Well, would you look at that? It's CPW's first anniversary!
A year ago, after deciding there's no good reason anymore to hide CPW from the public and that its further development would benefit from a release, I finally pulled the trigger on that. Even in lack of a great fanfare (referring to my marketing budget and effort of near-zero) and considering how much things have been and still are missing for this to be a complete wrestling game experience, CPW has far exceeded my very low expectations. To give you some numbers, back then I would have been happy if the game sold a hundred times. That number was crushed before Christmas was over and as of right now, make that times ten and then some! That threw my motivation off the charts and for that, thank you!
Across 17 updates over the past year - some very small and some much bigger - I can safely draw the conclusion that my idea worked out and CPW's development did benefit from an early Early Access release. Core gameplay has improved plenty, and at the same time I was able to deliver (at least one part) of a major update to add more moves to the game, which is what players seemed and still seem to want most. Despite its pretty early stage still, the game has received surprisingly positive reviews here on Steam, which seems to confirm my go at things. Trust me that makes me very happy and keeps me motivated! Thank you!
Talking about things keeping me motivated, I had been working very hard to get the Create-A-Wrestler mode fully integrated with the Steam Workshop for the Early Access release and man, did that pay out. The workshop counts over 1,000 creations from rebuilds and caricatures of real wrestlers next to totally crazy creations. A big shout out and honorary mention goes to JJ_Strife who outdid themselves by creating hundreds of those, most in jaw-dropping quality which I didn't think possible myself given the resources. Playing timed battle royals with a random selection of these CAWs is nothing short of funny and that's exactly what Casual Pro Wrestling, in its core, was supposed to be. So yet again, thank you!
Now I'm sitting here at the game's first anniversary - and also Christmas, by the way - and I don't have that massive update to throw out there that changes everything. Overall, I couldn't provide as much new content in this year's second half as I wanted. I have been stating and I will keep stressing that this is a one-man freetime effort. Until last year, that was next to an actual job and a little family with a baby boy. Since about halfway into this year, add to that that we're building a home for this little family, which by the way grew by one person in the meantime! Free time is a very limited resource right now and that's really the main thing holding me back from working upon the game. So please, never take the lack and sometimes small extent of updates as me "phasing out" on the game. The opposite is the case, I'm still kinda "phasing in", and, even if slowly, CPW will be developed for many years to come.
So I'll be very direct here: I've been unable to finish the update adding more wrestling-type moves such as headlocks and wristlocks and transitions between them. I hope to be able to release that in winter still, about 2-3 months into 2025, before going for the next major update. However, I am very happy to be able to provide an update that's definitely been missing in the past year. How does that meme go? It ain't much, but it's honest work!
Update 0.15.4: CAW Stuff
Let's hit 2,000 wrestler creations in 2025! What do we need for that? Right - more content for Create-A-Wrestler! So here goes.
This update adds some Create-A-Wrestler items that have been requested. It also greatly alleviates the problem of placed stamps going completely off after editing a wrestler's body shape, especially their height.
Additions
- CAW: Added eye skins.
- Full Color
- Iris (default)
- CAW: Added eye smoothness slider.
- CAW: Added heterochromia: wrestlers can now have differing left and right eyes.
- CAW: Added new attires and hairstyles.
- Male
- Medium Hair 3
- Short Hair 3
- Female
- Pigtails
- Short Hair 2
- Short Hair 3
- Both
- Bandana
- Bandana Mask
- Foot Wraps
- Kneepads (Open Back)
- Leg Wraps
- Luchador Top Mask
- Shoes
- Male
- Options: Added Show Kickout Bar option to enable or disable display of the kickout bar, or enable it only for human-controlled wrestlers.
Changes
- Arena: Placed Christmas trees on the stage!
- CAW: Eyes are now edited in a new submenu in the Skins menu. Depending on whether Heterochromia is active or not, you will see buttons to edit each eye individually.
- CAW: Placed stamps are now smartly repositioned on the body after editing body or attire morphs. This greatly mitigates stamps going off when editing the body after placing them to the point where it should only be possible to notice in very irregular places (due to technical limitations and the lack of a proper definition as to what is "perfect" here, there always remains some small amount of error).
- Menus: Rearranged settings in the Settings screen so everything fits.
Fixes
- CAW: Fixed additional attire parameters sometimes visually disappearing below the scrollable area.
Technical
- Engine: Updated Unity (to 6000.0.29).
Stay tuned and to those who celebrate it: Merry Christmas!