It's been a while since I had time for regular, non-crypto video games. Recently though, I found myself addicted to the text-based wrestling booker sim Total Extreme Wrestling 2020. It might not have the mainstream appeal of WWE 2K or the wrestling fanatic's favorite Fire Pro Wrestling series. Still, when it comes to fantasy wrestling booking, the TEW series has the most depth, in my opinion.
The game is highly moddable and there are plenty of real life mod you can plug in and play as the WWE, AEW, NJPW and etc. For me though, I absolutely love the virtual CVerse that comes with the game so I stick to that every time I play TEW.
Next Level Pro Wrestling
After simming two years in-game, I started a brand new wrestling promotion in America. America is the most active area in the game with many promotions, from minor to big. I kept myself isolated in the North West region to begin my conquest. One of the game features is "area battle", in which your shows will be compared to promotions from the same area, and the losers will take a deduction in their popularity. I want to build slowly so I pick a region with no other promotions yet. Do note that the Mid West area in this game differs from what you usually understand as "Mid West" in real life. In the game, the area consists of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Minnesota, Iowa, and Missouri. This is a map made by a fan of the game if anyone is curious.
This is my brand new company with my own vision and product. The game has a lot of products. "Product" is your brand of wrestling. It might be hard to understand as a layman, but every wrestling company has a different style. It's like rock music. They are all "rock music" to a casual, but an expert can tell you about its subgenre and break down how each band is different. Of course, some styles are less popular than others. In real life, weird comedy wrestling or bloody, hardcore wrestling isn't ever going to have a mainstream appeal like the WWE. In this game though, we can live our dream and have these weird products be at the top of the world if we want to. It's like a brutal deathcore band having Taylor Swift's level of popularity. My company isn't that "special" though. It just combines the more intense style from Japan and the gimmick and entertainment approach of American promotions.
Starting a brand new company is the reason why it takes so many hours for me to prepare for a single show. It's much simpler to join a running company and book them because they already have everything set. You have a full roster, ongoing storylines, and you can check previous shows to have a grasp on what's going on.
With a brand new company, I am not merely booking a show; I am planning many shows ahead. It's like the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I am planning the entire phase 1 and 2 at the beginning of it. I like it this way though. I love having an empty roster to hire who I want and it's 100% all me. This is a personal pet peeve of mine regarding creative activity. I simply love absolute creative freedom, like I want it all for myself.I am just like Vince McMahon, but without the money and allegation.
I did "house ruled" myself so I am not just taking all the best wrestlers there is on the market:
- I can only recruit from the nearby areas. This means that I am missing a lot of talents who live in the major states like Florida, New York, California, and etc. who are distant away. As true to real life, more workers choose to live in these places. FLPW's surrounding is rather barren.
- I should try to get wrestlers who are unemployed. Much like real life, indie wrestlers can work for multiple small companies. They are not exclusive until they "made it" to the big league -- the likes of WWE. Most of the good talents are hired so I am intentionally limiting myself to the less wanted with these rules.
It took me some time to check out everyone and I eventually hired more than I needed to. This has always been part of my problem with this game -- or the CVerse, to be precise. Everyone's so likable that I just can't help myself but to give them all a chance.
This is an example of a character's background. Every character, besides the randomly generated talents, has one. How can I not give "The Pirate of Men's Pants" a chance to prove her doubters wrong?!
Hey Man, You Wanna Wrestle in My Fed?
After hours of phone calls and online messaging, I scrabbled through all the talents and got myself 39 wrestlers ready to go. They were an interesting bunch. Some of them were veterans who never got into the big league but loved the business enough to stick with it until they were too old to continue. There were a few good wrestlers in the mix, out of consistent employment due to a recently defunct company. I also signed a lot of fresh new talents who just graduated from different wrestling schools not long ago. They were too green to be given much of a chance elsewhere, but I am more than happy to let them grow alongside me. That's part of the fun, after all.
