Week Five is finished for this WCW ROM hack project.

This week was focused on tag team attires. To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.

Graphic Updates

Finally got back into a good rhythm with attires this week, staying focused on tag teams. I wrapped up work on The Enforcers (Anderson & Zbyszko), The Skyscrapers (Spivey & Callous), The Freebirds (Hayes & Garvin), and the Miracle Violence Connection (Gordy & Williams). A lot of these attires were unique rather than simple palette swaps, which definitely made the week feel more productive.

My favorite part this week was the variety in the Freebirds’ attires. Using Impel trading cards and old YouTube matches for reference, I built a set of black tights with simple white patterns—pretty true to their look. But to support proper color-change options in the ROM, I set their defaults to red and blue instead. Fortunately, the designs still look great no matter what colors you switch to.

I also put together their six-man tag attires with pink and green designs. Unfortunately, fitting their names—like “Michael P.S.”—onto the thighs was too messy with the limited space, so I dropped that idea. I did save the pattern work, though, since I plan to use it when I create Badstreet later on.

My favorite attire to create this week was Garvin’s look from the Freebirds’ breakup era in WCW. I’m not sure why that specific design grabbed me out of all their options, but something about it pulled me in while I was digging through references. I also plan on making a better body shape for people between Medium and Thick such as Garvin, Hayes, Spivey, etc.

And speaking of the Freebirds, I added an alternate Gordy attire featuring his split-trunks star pattern from his Japan and WCCW runs. In the 80s, the gear usually included matching kneepads and boots, but for now I’m keeping things simple to stay consistent with the project’s timeline.

I might go back and redo Dr. Death’s alt singlet. I felt that using VPW2’s E7 singlet was a little too small and mine, based off of Bret Hart’s Revenge singlet shape, might be too big.  I’m also still conflicted about including Mark Callous in the project, but I feel he fits this era despite debuting as the Undertaker in 1990.

With this update, I’ve officially passed the halfway mark for the planned attires in this project. To celebrate the milestone, I shared my first public post on the N64WrestlingGames subreddit, which included a video showcasing the 89 attires completed so far. I still enjoy posting updates on my website and YouTube, but I thought it would be nice to give people a look at what’s currently in the works.

I also need to stay away from that subreddit. Sometimes I see people creating wild reenactments, jumping off cages or titantrons, and feel compelled to do the same. I even whipped up a quick Ultimate X match in WWF No Mercy and posted highlight GIFs of Christopher Daniels vs. Samoa Joe. Then I thought about remaking the finish in AEW’s Blood and Guts or a HIAC in WrestleMania 2000, and it quickly became a slippery slope. It’s fun to be curious, but I can’t let it distract me from the WCW project.

Wrap Up

Aside from the brief WWF No Mercy distraction, this week felt more productive than the last. Next week will start with the Midnight Express and Rock & Roll Express attires. My goal is to reach at least Abdullah the Butcher on the roster. We’ll see how it all takes shape.

Wrapping up Week Four for this WCW ROM hack project.

This week was mostly spent on the Steiner Brothers’ unique singlets and some progress with the Road Warriors. To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.

Graphic Updates

I went into this week hoping to blitz through tag team wrestling, but then the Steiner Brothers happened. Modding their unique singlets proved to be a major task. I had to align graphics across four to five different textures, work within the ROM’s limit of eight colors, and still make the designs customizable through the Color Change options.

The Steiners. Two wrestlers, four attire slots, PLUS a fifth throwback attire for each. Ten costume slots. Hundreds of different palettes and images to create. And it was rough.

Despite looking nice at the start, some attires just didn’t work out. I started on Rick Steiner’s “Numbers” attire and had a solid alignment, but ran into blurring issues on the upper leg, which threw the simple design off balance.

I considered converting some World Tour attires into Revenge, but they didn’t look quite right. I could have used his default “Confetti” attire, but I wanted to create fresh takes for the hack. These are the four designs I settled on for Rick Steiner.

Attire 1 and 2 were pulled from WCW Magazine references. Attire 3 is inspired by his World Tour “Spots” attire, just edited to look more like his real version. Attire 4 is a generic “Zebra print” style which can also double as a solid. He wasn’t so “round” during this era, so I am leaving him with the Thick body shape for now. These are also just default heads/faces, that will be expanded on later.

I had the same blurring issue with Scott Steiner’s “Rainbow Squares” singlet, the one he mostly wore in WWF, so I decided to drop it. These were the four designs I settled on with Scott.

