Game Development Diary (Pro Wrestling Game)

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
Hopefully, me making this type of post here isn't a problem. I've been playing sports simulations for about 8-10 years, starting with the Out Of The Park Baseball and including the Front Office Football, Pro Basketball, and the Football Manager, among a few others... but for quite awhile now, the combination of these games seeming to become more complicated and me becoming disinterested in sports have kind of left me looking for something different, so for the past year or so I've been designing a Pro Wrestling Career Game.
I'm here because I'm looking for thoughts on the game. I was looking for a small community interested in these types of games (Text-based simulations) with some computer knowledge that won't take the topic of the game incredibly seriously. I think I was a member here briefly before asking some questions about the football game years ago, but I don't even remember the user name. However, from what I recall this might fit what I'm looking for. I'm not really a programmer but I seem to be okay at convincing the computer to do what I need it to do.

I've originally talked about the plan for the game on the Delphi Forums (Tabletop Sports in the Game Design), so if it's okay, I'm going to post the background info that I used there about the game here.
*************************
It's on the PC, written in VB2008 and it's designed to be a text-based career sim (something like Madden's version or one of the visual novels/choose your own path games that you may see (but more open-ended). I'm not really a programmer but I can usually convince computers to do what I want them to eventually and that's sort of what I've done here.

Your character would be a single wrestler and the career would last probably 15 years (the game advances in weekly increments)

On the weeks where you character's fed has a show, you'd have certain options, prepare for a match, interfere against an enemy, help an ally, among other things. On weeks where your character's fed has no show, you'd also have options, including training to boost your stats, resting, radio interviews, working with your allies, golf, etcetera.

Rule #1 for the game is everything is real, there's no character/alter ego or working a match. If you're allied with somebody, they are your ally. If you're feuding with someone than you hate each other, if that makes sense. There's no backstage maneuvering or that type of thing, for the most part (although there are owners of the federations that your character can try to get the favor of in order to get title shots and keep your character employed)

The data provided with the game will be all original characters, but there will be a full editor for people's own creations (or universes, if you prefer) as well as an in-game editor for you to adjust stats and almost everything else.

As your character competes in a federation, things also happen in other federation, shows take place, feuds, titles change hands, etcetera, meaning even if your character switches federations (or gets released), there will still be a background and activity from the beginning.

Characters have 7 Attributes and 6 Traits. Base, Endurance, Alignment, Brawling, Scientific,Aerial, Hardcore are the attributes. Power, Agility, Guts, Teamwork, Charisma and Cheating are the Traits. There are also 2 federation specific traits - Level (which is the base that the wrestler has in that particular federation, meaning they can be great in that fed but not stand out in other federations for whatever reason) and Alignment (someone can be loved in one federation but hated when they go somewhere else)

What's the objective of the game? I don't know, come up with your own objective, I guess. Do you want to stand at the top of a small federation for years? Do you want to be the most popular wrestler in the world? Win all of the championships you can? Do you just not want your enemies to do well and want to sabotage every one of their matches? Best in the world? Richest? Hated? It's kind of meant to be up to you -what you want your priorities to be?

The game also has overall rankings, federation rankings, most popular rankings, most hated rankings, tag team rankings that show up at the end of every month as well as an evolving universe where wrestlers both improve and become less effective depending on the situation. The game keeps full history of wrestler's matches as well as their winning and losing records.

******
That was the initial summary of the game that I posted in June. At this point, there's a few more updates and descriptions there, screenshots and the Alpha version of this game in that thread there. I put that up there earlier this week, but I haven't really gotten any feedback, either positive or negative so either it's so awesome that nobody can put it down or it's horrible (or it's not really working, but it was running on all of the computers that I've tested it on myself)
My intention is for this to be a free game. Maybe down the road I'll put a Paypal button somewhere if people are interested in this and want to support future games or whatever, but it's mostly for my own entertainment, if that makes sense.
Hopefully, putting this discussion up here is okay. I'd like to use this thread to continue to talk about the development of this, if there's any interest at all.