See? They are as happy as I am even though they are only getting paid a few ten bucks per night.There are a lot of ways to play this game. Some just go the min-max route and focus on the number. Some book quickly and take it one show at a time. Me personally, I see myself as a creative player who enjoys the storytelling aspect of the game more than anything. I don't mind growing slowly or using less promising talents and risking my score as long as I can create the story of my vision. With that mindset in play, then came the meatiest part of my planning -- give everyone a gimmick and figure out what kind of story I wanted to tell with my federation.
As I am running a brand new company, everyone needs a gimmick and that's 39 characters to figure out. "Gimmick" is the wrestler's persona in wrestling. It can be subtle and realistic, or over-the-top cartoonish but everyone has their own character. I am running a typical wrestling product, so I also need to split my roster into a balanced amount of good guys (face) and bad guys (heel).
If you still don't "get" wrestling, just think of it as an action-packed, stunt-loaded theatrical performance. Everyone plays a character with their own agenda and alignment, there are multiple ongoing storylines to follow, and they all sure fight a hell lot!
Brainstorming
The first idea that came to my mind was an evil faction. I have always liked occult characters in wrestling, like Undertaker and Kane. Heck, I even roleplayed as one in some online e-feds long time ago. The Circle of Blue Moon is an evil witch coven led by a mysterious female figure. She will be bringing her dark minions night in and night out to destroy everything in their path. I made a very daring decision to start this plan: giving the role of the leader to a brand new wrestler.
Say hello to Vrexaura The Demise. She's a generated worker so she has no well-written background. All of them come to the world with a generic description. More details will get added through time as their career progresses but they are never going to be unique and interesting. Many players prefer original characters over these gens because they connect easier with them. For me, I love new gens - and I love them in any sports game I play - as their life and everything are all up for my imagination. Still, it's a very daring move to give this significant role to a new worker because they are very unlikely to be good off the bat.
This is her compared to the best worker in my company. For numbers with a range, it can be anything within the range. There's a chance that she's a bad talker with just 28 on the microphone and I just gave her a pivotal talking role to screw myself up. But hey, not making the best decisions can create interesting situations in a game. I chose her over others because she's the only lady on my roster with the "Plays Mysterious/Occult Well" trait.
The gimmick system in this edition is the most flexible of all time. You can easily "cheat" the system and just pick whatever your workers are good at as the gimmick base. I stick with playing honestly so I go with lovely Cheryl McKean for this occult gimmick. We can adjust our gimmick within the spectrum and I choose the full risky - super creative, super unique - option here. It's all a gamble whether this witch gimmick can succeed. I figured I might as well risk it all with an unknown worker and go all in.
These are the starting members of the Circle of the Blue Moon. While the picture cannot depict this, all three guys are masked monsters that Vrexaura will lead to the ring and command all at her will. Katariina is another witch in the cult that I include just so if Vrexaura doesn't work out, I can have her replaced by Katariina as the leader. The lady who played Katariina does have one heck of an interesting gimmick by default:
I merely adopted her "DupliKate" ability into a darker, witchy version.
Gimmicks For Him, Her, and You!
This was my gimmick distribution after everything was said and done. I also included some tag team ideas but those were for later. I was rather extreme with my gimmick ideas. I spent a lot of creative juice on some gimmicks. At the same time, I also gave plenty of workers very basic gimmicks like "classic mean heel". Some of those were intentional. I plan to change them up very soon after I figure out what I want to do with them by phase 2, which should be around 1-3 years later. I gave them something simple as a temporary fit as I worked with them. This way, I have time to study and understand their true capabilities. It's important to determine who is worth pushing in the future, rather than going all in on all the unknowns right off the gate.
Before I move on, this is a rundown of some of the more interesting gimmicks. Kip Keenan the Wrestling Symphony is a cool musician who finds ideas for his music from the sounds made inside the wrestling ring. I also give the gimmick its own finisher, Keenan in D. He will get more finishers as he "composes" more music. Mosher the Music Lover is another face (good guy) who loves music. It's not an interesting gimmick for now and I intend to keep him at the middle level of my company. I hold him rather plain as I intend to change him into a heel (bad guy) down the line. The plan to do that, as of now, is for him to be corrupted by the witches and become the Symphony of Death. This will set up a Kip Neenan vs. Mosher feud with music as part of the theme.
