Generally speaking, moves will be categorized as one of the following types:Ī strike attacks a standing opponent in an adjacent space. Wrestlers do not gain a free space of movement when exciting the crowd through performing moves, pins, submissions, or aerial attacks. Performing moves also generates excitement for the attacker after the move has been completely resolved based on this color classification. Moves are classified by what color an opponent’s health meter must be reduced to before they can be performed. A move will typically do more damage than an improvised strike or dash attack and may have one or more status effects associated with it. Move is the generic term for attacks that can be performed by triggering specific combinations of sections on the crowd meters. The moves need to obey the physics, rules, and tropes that are specific to pro wrestling.The haptics of performing the moves needs to reinforce the design by, quite literally, feeling thematic and adding to the sense of play.Performing these moves/animations needs to create interesting tactical and strategic decisions.Create “animations” that visually convey the wrestling moves that are being emulated.□įor this build to be a success, there are several design goals that need to be targeted and realized: This is where we build our physics engine. Game design, however, isn’t just about abstractions, it’s about the right abstraction for the intended experience. And being a professional wrestler is 200% about the moves!! It’s just math.īut, how do you translate moves and move animations to the tabletop? You could just abstract it as crowd meter combinations and damage, and that would be… fine. The grappling system combined with fantastic move animations made for a winning formula. But the reason it was revolutionary is that the system finally allowed players to have real control over their wrestlers to perform a variety of moves and not just button mash like an arcade brawler. We also established the base of the physics engine with the status effects stunned, staggered, and knocked down.Īll of that brings us to our topic of discussion for today, and it starts with this question: what made those games so revolutionary at the time and just plain fun and addictive to play? Any article that you read on this subject will say it was the revolutionary grappling system that changed everything in wrestling video game design, and that’s true. We’ve also delved into triggering/utilizing the excitement of the crowd to perform movements, Irish Whips to ropes and turnbuckles, and basic strikes. Up to this point, we’ve covered the high level system basics like managing your health, stamina, and crowd meters and using excite actions to pump up the crowd. Those familiar bases in-turn provide a framework that allow for some creative and exciting new systems to be crafted and interact with the core gameplay loop in ways to provide a one-of-a-kind experience. Using these references as a starting point gives me the advantage of having some very specific gaming tropes that can be used as familiar bases/concepts that players will immediately recognize and feel comfortable with, and that translates into easily learned and internalized mechanisms and interactions on the tabletop keeping the initial rules overhead very low. I’ve also sprinkled in a bit of the colors and style from arcade classic Wrestlefest, brawler Saturday Night Slam Masters, and even made a couple of nods to NES Pro Wrestling. For the core gameplay experience, I’m talking about console classics like: WCW vs NWO World Tour, WCW vs NWO Revenge, Wrestlemania 2000, WWF No Mercy, and Fire Pro Wrestling World. World of Wrestling, much like Techno Bowl: Arcade Football Unplugged, is a sports entertainment board game that takes it’s inspiration not just from the sport itself, but also from the video games that I feel are the best representations of the genre. So, for those not in the know, let me give you the quick pitch. If you haven’t been following along with my WIP thread on BGG, then you may not be aware that I’m in the final phases of getting my new wrestling game ready for release.
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