[collegesportsfanms]

I would most certainly be interested! I've played all the Smackdown video games and those are fun. I've also played the wrestling games that greydogsoftware and they are fun but frustrating. Your idea for a game sounds great, I'd be interested in hearing more

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
I figured instead of copying and pasting the descriptions of the game that I already put up at the other forum, I'd run a quick dynasty or two with the game both to see how things go and to show how the game works.
First version, I simply picked an unemployed wrestler ('Randy Williams').. For this time, I'll just track one of the other federations and paste the simulation results as well as the rankings for that fed. This is pretty much how the information is exported out of the game, I only removed a couple of quotation marks and I actually had to put the show dates above each show (I'll probably fix this so it does this automatically)
These are the 'Quick Sim' results for the other Federations around the world. It's meant to be an overview of what's going on. If the Character is in a Federation, a 'Highlight Version' of Play-By-Play is shown and there are also out of the ring incidents and other things going on in that Federation.

January, Week 1, 2006

LPV Super Lucha Action! 1

Vanilla Almond and Ragus Yar couldn't keep up with Invalid Username and Calvin Cornetto as Invalid Username used the Simple Combination Attack at 8: 50 to easily win ( 48 )

The evenly fought contest between Grumbling Goat #2 and Heatwave got out of control and the match ended in a double disqualification at 12: 41 ( 26 )

Incognito used the Running Rana to claim a fairly difficult victory over Cross-Stitch at 11: 18 ( 44 )

In a difficult match, Blight took advantage of some blatant interference by Lost Soul to deliver the Universal Emptiness on Cardigan at 14: 53 ( 8 )

Chardonnay caught Mr. Blue Sky with a sunset flip after avoiding the Luchadore Pinning Combination for the second time at 13: 51 ( 6 )

Simple Red and Lurk Havers's intense and even battle ended up outside the ring and they ended up counted out of the ring at 7: 35 ( 26 )

LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn was attacked by an interfering Cross-Stitch and El Fantastico was disqualified at 8: 36 ( 14 )

Silent Green's inteference on behalf of Penn Fontaine backfired and Confetti landed the Running Rana at 21: 10 ( 4 )

*My notes: The game starts in January 2006...Lucha Per Vida is meant to be an over the top comic style federation out of Mexico, the top stars should be
The Unicorn and El Fantastico with a few potential stars ready to make an impact, as well (Chardonnay is actually one of them)


January, Week 3, 2006
LPV Mars Needs Lucha!

Absolute Zero and Deep Freeze controlled the match from the opening bell and got the win over Ragus Yar and Vanilla Almond with the Whiteout at 10: 21 ( 54 )

Lurk Havers struggled against Casey Batts but finally won with a sunset flip following a distraction by Colin Guy at 9: 41 ( 18 )

Salted Almond struggled against Ragus Yar but finally won with a low blow and roll-up following a distraction by Vanilla Almond at 12: 52 ( 4 )

Cross-Stitch was no match for El Fantastico as he used the Luchadore Dive at 8: 13 to easily win ( 78 )

LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn used the Running Rana to claim an easy victory over Danny D at 6: 58 ( 52 )

Silent Green used the Cross Body Block to claim an easy victory over Parker G at 3: 43 ( 78 )

Mr. Blue Sky had the Luchadore Pinning Combination set up but Goose Hollins bailed out of the ring at 11: 39 and was counted out ( 18 )

LPV Funland Championship: Driven by crowd support, Candyman needed all of it and finally delivered a sunset flip to defeat Lost Soul at 23: 18 ( 6 )

February, Week 1, 2006
LPV Super Lucha Action! 2

Luis Soto defeated Parker G with a rope-assisted sunset flip following a distraction by an ally at 5: 29 ( 42 )

Cosmic Joke and Channel Z used the sunset flip to grab a victory over Blight and The Antagonist at 14: 28 ( 12 )

In a evenly-contested battle, Confetti countered Grumbling Goat #1 out of nowhere with a sunset flip at 14: 46 ( 28 )

Deep Freeze swung a victory over Jason Richards using a sunset flip at 7: 14 ( 36 )

Danny D and Cross-Stitch's intense and even battle ended up outside the ring and they ended up counted out of the ring at 14: 10 ( 10 )

In a somewhat even match, Driver 8 defeated Shriek Wildstone at 6: 28 with the Flying Forearm ( 34 )

LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn squashed Goose Hollins ending the match with the Running Rana at 8: 40 ( 70 )