Attire 1 is a basic solid singlet. Attire 2 was his split zebra pattern. Attire 3 is a take on their gradient stripes. And the final Attire 4 is a split paint splatter style. They really leaned into the 90s Memphis abstract art style, but many of those didn’t translate well to ROM hacking  graphic limitations.

And lastly with the Steiners, I included two “throwback” 80s attires. Scott with the yellow trunks and boots. Rick with the University of Michigan singlet from the Varsity Club. I didn’t add “Dogface Gremlin” on the back though. It wouldn’t fit.

Later in the week, I made more progress by completing several Road Warriors attires. They were basic variants of their WARRIORS/LOD tights. Might favorite was creating the one with the skull/bones/cross logo.

I don’t really want to do the leather chaps or jean shorts from the early years. Though, I want to add their “Legion of Doom” attire that was introduced in 1990 when they went to the WWF. While not WCW, it feels too iconic to be ignored for this time period.

I also have the textures for Anderson and Zybyzko complete, but they haven’t been converted to the ROM yet. On paper, 16 new attires have been added this week, but because it was only 4 wrestlers, it didn’t feel like much progress.

Roster Updates

The more I looked at my first roster, the more I realized I was drifting into 1993–94 territory instead of staying true to my original 1990–91 focus. When I play this game, I want to be transported back to the days of Impel trading cards and Galoob figures.

I cut some wrestlers (ex. Bulldog, Patriot), rearranged a few others (Muta-> Group 2), reduced the Japan stables to one, expanded the NWA “Legends” stables to two, and added a few more managers (J.J. Dillon + Gary Hart). I don’t want to lean into joke gimmicks, deep cuts, one-offs, or even female slots. My vision for this ROM hack is to create a fun, engaging experience where classic NWA and WCW fans can relive and recreate the wrestling of the 1980s and early 1990s.

(Nothing is final until the coding goes into the ROM, which will happen after all the attires and heads are complete.)

Wrap Up

It didn’t feel like a successful week, but looking back, the Steiner Brothers have the most complex attires on the roster. Completing them was a major hurdle, and now progress should flow more smoothly with the upcoming wrestlers. I’m still not advertising or promoting this project anywhere, and all interaction has been organic, but I hope to have more content to share in the future. I’m really looking forward to simulating some old-school matches.

Week Three is finished for this WCW ROM hack project.

I had planned to finish fifteen attires but ended up with twelve. A couple of things slowed me down this week. The gym got a new IPF platform from the 2025 World Championships, and I couldn’t resist testing it out. Lifting heavy left me a bit drained, which made it tough to focus on modding. On top of that, Halloween prep and activities took up two full days. Instead of stressing about productivity, I just worked on what I could when I could.

To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.

I ended Week Two by noting my dislike for split attires, and then started the new week with another split-style design, this time for the “Stars and Stripes” tag team of Marcus Bagwell and The Patriot.

Multicolor attires, especially those with three or more colors, are always a challenge. Because the design stretches across the front of the thigh, I had to shift the stars slightly toward the side of the leg. Many of these attires use the high-contrast colors typical of the era, but players can adjust the Color Change bars to create a more “AKI-style” look if they prefer.

Another Multi-Color challenge was Scotty Flamingo.

He had a lot of flamboyant biker short styles. When working with multiple colors on the attire, you need to reserve at least six for underlying skin tones in the thigh, which can leave only eight to ten colors to work with. The goal is to accurately represent the attire with proper shading so it doesn’t look flat. These were the in-game file sizes for his attires.

I was most proud of this little 6×20 pixel flamingo for his boots. Here’s a quick comparison between in-game size and 15x scale when drawing.

I’ve considered adding his attire from the boxing match with Johnny B. Badd at Clash of Champions 21. But then I’d need to create a boxing outfit for Badd, and maybe include Teddy Long… possibly Ellering as well. It quickly becomes a slippery slope that drifts away from the wrestling focus.

Shane Douglas was a quick attire to complete, and I’m still considering the Dynamic Dudes, with a skateboard as a potential weapon.

Brad Armstrong’s two primary attires have been added. I’m waiting to finalize the heads and faces before adding Arachnaman’s alternate attire to ensure the web lines align properly.

Finally, El Gigante received two attires: one with “THEE GIANT” on the side and another featuring the sparkly tank top he wore. I plan to add a third attire later. I’m not even sure what to call it yet because it will require custom shaping for the upper body.

I started on Cactus Jack, but ran out of time this week. I want to add some extra shaping to his shirt so it doesn’t look “skin tight”, and then he can share that Body Shape w/ Brian Knobbs.