Mutant the King of the Wasteland is the top heel of the company. He comes with the gimmick intact and I am not changing it at all. In my own imagination, he's the Thanos-like powerhouse who dominates his opponent and is arguably the scariest dude on the roster right now. Depends on how it goes, one plan of mine later on is to have him join the witch coven as a legit monster of the darkness. If his current gimmick is a hit, then I can consider keeping it for the long term. I am flexible on this.
James Diaz the Monster Hunter is part of the main focus of the upcoming storyline with the witch coven. In essence, I want this man to lead the forces of good against the evil witches and the dark minions. This is also a play on his background, as he's the son of a wrestler known as The Monster. Now, he's trying to beat up on all the monsters. I have a lot of plans for him in phase 2. One of them is him continuing to be the good guy and going against any monster I put up. Alternatively, he could succumb to the witches or something else and become The Monster himself. The hunter becoming who he hunts is not a unique story but one I like a lot.
I also mix up some of the guys and girls to give them more things to do and more chances to show up. I picked that man to be the pirate partner of Joanna Silver just because his avatar looks like a pirate. Come on, you can't possibly tell me that man isn't a pirate with a bandana like that?! The hillbilly initially started as just a single man but I am out of ideas and figured I could stick a girl as his friend. They are the comedic duo who are there to get some laughs from the crowd. The gigantic man is a typical "ogre" character who is straight up dumb and potentially does a lot of stupid things in the ring. The girl is there to control him if needed. It's the classic goblin and ogre relationship.
You might also spot that I have Russell Westybrook in my roster with a basketball player gimmick. He is a generated worker with a random name and the dice land on that. As an NBA fan, I know I just have to get this guy as a tribute to Russell Westbrook.
It All Begins Here...
After all sorts of preparation, we arrived on the day of the show. Before we go further, let's just take all the fun imagination out of you all. We are just a tiny little indie fed at this stage. Whatever you see from the likes of WWE - the glamorous stage, the epic entrance filled with fireworks and titantron, wrestlers coming out in pristine custom-made costumes and cheered by the thousands of fans in attendance - you will not find them here, at all. We are just going to wrestle in a sweaty gymnasium filled with smelly, nasty craps of all kinds and wearing costumes that are not better than a random Halloween cosplay.
At least we avoided the sweaty gymnasium this time, even though I can't promise that this bar smells better. A low class feel to my low level fed is just right, and all I cared about was to have a full house of 148 fans in here. I didn't want my wrestlers to be staring at the empty seats. This bar, packed with aggressive and passionate wrestling fans, will do.
Locker Room Politics
My backstage rules are simple. I don't ask for a lot and I am happy to tolerate many things in the back. The only thing I care a lot about now is that everyone respects wrestling, is here early to work with everyone involved, and to only leave after the whole show is done. This is all about respecting our work as a whole, and I want everyone to support their fellow workers even after their own match. The company is far away from the state where we can support catering and transport for our talent. I do intend to provide for them in the future if we all make it.
Everyone arrived in time. Most of us were strangers to each other. As such, there was no backstage incident, as everyone minded their own business. The newer workers were delighted to have a chance to wrestle, so they were extra polite to everyone. Veterans were there to help ease off the pressure, and I was very happy to let everyone interact as I continued to work on the actual show.
If you are taking over an established company, you can expect the notable relationships to be loaded with a complicated web of friendships and mutual hatred. Backstage politic and drama is a part of the game. Whenever problems arise, you have to deal with them as the booker and boss.
Real life me would absolutely hate a meddling boss but CVerse me absolutely loved to be a social rat. I took a break from my planning and found two workers with a close working relationship to meddle with. I intentionally asked for the pirate duo to come and figure out their character relationship while I tried to lead their conversations.
(Game Tip: If you just want to create friendship, look for the matching personalities. I am just doing it more "realistic" based on in-character reasons and not expecting a lot out of it.)