LPV Funland Championship: El Fantastico caught Candyman with a rope-assisted sunset flip at 11: 37 ( 38 )

Grumbling Goat #2 took advantage of the timely interference by Grumbling Goat #1 to deliver the Luchadore Dive on Penn Fontaine at 16: 41 ( 10 )

Silent Green countered Ragus Yar suddenly with the Cross Body Block to get a win at 6: 20 ( 44 )

**********
*** These are the LPV rankings after 3 shows****

Lucha Per Vida
LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn
LPV Funland Championship: El Fantastico

1. The Unicorn (Parts Unknown, 231) (903)
2. El Fantastico (Parts Unknown, 211) (856)
3. Grumbling Goat #2 (Green Fields, 214) (224)
4. Confetti (Parts Unknown, 213) (221)
5. Silent Green (Fields of Green, 214) (198)
6. Candyman (Hershey PA, 223) (194)
7. Danny D (Siena NY, 201) (180)
8. Incognito (Nowhere, 188) (176)
9. Driver 8 (Atlanta GA, 231) (164)
10. Deep Freeze (Iceland, 204) (164)
11. Chardonnay (Northern California, 211) (160)
12. Luis Soto (Puerto Rico, 224) (156)
13. Simple Red (Bismarck SD, 281) (143)
14. Lurk Havers (Jeffers MO, 188) (142)
15. Mr. Blue Sky (Lynnston, WA, 220) (142)
16. Penn Fontaine (Swansea England, 231) (141)
17. Goose Hollins (Pendleton IL, 241) (140)
18. Grumbling Goat #1 (The Green Fields, 233) (135)
19. Ragus Yar (Denver CO, 241) (134)
20. Heatwave (Death Valley CA, 187) (129)
21. Casey Batts (Austin IA, 233) (129)
22. Cardigan (Louisville KY, 185) (127)
23. Blight (Parts Unknown, 213) (126)
24. Salted Almond (Parts Unknown, 231) (122)
25. Lost Soul (Parts Unknown, 200) (115)
26. Jason Richards (Atlanta GA, 213) (115)
27. Shriek Wildstone (Death Valley, 177) (113)
28. Parker G (Los Angeles CA, 203) (92)
29. Cross-Stitch (Singer LA, 177) (88)


***Here are the most popular and the most wrestlers in the Universe at this point in the game. (LPV is a relatively small federation so none of them are showing up in here at this point)

Most Popular
1. Gregory Bannister (Edmonton Canada, 244) : 166
2. Gary Bannister (Edmonton Canada, 255) : 157
3. Boston Barnes (San Diego CA, 233) : 154
4. Kennedy (Carson IL, 422) : 153
5. Garth Bannister (Edmonton Canada, 244) : 151
6. Deathknell (The Gates of Hell, 295) : 139
7. Dream King (Realm of Nightmares, 277) : 129
8. Cole Sheppard (Rochester NY, 244) : 119
9. Samson (Parts Unknown, 344) : 119
10. Wally (Nearest Public Park, 249) : 118

Most Hated
1. The Harvester (The Beyond, 255) : 109
2. Scar Tissue (Barnett Institute, 297) : 106
3. Jacques LeBeau (Independent Quebec, 253) : 105
4. American Nightmare (Heart of Darkness, 325) : 101
5. Derek Dane (Providence RI, 221) : 98
6. The Grand Illusion (Shaw IN, 224) : 96
7. Vladimir Krachav (Moscow Russia, 255) : 96
8. Thomas Richards (Austin LA, 249) : 95
9. Buck Shot (Black Hills SD, 255) : 94
10. The Bard (Stratford On Avon, 244) : 94

[CorporalClegg]

***Here's a little bit more from Lucha Per Vida. Many of these matches are ending in generic finishers. This is because at this point I haven't completed the finishers for all of the wrestlers in the game - If a wrestler doesn't have a finisher at the beginning of the game, the game assigns it one based on his/her style****

February, Week 3, 2006

LPV Too Much Lucha!

