I've been prototyping a new wrestling game, loosely based on Mat Mania/Exciting Hour, and will be ready (this upcoming weekend) to start a public beta. The biggest challenges have been mapping controls sensibly to the touch screen, and expanding old school core game mechanics to include more skill/timing/tactics based action. For anyone interested in this type of game, this is a great opportunity to provide wishlist features & feedback and help improve what's already shaping up to be a very fun game.
Better late than never! I'm ready to distribute beta of Slam Mania and begin soliciting feedback. It currently supports three modes: 1. training, where you can practice moves against a passive compute opponent, that'll follow you around but otherwise let you beat the eggs out of him. 2. cpu: fight against an aggressive computer controller opponent. 3. player vs. player online - using game center networking based on GGPO. Will aim to post some updated video later this week, but in the meantime am looking for some hardcode players to sign up and provide gameplay/controls feedback. Please shoot me your email and I'll add you as an external testers.
Omg only minutes in and I love it more than any wrestling game on iOS can't wait to see where it goes from here
First batch of testflight invitations sent! Reminder that to get added, you'll need to PM me with an email address so I can add folk as external testers. Some notes on the beta: Please start with 'practice' mode. It includes onscreen guidance for the controls, and some contextual hints. In any of the game modes, you can tap near the top of the screen to exit back to main menu. Winning (or losing) a match will also return you to the main menu. The ring is placeholder art - no crowd, no referee yet. At this time I'm looking for feedback on the control scheme and core gameplay. I'll add a poll later to show some of the directions being considered for art. The control scheme is as follows: Left side of the screen is used to move left, right, or up/down. Horizontal swipes on the left side of the screen cause the player to run. You can climb the top left/right turnbuckles. You can jump out of the ring after an opponent has been thrown out. The right side of the screen is used for actions. The controls depend on context. There are five gestures. For example, when standing: - Tap to punch. - Swipe up for a leaping kick. - Swipe down to duck (can be used to flip a dashing opponnent) - Swipe towards opponent to kick. - Swipe away from opponent for elbow smash. To begin grappling, walk into opponent. You can zig-zag towards them to avoid being hit on the way in. While grappling, the first player to tap will initiate a headlock. From headlock, each gesture maps to special moves. Anyone familiar with the original Mat Mania is probably familiar with it's "rule of three" which was used to prevent the player from just slamming the opponent over and over leaving them unable to escape. In Slam Mania, this is replaced with a rage meter. If a player gets knocked down/slammed several times in a row without being able to hurt the opponent, they'll briefly become enraged, and be temporarily immune to being dizzied or countered/headlocked. To pin, swipe down while standing next to a downed opponent. No need to ever button mash - everything (counters, technique) is timing-based.
Beta has been belatedly refreshed, with 3 new computer-controlled fighters to take on. The in-game tutorial ("practice" mode) is still bare bones, so feel free to ask here with any gameplay questions. If you want to be included in the beta, please reply to this thread and most importantly PM me an email, so I can add you to test flight. Looking to get a better sense of how many folk might be interested in this when it's released, to help me budget how much more to invest and where. At the moment, additional planned characters include: - a jobber - female character based on Gertie the Grappler - character inspired by Chin Tai of double dragon - a hulking giant
Preparing for a new spin of the beta this weekend, targeting new testers. Changes include placeholder crowd/referee, UI and AI enhancements, improvements to the tutorial, and ability to share replays.
Beta updated this morning! For existing testers, please play at least one match to conclusion (win or lose) with wifi enabled. There's a new developer feature incorporated in this build that will post a tiny anonymous file (less than 2k) after a match, which will let me review a replay of battles. Plenty of room for more testers - I'm especially looking for folk that remember and love the original arcade Mat Mania / Exciting Hour / Mania Challenge games.
I've added MFI controller support in my local build - still experimenting with control mappings, but looking good.
Now that MFI controller support is working, I'm thinking it might be worthwhile adapting this for AppleTV as well. In the meantime, here's a work-in-progress snapshot updating the placeholder crowd art.
Just refreshed the beta with some significant changes, most recent including: 1) quicker punch recovery, making it easier to exchange punches (for new players) 2) new, easier first round 'jobber' opponent 3) placeholder animated announcer 4) easier off-the-ropes attacks Still could badly use a proper guided tutorial, but hopefully it's getting more accessible with each round of changes. Two new opponents are being produced, which will bring the roster up to 6 unique wrestlers, with two more still up in the air. After that the focus will shift to tightening up online multiplayer support, the AppleTV port, and construct-a-wrestler mode. Plan is for every wrestler and move to be unlockable and customizable.
Sometimes it's the little things that take the longest to get right. Recent changes in dev builds include: - 'tap' while an opponent is in a headlock is no longer mapped to body slam. I'd observed players spamming with taps leading to inadvertent slam attempts - unfortunately if you don't have any stars, the technique fails and you get reversed. All slams are now mapped to swipes, which eliminates this type of frustration. - the beginnings of a proper HUD, with health bars that show damage absorbed synced with the time of impact. - visual representation of rage meter, used to give a player (computer or otherwise) that's received a particularly harsh beating a temporary reprieve and chance of comeback - gameplay inside the ring is now constrained to a single dimension. I was torn on this, and it remains a compile time option. The arcade game that largely has been inspiring this effort used double-dragon mechanic, where you could walk sideways in the z-plane. For iOS, this unnecessarily complicates the gameplay, but also makes it way too hard to corner a human opponent. - there's no longer any left/right asymmetry with controls; you can use either side of the screen to tap, drag, or swipe, with no need for a 'left handed' or 'right handed' setting; as a bonus, control is now working perfectly with Siri remote in the Apple TV port. - incorporated a new "How to Play" mode, showing a sample match with visual representation of all the associated gestures as it plays out. Should make it more obvious how to leap of the ropes, get back in the ring (after being tossed out), etc. Still a lot potentially to do. We're looking into revamping art among other things. If any artist/animator stumbles across this thread, feel free to shoot me a PM with link to your portfolio.
