With most of the planned major features currently in the game, focus has shifted to the last couple of big things left to do. The biggest of these is artificial intelligence. I’ve deliberately avoided putting much AI in the game prior to now, knowing that the game was likely going to undergo many changes along the way, and not wanting to create extra work by having to constantly throw out and re-write AI code. However, with a substantial amount of the code base and most of the design now done, I feel comfortable adding AI rivals to flesh out the game world.
More about AI
The AI in the game primarily needs to be able to do two things:
Manage a roster.
Book cards.
#1 is the part that’s under development right now. AI rival promotions are generated at the beginning of the game with their own rosters, which can be viewed in the standard Roster menu with a drop-down filter.
The AI needs to have some understanding of which wrestlers to sign, how much money to give them, how big a roster should be, etc. The most important aspect is that the AI needs to have some idea about roster composition. Because a big part of the game is about dividing up screen time, and wrestlers with higher ratings demand more appearances on TV each month, the AI needs to know not to sign a roster full of wrestlers it can’t actually feature. At the same time, a promotion with no stars will be stuck putting on bad shows week after week, so the goal is for the AI to keep a roster with enough good wrestlers to put on good shows, without the roster getting so bloated that no one can get screen time.
On top of that the AI needs to know how to scout and sign free agents. There also needs to be an ability for the AI to let wrestler contracts expire and have them become free agents to create some roster turnover, and to give the player the opportunity to poach talent. If everyone’s roster stays the same year after year, that’s not very interesting. There will also be circumstances under which wrestlers signed to the player’s promotion can leave, even if the player wants to re-sign them, but that’s a story for another day.
The overall goal is for the AI to have enough knowledge to keep a solid roster together, while leaving enough wiggle room for wrestlers to move around between promotions and keep things fresh.
OTHER DEVELOPMENTS
There’s a lot of new art going into the game, trying to get the final look of everything nailed down over the next couple of months. Not everything is ready to show yet, but some cool new environments are done.
Cage matches now have an actual cage visible (ladder matches will have a ladder):
Up until now promos could only happen in the ring, but now there’s an option to hold them in a backstage interview area:
Another recent change to promos is that a wrestler cutting a promo by themself (a “Solo Promo” in the game’s lingo) can now pick a specific opposing wrestler to cut the promo against. Previously Solo Promos always featured a wrestler promoting themself, but now there’s more variety with the ability to have them call out a rival. This doesn’t change any of the statistical results of the promo, but it adds a bit more flavour and feels a bit more like a real wrestling show.
And finally, we’re adding some variety to the wrestler sprites, such as the ability to add a lucha libre-style mask:
Next month I’ll be back with more AI discussion and a bunch of new graphics to show off.