Colin Guy squashed Parker G ending the match with the Simple Legsweep at 4: 32 ( 58 )

Salted Almond and Casey Batts struggled at a few points but defeated Ragus Yar and Disturbance at 8: 21 with the low blow and roll-up ( 6 )

Invalid Username and Cardigan landed the V-Neck Breaker on Calvin Cornetto but were also disqualified at 9: 50 ( 30 )

The Antagonist was attacked by Grumbling Goat #2 and Grumbling Goat #1 was disqualified at 16: 28 ( 16 )

Invalid Username caught Chardonnay with a rope-assisted sunset flip after avoiding the Running Rana for the second time at 14: 35 ( 10 )

Mr. Blue Sky was attacked by an interfering Deep Freeze and Absolute Zero was disqualified at 7: 31 ( 18 )

LPV Funland Championship: Incognito was defeated by El Fantastico at 2: 23 following a sunset flip ( 46 )

Deep Freeze defeated Confetti by countout after miscommunication between Confetti and El Fantastico at 9: 46 ( 2 )

February, Week 4, 2006

LPV Power of Lucha!

Grumbling Goat #2 easily defeated Cross-Stitch with the Luchadore Dive at 8: 11 playing to the crowd after the match ( 136 )

Deep Freeze easily defeated Parker G with the Whiteout at 4: 13 and continued the attack after the match ( 154 )

Shriek Wildstone was no match for Confetti as he used the Running Rana at 8: 20 to easily win ( 97 )

Invalid Username had no trouble defeating Salted Almond at 8: 27 with the FinisherName ( 53 )

Absolute Zero easily defeated Jason Richards with the Whiteout at 2: 39 playing to the crowd after the match ( 57 )

Colin Guy distracted Lurk Havers and Penn Fontaine landed the Innovative Drop at 2: 17 ( 44 )

LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn used the Running Rana to claim an easy victory over Chardonnay at 2: 9 ( 158 )

LPV Funland Championship: El Fantastico dominated the match against Channel Z and got the victory at 4: 42 with the Luchadore Dive ( 114 )

Cardigan and Mr. Blue Sky struggled at a few points but defeated Blight and The Antagonist at 14: 30 with the sunset flip ( 12 )

Silent Green got an easy victory over Incognito using the mounted armbar to set up the Cross Body Block at 8: 22 ( 62 )

March, Week 1, 2006

LPV Super Lucha Action! 3

Confetti easily defeated Cross-Stitch with the Running Rana at 6: 33 playing to the crowd after the match ( 56 )

Calvin Cornetto used the Simple Combination Attack to claim a very easy victory over Parker G at 8: 20 ( 52 )

Colin Guy and Jason Richards's battle spilled outside the ring and they were both counted out at 8: 38 ( 36 )

Disturbance had to dig down, but ended up defeating Lurk Havers at 4: 55 with the Innovative Top Rope Manuever ( 34 )

Grumbling Goat #1 caught The Antagonist with a sunset flip after avoiding the Rolling Leglock for the second time at 18: 27 ( 2 )

LPV Wildside Championship: After controlling the match completely, The Unicorn defeated Incognito at 7: 18 with the Running Rana ( 70 )

Absolute Zero and Deep Freeze took over late and got the victory over Danny D and Driver 8 with the Whiteout at 10: 48 ( 24 )

LPV Funland Championship: El Fantastico squashed Candyman ending the match with the Luchadore Dive at 6: 24 ( 58 )

Silent Green had the Cross Body Block set up but Grumbling Goat #2 bailed out of the ring at 18: 13 and was counted out ( 12 )

Here are the rankings after two and a half months:

March, Week 1, 2006

Lucha Per Vida
LPV Wildside Championship: The Unicorn
LPV Funland Championship: El Fantastico

