Pixely Wrestlers

So I just finished and submitted my first game to Unity and have been considering working on a wrestling game next... Maybe. In any case, I've been mocking up the style that the wrestlers may look like and what better cast to practice on than the PAX Wrestlers.

Here are a few heads.

And here's an animation test I was working up till my comp crashed.

I still have to animate the hands and hair, but you get the jist.

I haven't blogged in a while so I thought maybe I'd post updates to whatever becomes of this here =]

Got around to animating the hair and hands.

I like the full body size of the animated Tracksuit but I'm thinking I may need to go with something more Chibi for the actual game. Especially since the head, pants, and tops need to be mix and matchable.

So, in my attempt to figure out a way to animate a wide number of characters and combinations without having to draw a million frames for every variation, I checked out what bone/mesh animations would look like with pixel art. The result... is horrifying...

This is an incredibly basic animation and I didn't go so far as to separate the arms and legs, just the upper body, head, and lower torso. Oh a small screen it may be okay but there's something about wavy pixels that's rubbing me wrong. I may try non-mesh bone animation. It's still a bit janky but at least the pixels themselves stay in a roughly square shape. I'm pretty sure that's what games like Terraria use -_-;;

So I've decided to go with a lower pixel size with smaller and simpler animations. And currently this is where I'm at.

Wow! Great work duder!

Wow looks almost right out of Firepro for the GBA looks great!

Thanks!

I've not seen that game but now I must search it out =P

Looks awesome so far. As far as making a wrestling game goes good luck, if fire pro and the WWE games are any indication its a shit load of work.

Wow PAXAMANIA could quite soon have a video game - where will the madness will end!

I can just imagine The Wolf thrashing his dreads like Blanka in street fighter.

Of course Doctor Tracksuit would be what crashed your computer... that animation of him is really good so far.

This would be a really exciting idea. Love the initial designs!

Fucking awesome.

Nice!

These look great! And good luck with your game!

That looks awesome. You could add a little teeth grinding "Rrrrrr" to the animation. That could be cool.

Dr. Tracksuit's wild hair never fails to amuse me.

This looks incredible. Excited to see where this goes (if indeed it winds up going somewhere).

I'm thinking more management sim/scripted wrestling events rather than a fighting game type thing. That should make things way easier in terms of the actual wrestling.

I doubt I could straight up use PAXAMANIA...

That'd be pretty sweet >,<

Ugh. I stopped animating last night and just tried to track down what was causing BSoD. No luck.

Those are mostly for testing purposes. I dunno if I could gather all of em to make it legit...

Thanks!

Please keep your client from tracking me down >,<

tyty~

You know what... that's a solid idea.

His hair KIIIIINDA looks wet animated.

Me too!

Here's an update.

This is too awesome.

That animation is fantastic!

@fobwashed: Yeah it's not as good animated because the parts sticking out all move in the same direction at the same time. It might be better if you could desynchronise them.

@fobwashed: Alternative names:

• Dr Tracksuit's PAX Rumble
• Dr Tracksuit's Wrestlefest 2015
• Dr Tracksuit's Sharpshooters (or misc other wrestling move name)
• Dr Tracksuit's Adventures in Wrestling I: The PAX Rumble
• The Powerbombers / The Powerbombduders
• Macho Man Dr Tracksuit
• Game Industry Grumble
• Well this list is getting pointless
• Yet I continue onward
• The PAX Rumblers
• PAX Prime All Stars
• PAX Punchers
• PAX Punchdown
• The PAX Movement
• PAX PrimeTimers

On a subject not wrestling game name related, how easy is it to learn / make a game with Unity and what other software do you recommend?

Highly depends on what you want to do and your current skillset. I built a game and submitted to the iTunes App store in 5 months flat. That being said, I'm pretty proficient with C# and decent at art. I heard if you know little to no coding, that GameMaker is a good place to start.

@fobwashed: I've got the equivalent of a years worth of computer science under my belt now so I'll probably jump into it a bit over our summer break and just see whats up. Any thoughts on alternatives such as Monogame?

woah

sweeeeeeet

Nice work, duder. It's always really cool to see the talents of the community on display.

The animation looks great !

@fobwashed: You might want to look up the old PC-98, SNES series wrestle angels for idea's then, they had a mode where you manage a federation or just a single wrestler in there. They also had a pretty cool idea for turning Mahjong into a wrestling game by assigning different ability's to different tiles/cards

I'm getting a heavy Tim Schafer vibe off Dr. Tracksuit that I kinda dig. As always, great work @fobwashed!

My life is now complete. Amazing work duder!

P.S. I think you should totally make Ryan a secret character :)

This is sweet !

Looks cool.

Monogame is basically XNA which is what I started with. It's pretty solid but Unity and Unreal being free, I'd highly suggest you jump into either one of those. It really helps a lot to have some real tools and not just a framework.

Whoooaaa~~

Yea, I've been busy lately. This stuff is like killing two birds with one stone since I can use em in what may be my next game project =]

Awesome! Thanks!

Not sure where I'd find it but I'll give it a look see =]

Legend of Tim is the best. That's fine with me!

I think you're right.

You're sweet!

Thanks!

I don't think the full size style will work well with what I've got planned so I whipped up a chibi size that should work a bit better. Gonna try a few more head shapes/bodies to see if it's something I can run with. Here's a sample =]

Amazing stuff -- great job!

So good.

These are really good.

Thanks!

You're GOOD!

You're REALLY GOOD!! =D

So I'm trying out various methods to see if there's a way to animate a large number of different sprites easily. One thing I'm checking out is using bone/mesh animation and... well... It's kinda horrifying.

I dunno that looks pretty cool too. Has a nice smooth move to him.

I've moved in a different direction >,<

I like the look!

Also, off topic, what was the game you finished and submitted?

I am learning to program and working on a game... have all those arm chair game designer ideas. Inspired by Jeff's calls for a "real wrestling game", I would love to see a wrestling game that somehow would embrace the fictional element of the source material. Not that it's what you're going for, just something that seeing it brings to mind.

this looks amazing so far, but i think it's funny in the latest version pope and Aaron look gigantic in comparison lol. can't wait to see where it's headed!

The game that's in submission right now is called Treads! and I'm hoping it'll be up in the App Store in a few days!

I think the resources needed to make a full fledged wrestling game like Jeff wants is way out of the scope of me doing this thing by myself. What I'm going for is gonna be a way simplified wrestling management sim =]

It's a perspective thing. They're actually the exact same size as the wrestlers =P

Ah of course, but still, you can still embrace the fiction if you want!

I'll keep an eye out for the game. Congrats.

Just picturing Mary Kish walking a human dog in 8-bit format.