and would be free of cost.

[Juan]

I would totally play a game like that. I like the idea of not having to actually be the wrestler and just be the booker trying to get the promotion off the ground.

[Cactus Sid]

The guy who made TEW also makes a game called Wrestling Spirit which is kind of like this.....

[Cactus Sid]

http://www.greydogsoftware.com/ws2/

[jcmoorehead]

I'd probably play it. If I actually have time over this year I wouldn't mind having a go at programming something like this myself, I need to touch up on my Windows Programming but it shouldn't be too complicated and it'd be a good project for my portfolio.

[Ruien]

As someone who reads what Noid post, this was not a long post.

And I would play.

[TerranRich]

Heh, thanks. It would most likely be a free game (or something cheap like $5 or something, if anything).

And I had never heard of Wrestling Spirit. Sounds pretty similar.

I dunno, I'm kind of torn between running a fed as a booker, and being a wrestler within the fed.

As far as programming and design goes, making your own wrestler would involve a lot of work. I'd have to include a bunch of settings and add-ons and details, like the Smackdown vs RAW games. But if you were a booker, there should be the ability to customize the look of every single wrestler... or choose from a pre-set list of wrestler appearances.

Still not sure about which way to go. I took some notes, came up with some various stats, and came up with meters like Health, Crowd Reaction (how much the crowd is into you), Injury Level, etc.

I was also thinking of adding some kind of Sims-like mode, where you chose what to do each day during the week... like whether you trained, rested, etc. but it wouldn't be too tedious where you'd sit there and have to wait for him to finish everything. Just quick little things like "You spend 3 hours working: gain +2 Strength, blah blah blah," and at the end of the day, you'd go to sleep.

Work out too much, you'd raise your Injury Level meter... when that gets high enough, you're injured and miss out on events, thus losing out on Crowd Reaction, etc.

Like I said, it would be very much like an RPG, only wrestling-oriented. I was also thinking that at first, you only have a basic moveset and most likely lose every match (being a jobber and all)... and then as you gain Strength, Agility, Stamina, etc., you unlock moves. The higher stats you have, the more moves (better ones) you can unlock, and the more likely you are to win matches.

At first you wouldn't have any kind of finisher, but once you unlocked moves and added them to your arsenal, you could set any one as your finisher. It would also get the crowd more into your match, determining the ratings of your matches (* to *****). The higher ratings you matches get, the faster you move up in the ranks.

Like I said thouhg, nothing is set in stone, and it could very well develop into a booker game, where you run the promotion. I figured that since TEW already did that, we didn't need another game like that. And I run the risk of copying them... which I suppose wouldn't be all that bad, but still.

[#BROKEN Hasney]

Jikkyo(sp?) Power Pro Wrestling for the SNES did this, except with gameplay. Shame the translation project never finished :(

Also, these two games:

http://www.mdickie.com/gam_wm2008me.htm

http://www.mdickie.com/gam_wm2008ce.htm

Both of those have the same sort of premise as you, but with a 3D engine (Top one as a booker, bottom one as a wrestler.

Not saying don't do it or anything, could be good if gets fleshed out.

[TerranRich]

I remember playing one of those games, Hasney. The graphics of my game might be more along the lines of Fire Pro Wrestling, the 2D sprite graphics... but I won't be including any in-ring action, it'll all be simulated. It would just be too much work to do in-ring action on top of the sim/RPG part of the game.

[#BROKEN Hasney]

What do you code in? One of that MDickes games was Federation Wrestling which was in darkBASIC and had pre-defined sprites that were basically wrestlers.

[TerranRich]

I was planning on using Adventure Game Studio (http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk), my engine of choice. It'll save me a lot of time because it uses a graphical interface to simplify many aspects of game creation, but allows you to code in its own version of C++ in order to extend the functionality of the engine. People have made side-scrolling platform games, board games, and RTS games with AGS.

It's not going to be a huge-scale project like MDickies' games or the TEW series, just something simple that would keep people entertained a few minutes or so everyday.

Who knows, it may evolve into something huge that we could all contribute to and collaborate on. :p

[jcmoorehead]

For a game like this you might be better off learning C++ itself especially if you want to expand on it more. Learning that would give you a lot more control over the data driven aspects of the game. With a game like this you are going to have a database and with C++ you can easily set it up to read in from an XML file and load it into the game. It'd also allow users to edit the data you allow them to themselves giving it some degree of customisability.

That said I've been giving this some thought myself and I might write out a design document and plan out some things based on your ideas if that's alright. It's not something I'd release unless it was really good but it's more practice for my course.

[TerranRich]

Sure, that's all right. In fact, if anyone wants to use this idea, feel free to do so. I may not ever end up making this, it's just an idea.