Pro Wrestling Tycoon

The bell rings for 1.0

Pro Wrestling Tycoon has left Early Access. Thank you to everyone who booked a card, built a company, or shared feedback along the way. Whether this is your first day in the chair or the start of another run, welcome to the full release.

The turn is yours until you end it. Book the television. Put a house show in a town that still cares. Decide who goes home looking like the star of the night. Then the day moves. Other companies book their own cards. A contract comes due. Someone in the locker room wants a word, and the newspaper already has a version of last night.

Pro Wrestling Tycoon is a day-by-day wrestling promotion sim. The card, the roster, the money, the network deal, and the stories people are still arguing about at the end of the year all sit on your desk. You play the promoter. The rest of the industry keeps moving while you do.

Run the night and watch it back: the gate, the segment grades, who got over, who got hurt, and what it did to the bank account.

One day at a time

You play in turns. While you are in, you book, negotiate, and deal with whoever is waiting outside the office. End the turn when the day is finished. In a save with one promoter, the calendar advances. Add more users and each of them takes a turn in the same world before the date moves. Pass the chair. The game writes the save as you go.

The morning opens on a dashboard you can arrange. Today's cards, the weeks ahead, messages, offers, promises, and the stories with the most heat. A show that is not booked, and a decision you have not answered, stay in front of you until you handle them. Finish the card, hand it to quick book, or call that date off and live with what it costs.

When the day advances, the cards run. Attendance, ratings, injuries, morale, money, and viewership come out of what was actually booked. Popularity settles. Debuts happen. Injuries heal or get worse. Offers resolve. Then it is morning again.

Book the card

A show is a series. Premium, standard, or developmental. Weekly, monthly, or once a year. Open a date, pick a building, and lay out the night. Dark time sits before and after the broadcast. The televised window has to fit the show.

Matches. Participants, a gimmick, a finish, a referee, a road agent, and any title on the line. Order the card yourself. Auto-book puts the bout most likely to rate well in the main event, and keeps two matches of the same strength from sitting back to back.

Angles. Promos, attacks, and the beats between matches. This is how a feud moves on a week when nobody needs to wrestle.

Road agent notes. Pace, effort, risk, who looks strong, who takes the bump. The simulation reads them. A worker with creative control can refuse to look weak.

Auto-book. Fill a card from scratch, or keep the segments you already wrote and let the rest of the night be filled and reordered. Television can also book itself when the day advances.

House shows. Open dates between television. Tickets, merchandise, and chemistry. Ask two wrestlers to face each other, to team, or name the whole match, and keep running it until they click. Pin a request to one town on one night. The era you are in decides how often the road is worth running. A Golden Age company lives on house shows. In a television era they thin out, and the weekly show carries the business.

Tape ahead. Record the next few episodes in one building on one night, up to four. You pay the building once. Later episodes in the sitting come in colder, and anyone who works more than one of them feels it. Title changes happen when you tape. The newspaper waits until the episode airs.

Touring. Stay home all year, or take the company on the road and go dark when the tour window closes.

Once in a long while the night gets away from the plan. A preliminary wrestler goes to war with a name and walks out a star. The right voice, on the right show, cuts a promo that the whole territory feels. Those moments show up when the pieces are in place. You watch the building turn.

The locker room

Push is a board, from the main event down to enhancement. Drag someone up a column and the crowd, the worker, and the rest of the card all read it. Staff sit beside them: announcers, commentators, managers, referees, road agents, and trainers.

Contracts. Verbal, written, and lifetime deals. Wages, bonuses, brand, alignment, and a manager. Give a raise, grant a perk, send someone to developmental, or release them after you have seen the cost. Pending offers resolve overnight. When a rival puts a written deal in front of your talent, you can match it, counter it, or let it sit.

Gimmicks. Schedule a change when a character has gone stale. Fresh plays. Stale shows up on the creative board, next to who is on fire and who is ice cold.

Masks. A mask is its own name, with prestige that climbs when it is worn in matches that matter and fades on the shelf after it is retired. A known mask pops the crowd, gets the wearer over, and sells. In Mexico, and anywhere that wearer is already over, it means more. The mask can become more famous than the company.

