Welcome to Wrestling Gamers United Newsletter #363
1) F'n sell out!
1) F'n sell out! **************************** Good golly did we ever generate some feedback with the release of the gameplay video last week. I'm more than a little surprised at the wide tone of the response. It seems most people love the way it's shaping up and some people absolutely hate it. Very few people are luke warm about it. Interesting. Along with the response came a lot of questions. Below are what I hope are good answers to a few good questions and comments I received via email and the forum. And some dumb ones. Well actually they say there are no such things as dumb questions...
Q: You said you would never waste time on graphics over game play but you have animated fans and subways. You're a fuckin' sell out!
A: Yes! I'm a sell out! Come join me on my mountains of cash and gold plated skulls of my enemies! I didn't actually spend any time or money on the fans or Skytrain. A very cool and very nice 3D artist offered to give us those art assets for free in exchange for interning at our studio. I could have taken advantage of his desire to intern for us by forcing him to do some new animations or textures but I figure if someone is willing to help you and is excited about doing something in particular for you, in this case the Skytrain, then its in everyone's best interest to allow them to do so. So we got some animated level elements and he got a bit of work experience doing something he loved without costing us anything in terms of gameplay work. No brainer.
Q: Didn't it cost like a million dollars to make this?
A: That's a trick question. Short answer, no. Long answer: The actual money spent developing the Uprising game itself is probably less than what 85% of Xbox Live Arcade games cost. Of course Uprising, as it stands today, was rebuilt almost from scratch in a new engine with the last few dollars we had. We have a prototype (uglier than sin) that cost just over $100k, plus market research we were forced to pay for, plus well over $100k of development on an essentially stolen engine we had to eat, yadda yadda yadda. So yeah it adds up. But not to a million dollars or even close. Not even a million Canadian dollars or a million moose pelts which, as everyone knows, is the standard currency here in Canada. Couldn't buy our igloos and hockey sticks without 'em. Oh and for the record, the vast majority of our financing, especially from the government, was in the form of repayable loans, not grants. And we worked our asses off for months to even qualify to APPLY for those loans so it wasn't exactly like we accidentally fell into a pile of welfare cheques.
Q: A lot of the animations I saw look like they we're taken directly from No Mercy. Were they?
A: Thank you! The AKI games are my favorite wrestling games, hands down, and to recieve a compliment like that (intentional or not) makes me smile. No Mercy was our standard early in development for speed, pacing, and overall feel. I'm really glad that inspiration has shown through. I'm first and foremost a wrestling game fan and to have the opportunity to pay even the smallest respect to my favorite games of the past was something I couldn't pass up. We looked to No Mercy a lot whenever we had a question about how to animate something in particular (like running on the apron) and in some cases we outright mimicked some things like the classic AKI running collision because, well, it's our game and we wanted to pay tribute. The one tribute that didn't make it into the game was a powerball dispenser on the wall.
Aaaaaand that's all the time we have today because my wife decided she will be painting our daughter's room this evening. And by 'she' it of course means me. More Q&A next week.
Oh but before I go, check out Adam Ryland's latest sim game in case you haven't already:
http://www.greydogsoftware.com/wmma/
In the meantime and in between time, that's it, another edition of Wrestling Gamers United.
No Mercy was my favorite wrestling game of all time. I love the Aki grappling system to death more than any other grappling system. So thank god you choose this system to base PWX off (although it is not just limited to aki but incorporates Giant Gram etc...)
I also loved the simpicity of the NO Mercy CAW. I can create a wrestler in less than 20 minutes with this caw. In Day of Reckoning it took me a week at least to tweak & fix & fix & fix. Must've lost 1/2 the hair on my head too much frustration.
[quote][cite] RoadWarriorAce:[/cite]I love the Aki grappling system to death more than any other grappling system.[/quote] And therein lies the difference between the two of us.
[quote][cite] Zin5ki:[/cite][quote][cite] RoadWarriorAce:[/cite]I love the Aki grappling system to death more than any other grappling system.[/quote] And therein lies the difference between the two of us.[/quote]
I'm curious what grappling system do you like best?
Technically that of SD:SYM. Quick grapples throughout- the 'tier' of moves you execute depending upon the opponent's level of grogginess. If you wanted to perform a big move, you'd have to either stun the opponent or bring them up to their feet whilst holding their head. Though the general gameplay was too fast, the grappling was one of the most realistic aspects of it.