Greetings!
I’d like to share my progress in developing a 3D wrestling game, inspired by the late 90’s N64 AKI games and everything since. So far I’ve drank my way, single handed, through the following:
Avatar System:
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Extremely simple characters consisting of 11 joints (no wrists/hands/ankles/feet/spine, which is actually a huge negative for a game in this genre… What was I thinking!? Luckily, (as always) it’s expandable.
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A few simple sliders in a custom editor adjust the model, e.g. nose, chin, jaw, hair, chest.
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Slider/model data are embedded into the skin .bmp making mods self contained and easy to share.
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Adjusting the model sliders re-maps the uv’s rather than deforming the texture.
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Simple IK for arms & legs and custom editor for creating animations inside Unity.
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Animations can contain multiple Avatars and include events system, e.g. for playing sounds.
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Animations are saved into my own format and are handled by my own manager which ensures they are loaded only once and shared between Avatars where necessary.
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Here’s a video of me editing a character, creating a rubbish animation and adjusting a suplex:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VCYR_7qYdGQ
Gameplay:
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State based character system
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Movement, running, blocking & interaction.
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Strikes to running, idle and floored opponents.
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Grapples from facing, behind, running & floored position. Transition to/from any combination
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Aerial attacks from the corners.
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Pin & Submission maneuvers.
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AI with variable difficulty.
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Rules & Match setup; up to 4 competitors or teams per match. Elimination (team or individuals) or 1st fall wins.
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Player stats effecting Speed, Power, Intelligence etc. Strikes and grapples can target specific stats and the damage dealt is calculated using both attacker and defender stats.
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Here’s some videos taken over the past few months:
As you can see, there’s a lot of work to be done. I’m a 1 man team with a full time job and an appetite for the pub so this project gets slotted in “here and there” but I’m pleased with progress so far. Soon I’m going to have to decide for good on an art style, I’m currently thinking 1995 but would love to hear your thoughts whilst I decide what “1995” even means. Once that’s settled I’ll start pouring in some character & animation content until I have a playable demo. More to follow hopefully!