Catchphrases. A good talker can get a line over. Microphone skill, charisma, momentum, and the size of the show decide if it sticks. Say it about once a week on television and it stays hot. Say it in every town and it dies. While it is hot, wins hit harder and the shirts move. The game tracks the heat. It leaves the line to you.

Talk to them. Attitude, teamwork, the weight, the habits, rehab, a break, retirement, or a move into a staff role. Every yes has a tradeoff. The answer depends on their personality and how they feel about you. A retired worker can be talked back into the ring, if they still have anything left and they still like you.

Promises. They will ask. A title shot. A better spot. A promise not to job. Creative control. A feud, a tag team, a friend hired, a rival fired. Accept, and you are on a clock that fits their personality. Keep it and the relationship rises. Miss it and it drops further than a simple no.

Discipline and crises. Failed drug tests, broken house rules, a story that got out. Fine them, suspend them, send them to rehab, or fire them. When it goes public, issue a statement, stay quiet, try to bury it, or hang the talent out. Networks notice.

Injuries. Who is out, for how long, and whether you can still book them. Hiatus, rehab, and suspension show on the roster.

Developmental. Child promotions and dojos are where the next card is built. Call someone up when they are ready, or send a veteran down.

Backstage. Friends, rivals, mentors, the people the room listens to, and who is miserable. Look before you put two of them in the same segment.

Figurehead. One active wrestler represents the company. A popular face whose personality reflects well on you sells more, fills more seats, and holds more viewers, and the effect grows the longer they hold the role. A poor choice sits under normal. Changing it locks the decision for 90 days.

Stories that last longer than one show

Matches land harder when people are in programs.

Feuds. Two sides and a heat grade. Plan the next 90 days of television: an angle here, a match there, a blowoff on the premium. A hot feud sometimes runs through that show and pays off at the next one. Auto-plan lays the program out and leaves any segment you wrote yourself alone.

Tag teams and stables. Pairs and factions. Chemistry changes how a match plays, and it grows faster on house shows than on television. Hot stables get booked together. A manager in the corner matters.

Titles. Championships by brand and division. Limit a belt to a match type, a number of people, or one specific show, and auto-book will defend it there, champion included. Track the reign. Vacate it when the story asks.

Brands. Split the roster and the television, then book each side on its own cards.

Creative. A scouting board. Top faces, top heels, future stars, ring generals, who is on fire, who is ice cold, who is fresh, and who has gone stale.

The company has to make payroll

The card is half the job. The other half is keeping the lights on.

Product. Comedy, danger, drama, realism, how far the show will go, storytelling, and violence. Lighting, music, sets, broadcast quality, and pyro. The crowd in front of you has tastes of its own, and the era you are in decides which of those tastes pay. A big show is graded on the styles and gimmick matches that era came to see.

The building and the booth. Venues by region, capacity, and rent. Default announcers and commentators. A televised show with an empty booth is handed your best available team. Leave the referee or the road agent off a match and the grade shows it.

House rules and backstage. Call times, media duties, a dry locker room. Catering, a trainer, a masseuse, hotels, a wellness program, drug testing. Each one costs money and changes what the roster will put up with. Break the rules and it can become discipline, or a story.

Tickets. Set the average for house shows, developmental, standard television, and premiums. Price past what the market will bear and the building looks empty. A single show can override the company price.

Merchandise and sponsors. Sales follow the shows, who is over, who is hot, and who is wearing a mask people already know. A good figurehead moves the pile. Sponsors pay the televised cards, and a smaller fee on the house shows.

Finances. A monthly ledger. Broadcasting, tickets, merchandise, sponsorship, and trade money on one side. Wages, production, travel, buildings, amenities, and the loan on the other. Pay a loan off early when the month allows.

Banks. Borrow when the gate is thin. The interest comes due, and a promoter who lives at the bank gets noticed.

Television. Pitch one show, or a whole slate of yearly events in one conversation. Time slot, length, and the split. Two shows cannot share a slot on the same night. A lapsed deal takes the show off the air. A public crisis moves how the network feels about you.

Your name on the building. Change the company name, the short name, and the logo. The office is yours.

An industry that books without you

You are one office with a pencil.

