Big Time Professional Rasslin (1988)

“Ladies and Gentlemen! It’s time for the Main Event of the Evening!”

This is a very simple game, composed of a wrestling ring (printed on the inside of the cover) a few cardboard stand-up wrestlers to cut apart and the rulebook itself.

The game suggests several types of matches to play (1-on-1, 2-on-2, or free for all) but in reality any form of pro-wrestling you can think of could be played out with the game, and fairly quickly.

The action flows like this: at the beginning of the round, wrestlers roll for initiative, then in order each wrestler takes two actions, then the round ends. Actions range from the mundane (move, stand-up, block, defend) to the slightly more interesting (grab/hold, flying leap, body slam, bouncing ram, cheap shot.) Rules for referees, pinning and foreign objects are also included for completeness.

The real meat of the game is in the campaigning. Each match may take only 20 minutes to play out, but the game features a complete character creation system, as well as rules for continuing a character through a series of matches, with the usual stat-building, etc. An interesting addition to this is popularity, which is increased by different things depending on whether your character is “good” or “bad” and as one could expect side-switching between matches is always a possibility… Characters can be further fleshed out by creating a manager for them as well as a signature move.

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