Back in 1988, Robin Harbron and his friend Darren Foulds were working on a wresting game, heavily inspired by The Exciting Hour/Mat Mania by Technos.
They had a bit of fun and added some famous characters in the background and even had something playable running at one stage, with two wrestlers who could move freely around the ring.
There was no AI, and the game was only two players with some basic fighting moves before Robin and Darren moved onto other projects.
Unfortunately Robin has not yet found anything of the demo, but is hopeful that it will turn up some day, so that it can be added to the archives for posterity.
Contributions: Robin Harbron
Supporting content
Gallery
Creator speaks
Robin Harbron talks about the game via Twitter:
“I don’t know why we left such a huge unused area at the bottom of the screen. That’s getting into Last V8-level goofiness!
If I remember correctly, the two wrestlers could move freely around the ring, and I was pretty proud of how the wrestlers seamlessly swapped sprites so the draw priority was correct. One wrestler could circle the other and it would look correct.
They could also “punch” (forearm smash?) each other, and would fall over if hit maybe 5 times in a row. I don’t think there was any AI, it was 2-player only. That was about as far as the gameplay got.
Special people in the crowd, from the left: Ernie, Bert, Ninja, Popeye, Mr. T, Batman, Punk (not sure he counts), and E.T.”