1. The Unicorn (Parts Unknown, 231) (1304)
2. El Fantastico (Parts Unknown, 211) (1265)
3. Confetti (Parts Unknown, 213) (329)
4. Grumbling Goat #2 (Green Fields, 214) (298)
5. Silent Green (Fields of Green, 214) (297)
6. Calvin Cornetto (London England, 233) (256)
7. Deep Freeze (Iceland, 204) (256)
8. Colin Guy (Milton Keynes England, 244) (245)
9. Danny D (Siena NY, 201) (216)
10. Candyman (Hershey PA, 223) (215)
11. Invalid Username (Retry DE, 188) (212)
12. Disturbance (Pittsburgh PA, 199) (208)
13. Penn Fontaine (Swansea England, 231) (206)
14. Mr. Blue Sky (Lynnston, WA, 220) (203)
15. Luis Soto (Puerto Rico, 224) (200)
16. Driver 8 (Atlanta GA, 231) (192)
17. Absolute Zero (The North Pole, 188) (188)
18. Simple Red (Bismarck SD, 281) (181)
19. Channel Z (Waverly PA, 224) (176)
20. Goose Hollins (Pendleton IL, 241) (170)
21. Casey Batts (Austin IA, 233) (167)
22. Grumbling Goat #1 (The Green Fields, 233) (164)
23. Incognito (Nowhere, 188) (163)
24. Chardonnay (Northern California, 211) (162)
25. Blight (Parts Unknown, 213) (158)
26. Ragus Yar (Denver CO, 241) (156)
27. Cardigan (Louisville KY, 185) (151)
28. Lost Soul (Parts Unknown, 200) (151)
29. Heatwave (Death Valley CA, 187) (149)
30. The Antagonist (Parts Unknown, 244) (136)
31. Salted Almond (Parts Unknown, 231) (128)
32. Parker G (Los Angeles CA, 203) (127)
33. Lurk Havers (Jeffers MO, 188) (117)
34. Shriek Wildstone (Death Valley, 177) (102)
35. Jason Richards (Atlanta GA, 213) (90)
36. Cross-Stitch (Singer LA, 177) (76)

Here are some of the other rankings in the game at this point. This is the overall singles rankings.

Overall Rankings
1. Boston Barnes (San Diego CA, 233) :1920
2. Marcus Landers (Coral Ridge CA, 244) :1904
3. Samson (Parts Unknown, 344) :1872
4. Kennedy (Carson IL, 422) :1614
5. Paul Dietrich (Edmonton Canada, 244) :1143
6. Jacques LeBeau (Independent Quebec, 253) :1018
7. Gary Bannister (Edmonton Canada, 255) :1012
8. Horseshoe Montgomery (Catskill Mts NC, 387) :876
9. Thomas Richards (Austin LA, 249) :628
10. Gregory Bannister (Edmonton Canada, 244) :512
11. Deathknell (The Gates of Hell, 295) :486
12. Billy Blake (Williamsport VT, 233) :485
13. Clay Tompkins (Fort Wayne IN, 244) :460
14. American Nightmare (Heart of Darkness, 325) :457
15. Scar Tissue (Barnett Institute, 297) :456
16. Rory Forrestor (Bristol England, 255) :453
17. Andrew Reed (The United States, 255) :451
18. Suhai' (Juneau Alaska, 298) :449
19. Kendall Revolver (Houston TX, 221) :448

It take awhile at the beginning of the game for the tag team rankings to show because there's a minimum of a few matches to qualify for the rankings. Usually by Mid-March a few of the teams are showing up.

March, Week 3, 2006 Tag Team Rankings

Tag Team Rankings
1. Marcus Landers and Jacques LeBeau ( 831 )
2. Frankie James and Jesse James ( 759 )
(The James Boys)
3. Clifford Norton and American Nightmare ( 716 )
4. Dennis Latte and Alan Capuccino ( 706 )
(Midnight Espresso)
5. The Beetle and Shades Sullivan ( 680 )
6. Doctor Jimmy and Bobby O'Reilly ( 663 )
(Who's Next?)

Here's the women's version of the most popular and most hated wrestlers in
the world.

Most Popular
1. Emily Sweeney (Oakland CA, 155) : 166
2. Silver Butterfly (Kyoto Japan, 113) : 155
3. Joanna Cabana (South Bend IN, 103) : 138
4. Brenda North (Modesto CA, 124) : 124
5. Becky Brady (Torrance CA, 144) : 119
6. Naomi Force (Miami FL, 161) : 110
7. Katarina Riggs (Ogden UT, 144) : 99
8. Elizabeth Payne (Tulsa OK, 155) : 93
9. Barb Stiles (Hillsberg TN, 172) : 78

Most Hated
1. Rita Rotten (Streets of San Diego, 201) : 448
2. Roxy Clark (Atlanta GA, 142) : 114
3. Cassie Harper (Georgia Backwoods, 145) : 110
4. Emma Glory (Northhampton Eng, 155) : 97
5. Tracy Thorne (Pasadena CA, 155) : 95
6. The Jaguar (South America, 144) : 92
7. Hailey Comet (Harrisburg PA, 125) : 89
8. Caroline Rhein (Bonn Germany, 142) : 88
9. Teresa Miller (Athens GA, 123) : 87
10. Kayla Kelly (Rockford IL, 155) : 86

[CorporalClegg]

As I mentioned, the player character's federations matches actually have a play by play result as opposed to just a summary like the other federations. This is the exported text version of these results. Again, the moves may be repeat a little more than they should, this is because the move database is fairly small right now and wrestlers are picking moves based on their style as opposed to having their own moveset (which can be done)....

