Modding Update #2: 3D Model Imports & Entrance Themes

Howdy!

My, it's been a while. That's why first off, I'd like to apologize to everyone lead to believing this game has been abandoned. It hasn't. We're still only getting started.

Now that that's out of the way, more apologies are due. Why? Because this is not a gameplay update. More on that topic below. Still, this is a big milestone, possibly the most important one regarding my intended longevity of Casual Pro Wrestling.

3D Model Wrestler Import

With this update, I publish the first version of the Community Content Creation Package for Unity. Sounds fancy, what's it do? This will be where modders will be able to author advanced content for Casual Pro Wrestling. And this is not just some demo thing I'll make work some day, but out of the box, it comes with my personally favorite feature of CPW: modders are now able to import humanoid 3D models as wrestlers into the game! And of course, these can be shared on the Steam Workshop. I went all out here and made a video on how to use it, too, check it out:

Custom Entrance Themes

Oh yeah, there's more! You can now also import your favorite mp3 and ogg files and use them as custom entrance themes for your wrestlers. Yes, they can also be shared on the Steam workshop (use responsibly - per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, you are responsible for holding the necessary distribution rights).

You can find a tutorial on how to import custom themes here.

Casual Pro Wrestling in 2026

I would be nuts to try and give you a concrete roadmap. In any event, know that gameplay is what's next. The fancy modding and creation capabilities are all fun and games until the gameplay lacks depth, and make no mistake, I know it does.

Apart from moves, moves, and... I guess more moves? next up is a revamp of the wrestling holds for less button mashing. Balancing is going to be a work in progress also. I went from wrestlers being completely immune to everything while getting up to wrestlers being unable to get up because they'll get a mudhole stomped into them as soon as they try. Something inbetween would be nice, I'll be looking for that.

As for new content, the game desperately needs ladders, and for those to come, the weapons and interactables system needs an overhaul. Expect crazier stunts and greater whiplash once that's done.

Another thing I seriously want to address this year is that lifeless placeholder entrance. We need lighting, we need pyro, we need camera changes, we need wrestler poses. The characters are there, the music is there, time to do some proper entrances!

Overall, I'm aware that the game is still in need of pretty much everything. Luckily, more moves and taunts naturally lead to finishers, and once you have finishers, you'll want to use them to win titles. CPW wouldn't be CPW if titles weren't going to be customizable as hell. The experimental phase regarding title belts is close to done, but getting them into the game the way I want them to is going to take a while.

To sum things up In terms of the roadmap that does exist, it's a mix of "We Got The Moves", "Dizzying Heights" and some of "Championship Material" that's going to govern development in 2026.

So yeah, CPW development is slow, sorry 'bout that. But at least you can already play it while those other devs keep hyperfocusing in their virtual basements!

Changelog

Before I forget about it, here's the changelog for this update.

Modding

• Content: Added full support for the import and sharing of 3D models as wrestlers via the Community Content Creation Package.

  • See the manual for a step-by-step guide.

• Content: Entrance themes can now be imported from files and the Steam Workshop.

  • The game supports MP3 (.mp3) and Ogg Vorbis (.ogg).

  • Themes can be imported directly to a created wrestler. See the manual for a step-by-step guide.

  • You can also create content packs with themes and share them on the Steam Workshop for others to use! See the manual on Content Packs for more information and an example.

Changes

• CAW: Added the ability to edit imported wrestlers in a restricted CAW mode, allowing to edit Attributes, Moves and Entrance settings.

  • Unlike for CAWs, the weight can freely be changed in the Attributes menu.

• CAW: Themes are now selected from a list dialog.

  • Themes imported via content packs are placed in different categories.

• CAW: When saving a wrestler and the wrestler's content pack contains any files no longer used, the player will now be prompted whether they want to remove these files to save space.

• Content: Accompanying JSON files for overlay textures and entrance themes are now generated automatically on startup with the default values. This is to make editing metadata more accessible.

• CPW Halloween: Updated Skelly McSpook using the CCCP, fixing some collision issues and accounting for the change mentioned below. He's also a tad smaller now.

• Music: Set proper loop start and end times for all applicable entrance themes.

Fixes

• CAW: Fixed renaming imported wrestlers confusing the internal asset bundle cache.

• Content: Fixed normal maps of custom overlay textures not loading.

• Menus: Fixed ending up in an empty menu after the "updated shared wrestler" prompt.

• Physics: Fixed occasional invalid memory accesses (and thus hopefully a rare crash) in rope physics library.

Technical

• CAW: Content borrowed from other content packs is now always imported to the created wrestler's content pack as a copy.

  • This is to avoid dependencies between content packs.

  • While this may cause redundancies, it ensures that content packs (particularly CAWs) can never break because another content pack is updated or removed, e.g., from the Steam Workshop.

  • In the future, depending on what modding features are added (e.g., scripting), a more fine-grained system may be created. For now, where content is equal to audiovisual assets, handling things this way should be preferable.

• CAW: Removed all logic behind "edit dependencies", since new saves of created wrestlers will always be self-contained (and thus "open source").

• Content: The build number system for content packs has been superseded by digests to make content pack authoring easier.

  • The game will consider all of your shared content outdated. While this is technically correct, there is no strict need to update all your Workshop items right away unless you, yourself, want to use them in online matches.

• Engine: Updated Unity (to 6000.3.9).

• Wrestlers: Reduced the number of points of interest that the game stores for wrestlers. CAWs saved before version 0.17.1 can still be loaded and should be updated automatically when they are saved (but there is no need to do so). Issues are not to be expected, but cannot be entirely ruled out. This changelog entry is for future reference.