Sadly for me, these two just never hit it off. I tried to lead them two into talking about strip clubs and etc. as you know, Joanna's a stripper, but nah, this Big Dog ain't that interested in that. It's okay, maybe they could hit it off with some wrestling talk? Before that happened though, Joanna got pulled aside by another worker. What impeccable timing! I shrugged alongside Big Dog and went back to planning the show.
It's Show Time
This was the main event of the night. I want O'zsharh to win and for the Coven of the Blue Moon to take over our first show. Thus, I had him winning with a decisive finish to prove that he's a monster that needs no extra help from anyone. The Coven is happy to cheat if needed but why bother when the monster can take care of everything on his own?
As we can see from the UI, there are a lot of these so-called road agent notes you can use to adjust how a match should play out. This kind of detail to booking and match-making is not found in other games in the genre.
The hours went by quickly as I was in the zone. With a pounding heart and a hot crowd as loud as a hundred fans could be, we started the show off a fatal four way match! Here are some main points as to how I book the inaugural shows:
- Two fatal four way matches are booked for the world championship storyline. Kip Keenan wins the first one and then explains the rules to the audience. The four winners (two more matches like that to come in my next show) are the top 4 contenders for the belt. Two single matches will be set up after that to determine the two challengers for the title belt match.
- Coven of the Blue Moon will absolutely dominate this show. Every one of them is booked to win. The only "cheap finish" (as in, cheating to win or involving outside help to win) comes from the leader Vrexaura. She is a great leader and manipulator but the weakest in a fight. We want to establish that as to give them some vulnerability and character depth.
- James Diaz is intentionally left off the show. The plan for him is to come in on the second show to assault the Coven. We want an epic debut for this man.
- Most matches are set up to have both veterans and youngsters included. This way, the young wrestlers can learn and improve from the veterans. This also keeps the match rating from being too low due to inexperience from the youngsters.
- The quality matches (in my mind) are put to the final hour of the show. The main event is the most important match for a show's final score so we need to have the best match at the end. Another thing we have to consider is "crowd mood". A hot, rowdy crowd will boost a match's rating so we want to set up the show in a way that the crowd will be hot for the main event. There are penalties for an exhausted crowd (hot for way too long and got tired) and a cold crowd (bored from multiple disappointing segments). We need to try to get them just right.
This is the result screen of a segment. The game does provide a lot of insight to help us players learn so we can book better shows in the future. The game does have a notepad panel for you to record stuff with. I don't really get it though but it's there. I usually use the notepad from Windows and Excel sheets.
Our first show was a success, as indicated by the popularity increase note. Our popularity is 25 so anything above that is a win. There are a lot of takeaways from this show but I am not going to bored the readers with all the details.
Of course, the process never stops here. There are so many things to figure out before the next show, especially the gimmicks. There are some results that might get in the way of my initial plan.
This is a perfect roll. "Great" is the second best rating and he will get a boost from every segment just by having a positively-rated gimmick. He will be used to talk a lot so the bonus boost to mic skill is absolutely wonderful to have.
This is one of the worst rolls I get and it's on one of my pivotal characters. Menace has no use for her and the charisma and star quality penalties hurt. I still intend to keep using her as a "main character" for my first few storylines though. Other less important workers with bad rolls aren't so lucky...
We also discovered a new chemistry in our first show and it's a negative chemistry. Thankfully, it's not between two of our main guys so the issue is minimal. For maximum replayability, these are randomly generated and completely different for every game. It might change how you book your show. If your planned feud has two guys with horrible chemistry, you should change things up. If some random wrestler tag team pairing you throw in to fill time have great chemistry together, you can decide to make them a legit tag team, which you wouldn't do without the chemistry.
Verdict
I don't often play TEW but it's very enjoyable whenever I go, "darn it, how I miss booking some wrestling shows." TEW20 has a lot of great improvements and the UI is the most helpful of all editions. I highly recommend this to any wrestling fan who wants a canvas for their wrestling dreams. Most wrestling fans I know have a lot of storylines inside their head. This game allows us to let it all out!
And that's all from me today -- I have a lot more shows to get through my mind right now, adios!
Disclaimer: Every picture in this article are screenshot taken by me from the game itself. All rights reserved.