Rival promotions. They hire, release, book, protect the people they believe in, and come after yours. Take over a company that already exists, or found one. A new company starts from what your name is worth in that territory.

Diplomacy. Ally, trade talent, set up a developmental deal, or go to war. Try to end it. Or try something dirty and hope it stays out of tomorrow's paper.

Alliances. Independent promotions under one working agreement. Shared titles, supershows, talent that crosses the territory, dues, a pot, and votes. Host a visiting champion and that town shows up. Run a show in a member's home region from the outside and the gate comes in lighter. The presidency belongs to a person. Take over their promotion and the office stays where the alliance left it. Rival promotions found alliances of their own.

Territories. Every region has an economy, a wrestling industry, and an audience: how much drama, comedy, realism, edge, storytelling, and violence they want. A strong market and a cold one are not the same place to run a show.

Eras. The business changes under you. An era sets which shows matter, which styles are in favor, how many gimmick matches the crowd wants, and whether house shows are the lifeblood or a rarity. The United States, Japan, Mexico, and the British Isles each keep their own history. The morning a new era begins, the newspaper says what just changed. The date in the header tells you which one you are standing in.

News. Recaps, signings, injuries, scandals, birthdays, and the weekly, monthly, and yearly look back. The day's loudest stories sit on top, with a face on each one.

Rankings, awards, and a Hall of Fame. Power rankings through the year. On New Year's Day, a ballot from the year you just ran: wrestler, face, heel, match, angle, feud, promotion, show, pay-per-view, tag team, rookie, most improved, and comeback. A Hall of Fame that remembers careers.

The directory. People, companies, networks, dojos, banks, and sponsors. Search jumps you to a name.

You get better at the job

You build the promoter. Three hundred points to start, across creativity, diplomacy, leadership, marketing, motivating, negotiating, networking, and persuasion. The work pays experience. Spend it when you level up. Negotiating a contract and selling a network are different skills, and both of them are yours to raise.

Scratchpads and the notes on a person's page stay with your user. They are where the long-term plans live. The other promoters in a shared save keep notes of their own.

Hand the office as much as you want

Every automation option starts off. Turn on the ones you want, and that part of the company runs when the day advances.

Roster. Hiring, releases, extensions, push, alignment, and managers.

Developmental. Call-ups and send-downs.

Stories. Tag teams, stables, titles, shows, and feuds, filled out to what a company of your size should be running.

Business. Operations, ticket prices, and network deals.

Cards. Premium, standard, and developmental television, plus house shows on the weekdays and weekly count you set.

Talent relations. The talks, the crises, and the people coming back, so those decisions stay off your desk.

A feud plan leaves any segment you already wrote. A card you opened and did not finish can still hold the turn until you close it.

Start from a world

Choose a mod, find a world on the Workshop, or generate a Random universe. A built-in default universe is still in progress and is not included in version 1.0.

Mods. A base mod is the industry. Companies, people, titles, shows, networks, venues, dojos, alliances, gimmicks, and the rules of that world. Create one, edit it, import it, or export it. Pictures live in folders beside the database, and you can bring a whole folder in at once.

Steam Workshop. Subscribe to worlds and picture packs, or publish your own. A mod and its pictures are separate Workshop items. Subscribe to both when a world needs its portraits.

Random universe. The game generates a world, companies and people included. It takes a few minutes. Portraits start blank until you assign them. A generated world arrives with a Hall of Fame already behind it.

Bring a world with you. Convert a Pro Wrestling Sim or Total Extreme Wrestling IX database into a mod and book that industry. Companies, workers, contracts, titles and their history, teams, stables, relationships, alliances, feuds, shows, broadcasters, and venues come across. Picture filenames come with them. Booked cards and the image files themselves stay behind. Pro Wrestling Tycoon is not affiliated with Pro Wrestling Sim, Grey Dog Software, or Total Extreme Wrestling IX. Convert a database only with its creators' consent, and credit them when you share the result.

Steam Cloud keeps your saves. Mods and pictures stay on your machine.

Your 1.0 run starts here

Start from a mod, the Workshop, or a Random universe. Found a promotion or take the chair at an existing company. What you book, who you sign, and how the territory answers will decide what your company becomes. Here's to the next great card.