Happy New Year, everyone!
Over the course of 2022, as we approach the planned Early Access launch around Christmas, I will give several insights into this upcoming professional wrestling game: Casual Pro Wrestling.
This first blog is about wrestling with ragdolls. Ragdolling wrestlers are a fundamental feature in Casual Pro Wrestling that adds drama to all kinds of bumps, as well as a lot of fun. But what are ragdolls, how does the idea fit in a wrestling game and how does it look in this game?
Human Bodies in Games
Chances are you already know ragdolls. The basics are simple: a human body can roughly be described mathematically by a set of volumes. For example, an arm could be composed of two cylinders representing the upper and lower arm, plus a box to roughly describe the bounds of the hand, disregarding the fingers. The volumes are interconnected by joints with certain limits regarding how they can rotate (e.g., you cannot typically rotate an elbow outwards). When we define a human body programatically in this fashion and we give all this information to a physics simulation, we speak of a ragdoll.
This is how such a body definition could be visualized (click to enlarge):
You'll notice the boxes and cylinders that approximate the extremities, as well as other points that are marked on the body, which are used for other purposes.
Passive vs. Active
We can differentiate between active and passive ragdolls. Passive ragdolls, despite the term arguably not being used often, are very common in games. They can be thought of as limp bodies that would simply crumple, e.g., to indicate that a character is dead. Contrary to that, when speaking about active ragdolls, we typically mean that artificial physical forces are being added to the body to keep it upright and impose some kind of control over it. While that can be pretty cool, active ragdolls tend to be very hard to control for human players. A prominent — albeit very primitive — example for this is QWOP ...
Wrestling with Ragdolls
In Casual Pro Wrestling, players are to assume full control over their characters. Therefore, wrestlers are animated in classical fashion most of the time, this is not an active ragdoll game. Only when wrestlers lose composure after being hit very hard, or if they are on the wrong end of a maneuver, they are simulated as passive ragdolls to add a pinch of drama to the situation. In that sense, the ragdoll feature in Casual Pro Wrestling is just for fun.
So let's have a look at some footage, shall we?
As you see, the passive ragdolls create some authenticity on one hand: the bodies interact with the environment in a more or less realistic fashion. This is especially visible when throwing opponents into the ropes, into objects or onto one another. On the other hand, this is clearly a bit over the top – exactly as intended, because this opens up a lot of possibilities to wreak havoc!
I hope you enjoyed this first look at the game and began to think about what you'll try when your get your hands on this. If you have any questions about this feature or about the game in general, please ask away, I'll be happy to answer. In any event, see you for the next development blog!