Also, there's a note in the first match about a wrestler's Basic quality - wrestlers can have qualities which affect their attributes and traits in the match - this can range from a manager or valet boosting the 'Cheat' and 'Charisma" trait to 'Allergies' negatively affecting a wrestler's 'Endurance' and 'Power" and everything in between (There are about 150 included in the game right now). If they don't have one, the Basic is the default and it has a random effect on one attribute or trait - unique ones can affect up to three separate traits or attributes in various ways. The description of these in the match are left somewhat vague in order for the player to use their judgement/imagination to decide how the match is going.


Bryant Mann vs Al Grant ( Month 3, Week 3, Year 2006

1:40-Bryant Mann with an armbar takedown on Al Grant ! (18)
2:29-Bryant Mann uses the ropes to land a springboard legdrop on Al Grant! (6)
3:08-Al Grant with a straight punch to the head of Bryant Mann! (11)
4:25-Follow an irish whip and a leapfrog, Bryant Mann executes a clothesline! (8)
5:43-Al Grant carefully delivers a flurry of punches to Bryant Mann! (9)
6:37-Bryant Mann flattens Al Grant with a top rope corkscrew legdrop! (10)
7:19-With Bryant Mann trapped in a wishbone, Al Grant lands a legdrop! (18)
Bryant Mann's Basic quality comes into play during the match bringing about the following adjustment : Alignment(Somewhat Positive)
8:34-Bryant Mann gets the crowd excited by landing the shooting star press!
Al Grant goes for a southern punch flurry but it backfires big time!
Bryant Mann lands the shooting star press on Al Grant!
Al Grant's blow to the head knocks Bryant Mann down hard to the mat!
Al Grant loses focus and Bryant Mann fights back with shooting star press!
Bryant Mann takes advantage of the situation to land the Flying Forearm and get a sudden win!

Bryant Mann battled it out with Al Grant but executed the Flying Forearm at 8:34 to get the win! ( 28 )

Marquise Johnson vs Dennis Rogers ( Month 3, Week 3, Year 2006"


This will be a match for the JFC Atlantic City Championship !
1:40-Dennis Rogers delivers a punch to the jaw of Marquise Johnson! (22)
2:49-Marquise Johnson stomps directly on the kneecap of Dennis Rogers! (6)
3:42-Dennis Rogers lands a series of elbows to the head of Marquise Johnson! (7)
4:43-Marquise Johnson lands a series of precision stomps on the elbow of Dennis Rogers! (12)
5:10-Taking his time, Marquise Johnson delivers a methodical punch on Dennis Rogers! (14)
Marquise Johnson's Basic quality comes into play during the match bringing about the following adjustment : Agility(Somewhat Positive)
6:40-Dennis Rogers places Marquise Johnson in a reverse chinlock, looking to weaken him! (9)
7:58-Marquise Johnson sets up Dennis Rogers and executes a reverse neckbreaker! (18)
8:23-Marquise Johnson sets up Dennis Rogers and delivers a belly-to-belly suplex! (11)
9:51-Marquise Johnson gets the crowd excited by landing the reverse neckbreaker!
Dennis Rogers goes for a backbreaker but it backfires big time!
Marquise Johnson follows the press slam by setting up for the Specialty Clothesline!
Dennis Rogers uses a foreign object on Marquise Johnson in order to avoid the Specialty Clothesline!
Marquise Johnson fights back but Dennis Rogers has already been disqualified!

Marquise Johnson claimed a victory over Dennis Rogers by disqualification at 9:51 ( 39 )
Marquise Johnson holds the JFC Atlantic City Championship!

