It's been a while since the last update here!
I believe I've stated numerous times that I'm a solo dev and work on this project next to a job and having a little family. In that regard, don't ever worry if there's a month of silence. ːsteamhappyː
Casual Pro Wrestling was released last Christmas and its reception really exceeded my expectations. It's a small game and the community is definitely still small, but that's fine, because the small amount of content doesn't justify advertising it as a huge game that's on par with the many other wrestling games we all know and love. I really want to thank everyone so much for supporting this game!
One type of content has been lacking in particular: moves! Currently, all wrestlers share the same moves and because there simply aren't any more in the game, there is no move selection in Create-A-Wrestler. Well, I'm happy to announce that this is finally about to change!
As announced in January, the first major update to CPW will feature new moves and the first batch will come by the end of July. From that statement you may be able to extract that there will be more batches - and yes, there will be. I'm splitting the update into at least three parts.
We Got The Moves - Part One
The first part will release on July 28, 2024.
It will kick off the major update by adding a total of 16 new front and back grapple moves as well as a bunch of others. I will be sure to show some of these off until then.
The update also adds springboard moves off the top rope! You can trigger this while running towards the ropes - your wrestler will jump on the top rope and perform any of their flying maneuvers to either the outside or the inside, depending on whom you are focusing.
Finally, it introduces a move selection to Create-A-Wrestler mode. Even though the selection will still be small compared to other games, this will allow you to do first adjustments to your wrestler's fighting styles.
We Got The Moves - Part Two
The second part will release by the end of summer.
It will focus on enhancing pinfalls and submissions, because the lack of control over what's going on - especially to the victims of a pinfall - has not been very great. With this, a batch of new submission maneuevers will be added as well as some new ways to enter a pinfall such as good ol' School Boy!
I also promised that the community would be able to vote for some moves to be added. In my book, it makes sense to put this after some new moves have already been added, so expect a voting process that will launch in late summer.
We Got The Moves - Part Three
The third part will release in autumn.
It will focus on wrestling - and that's when the lock-up / "weak grapple" will hopefully begin to make more sense. I'm talking headlocks, hammerlocks, wristlocks, takeovers and transitions between these and more serious predicaments such as grapples, pinfalls and submissions.
Additionally, whatever moves get voted for in the move vote stated above will be included in this update.
We Got The Moves - Part Infinity (and beyond)
Beyond and between all of that, moving forward to future major updates and even after a full release, smaller batches new moves will be added more regularly for a long long time. Animating these - with modularity and ragdolling in mind - is a somewhat slow process, so this will be something where CPW will constantly grow. Kaizen style! The result of the move votes will definitely help me decide the order.
What comes after that? We will be talking about that when the time comes. Ultra Pro Wrestling is on the radar and given that they have a team and the budget, everyone - including myself - is expecting something big. While everyone's playing with that, I will be cooking new stuff for Casual Pro Wrestling to make it the insane and fun ragdoll wrestling experience that it is bound to be!
In the meantime, take your chance to grab CPW at a discount during Steam's Summer Sale, spread the word, join the Discord server and keep wrestling!