Cody Dixon vs David Gilbert ( Month 3, Week 3, Year 2006

1:27-Cody Dixon gets trapped in David Gilbert's abdominal stretch! (5)
2:51-Cody Dixon gets the advantage with a series of carefully delivered punches! (12)
3:41-David Gilbert catches Cody Dixon in a standing wristlock! (7)
4:25-Cody Dixon takes the padding from the turnbuckle and slams David Gilbert into it! (11)
5:01-David Gilbert's dropkick catches Cody Dixon right in the face! (17)
6:30-Cody Dixon picks up David Gilbert and slams him to the canvas! (10)
7:40-David Gilbert with the snapmare takedown on Cody Dixon! (11)
8:28-Cody Dixon lands a series of methodical punches to the body of David Gilbert! (12)
9:20-Cody Dixon uses a stomp to damage David Gilbert while trapped in a wishbone! (19)
10:03-Cody Dixon with the head slam into apron but David Gilbertfires back by using a sunset flip!
Cody Dixon gets hurt badly by David Gilbert's cheap shot!
Cody Dixon avoids the Leaping Armbreaker and then lands a back body drop!
Cody Dixon with the sudden roll-up for the flash victory!

Cody Dixon used the sudden roll-up to claim a victory over David Gilbert at 10:03 ( 39 )

**Next time I can post some screenshots of the game. There are some up on the other forum I was describing the game on but I've changed the font and the format to make it easier to read, at least in my opinion***

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
I put together 4 screenshots from the game. This is one of them to see if it will show up. This is a action selection screen on a free week for a character.
There are about 20 options of things to do, each of which have a different effect on the character.

[Vince, Pt. II]

I'll be reading along as you go as well. As a former programmer (college) who threatens (emptily) to get back into it every so often, this should be interesting.

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
Thanks for the interest. Here's a couple more screen shots from the game; the first is the 'Week Summary' of the cards that week in other federations. The other is the 'Week Ending' Screen where all of the results, history and rankings can be found.
I'll put some more information up soon.

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
This is some background information on federations and how the game works/figures out results (both quick sim and normal speed). If you're interested in giving the alpha version of this game a try, send me a private message and I can try to get a copy to you by e-mail in the next week or so. I'll post the readme info on the game in a day or two. Right now, the game is in a stable and working state but starting in October again, I have a short checklist of features that I still want to add, along with some additional work on the default data (I'm not including real wrestler names or photos in the game, as you've probably noticed from the samples) and a few minor fixes to make.

****************
Each federation has a couple of attributes/traits that they favor as far as their style goes. For this reason, during the game, the federation may choose what attribute or trait is going to control the round. How often this happens depends on the size of the federation. For example, a huge federation will be choosing their preferences fairly often during a match because they would have that kind of control over the action. On the other hand, a local federation would only be able to choose their preferences rarely during match because most of the wrestlers would have their own style and act pretty autonomously over a tiny fed like that.

A good example of this would be a Lucha-style Fed. If a hardcore-style wrestler (a chair swinging maniac type character) signed onto one of the major lucha federations, they would probably struggle because of the speed of the matches and the style of the competitors. However, in a smaller lucha federation, they might be able to overcome this - if they were skilled enough (if there's a better way to knock a diving wrestler off the top rope than to hit him with a chair, I don't know of it)

Each federation also has a hiring bias or favor. They may prefer 'Powerful' wrestlers or maybe they would rather have 'Charismatic' wrestlers. When hiring the federations will search for wrestlers that have strong scores in that trait or attribute.

Each federation also has an owner. This is a very limited role (there won't be any Authority or Good/Evil Boss storylines - too complicated to try and program and besides, wrestling needs less of that and more unseen Federation Presidents and Boards of Directors). However, the owner does take into account the character's reputation and reliability when deciding on title matches and occasionally may show up during a show.

Each federation can have as many singles and tag team titles as you choose. There's a recommended number for each size (and for a pretty good reason) but it is up to you whether you want to have more or less titles.

At the end of each month, each federation has specific rankings. Originally, this was a top ten but I changed it so all of the active competitors in the federation are listed.

Also, each wrestler has a specific federation level and alignment, so a wrestler can be basically have a huge losing streak in one federation, but when they shift over to a new federation, they could become one of the greats. Same with alignment - a wrestler can be hated in one region and be amazingly popular in another. (Note: this probably won't happen to this extreme during the game, as each wrestler has a starting alignment and a starting base which changes slightly when they sign with a new federation - however, in the beginning of the game, you may have a wrestler from a certain region that basically controls that federation)

So, a basic overview of how the game works (skip to the end of this, if you don't want to know)

1 Each match is set up in rounds and every round an attribute or two is selected - either at random - by the federation - or by one of the competitors.

2 This attribute/trait is added to a random number to give each wrestler a score.

3 The wrestler with the higher score deducts the endurance from the wrestler with the lower score.

4 A move usually shows up describing the action (It's 'Football Manager' style with highlights showing up along with the match time)

i.e. 1:23 The Stranger ducks under Samson's clothesline and delivers a rolling wheel kick!

5 When one wrestler (or team) reaches 0, the finish comes and the end of the match is described. It may end cleanly, it may end with some bad interference, or a DQ (the more important shows are designed to have cleaner finishes more often, though, while the throwaway shows will have more contested endings.

The short version - You press a button and the game simulates and describes the match all the way through the finish - then you can export the results or go on to the next match.
****

[CorporalClegg]

So, most of September was time off from working on the game but starting in October I started adding some more things to the game that I felt were necessary.

The first item that I added was the character's ally & enemy editor. I want the player to be able to adapt the game however they want, so not only can you create alliances and tag teams between other wrestlers with the live editor- the character can also put their own alliances and grudges into the game (Of course, it's probably preferable to play the game and develop a character that way - but, it is a single player game and meant to be kind of an open world, anyway - so someone can also simply set things up the way they should be). This took about as long as I expected (4-5 hours to create the editor) and it seems to work fine.

The second item was meant to be an easy one. I wanted to add the titleholders/champions before listing the scheduled card for the show. This should have taken about twenty minutes. A simple data search and add the data to the text box. Three hours later... I finally got it to work. Doing it the way I planned interfered with a few other functions I had referred to so I had to make some adjustments. That works now, though, as well.

Right now, I'm working on an outside character editor. This is a way to put together a relationship between a character in the game and somebody that isn't in the wrestler database. This will keep them from showing up as dating other people (most of the time). I'm about halfway through this right now.

I still need to add moves to the overall game data (I only have about 150, I think, so they repeat quite often as you may have noticed from the match play-by-play) and complete the finisher database in the included data and make some minor adjustments to the data.

The other major thing I'm considering adding to the game is a G.O.A.T. creation mode - I'm thinking about using a series of questions similar to how characters are made in Fallout for someone who is making their own character to play the game.

I think I'll have a second alpha ready to release at the end of October, which should be close to the complete game.

[CorporalClegg]

So, this is still going on. You may have noticed a separate thread that has a simulation of a Lucha Underground second season that I've been working on with some of my own data.

I've added a few things to the game itself since then (as well as finally fixing a few errors that popped up)

More Export Options
Results can now be exported from any screen, so you can keep track of what happens what week to week with your character, if you want to.

Card Subject To Change
I've put a button on the show screen that scrambles/re-figures the pending card. This means that if a card just doesn't look right, or your character isn't on the card and you would prefer they would be, you can hit this button and the card will change.

Play by Play Feature
This was something that I wasn't sure I could get together, but I think I've figured it out. There's now a checkbox on the result screen that will allow the matches to progress from round to round as opposed to just showing up in the result box all at once. It adds some drama/excitement to the game, as opposed to just reading through a long summary of what just happened.

So, I think my plan is to compile this build and call it the second alpha version of the game and release it over Thanksgiving weekend. I'll probably put it up on the Delphi forums, like I did the first alpha so if you're interested you can check it out. At this point, it should be stable and really pretty much a complete game. I'll probably put some screen shots up here, as well, of the new features, if that's okay.

[CorporalClegg]

Hi,
This is just to let you know that, if you're interested, the second build of the game is up at the Tabletop Sports Delphi Forum... It's in a 7z format... the readme still applies, but it should be pretty stable and run fairly normally at this point. The Play by Play check box is working properly and the game will give highlights from the match as they happen if the player prefers... as opposed to everything showing up at once at the end of the match - that's the major upgrade but there are a few other features that have been added, as well as some errors that have hopefully been eliminated..