Week Four will focus specifically on tag teams. I plan to complete the Steiner Brothers with eight attires, the Road Warriors with four, the Enforcers with four, and the Nasty Boys with two. If time allows, I may also tackle the Midnight Express with around three attires, as they could be easiest to place in Group 5. I am still undecided whether to keep Smothers and Armstrong or replace them with Harlem Heat, which will likely be a Week Five decision.

I didn’t quite reach my goal of finishing the Vader vs. Cactus Jack demo match, but with Halloween falling on Friday, there was plenty of great wrestling content to enjoy online. One of my favorite guilty pleasures is still Halloween Havoc 1991 and the infamous Chamber of Horrors match. I remember being there as a Little Stinger, genuinely terrified when Abdullah the Butcher and Cactus Jack ambushed Sting on the ramp. Despite how much crap it gets, the match is actually fun to watch.

That’s it for now. I’m still happy with my blog and YouTube updates. But, I do want to do some fun “Saturday Night at 6:05” simulation shows in the future. Game quality is the most important focus right now, though.

See you in Week Four.

Week Two comes to a close for this WCW ROM hack project.

I raised my weekly workflow goal from ten to twelve attires and ended up surpassing it, completing nineteen in total. To offer a quick preview of the progress, I uploaded a YouTube Short highlighting several of the new designs.

These preview videos display the default color settings for each attire, all of which can be customized in-game. Also, I am using one character (Dake Ken) as the model for the attires. Skin colors and body shapes will vary in final forms.

The first major challenge this week involved recreating Steve Austin’s early 1990s patterned trunks. Hand-drawing these designs can be tedious, and at first I considered simplifying the process by copying the pattern and applying a 256-color palette. That method would have allowed players to freely adjust colors, including skin tone. However, two concerns came to mind. First, it could create confusion if a darker-skinned wrestler, such as Scorpio, appeared with bright white thighs. Second, it conflicted with my guiding philosophy of honoring the original AKI design principles. The AKI artists never used that approach, and I wanted to preserve that same level of intent and authenticity in my work.

Working within the limits of a 16-color palette, I was pleased with how the attires turned out. I enjoyed Austin’s variety, so I created a few additional variants, including the base Hollywood Blondes design. After that, I moved on to Paul Orndorff and Paul Roma for “Pretty Wonderful.” Like Windham and Rhodes, their basic attires required careful palette planning to ensure variety while staying true to the originals. Finally, I completed Z-Man for the first half of the week, and I’m especially happy with how his neon-style design translates in-game.

On Thursday, I reinstated my Discord server and set up text channels for reference images. Using drag-and-drop, I was able to organize references for the remaining wrestlers on my 81-man roster. I don’t think I’m ready to make the server public yet. Perhaps when Version 1.0 is released, it could serve as a space for players to report bugs or other issues.

I aimed to create at least four attire references for most wrestlers, or at minimum, palette variants to fill the costume slots. I’m not looking forward to drawing eight Steiner singlets, though. I don’t think I’ve ever met another modder who actually enjoys creating singlets.

I decided to circle back to Vader and work on him for a future matchup with Cactus Jack. I felt that the default “fat” body size in Revenge wouldn’t do him justice, so I imported shapes from Virtual Pro Wrestling 2’s Body Shape 8, which is the same as WM2000’s Shape 7. This will replace a “Manager” body shape group, which currently contains wrestlers like Onoo and Hart, and will now be used for Vader, Bigelow, Abdullah the Butcher, and Dusty Rhodes.

I wrapped up the week by finishing the 2 Cold Scorpio and Marcus Bagwell split tights. Along with singlets, split-design tights are not my favorite. They require a lot of file switching, copy-pasting, trial and error, and careful organization within the code. Unfortunately, I couldn’t get the name text perfectly aligned due to sizing limitations, so I had to use an alternate approach. Even so, they turned out pretty awesome.

My favorite attire this week was Brian Pillman’s Bengal tiger print trunks. Just typing that out, I can almost hear Jim Ross saying, “played for the Cincinnati Bengals…” while calling Pillman’s moves. It’s such a simple texture, yet it perfectly exemplifies the distinctive “AKI style” of design.

I also now have a stable coding system for all new textures in the game. Rather than jumping around memory, I started with Texture 1 and worked through a linear progression. This makes it easier to track everything and structure the code for importing into the ROM. So far, I have completed 39 of the 147 maximum attire slots, which leaves plenty of room to continue. If needed, I can expand with extra coding, but for now, I’m focusing on one attire at a time.

See you next week.

Week One is in the books for this WCW ROM Hack Project.

I went in with the goal of completing 10 attires during the week, but once I found a rhythm, I ended up finishing 23 in total. To give a quick preview, I uploaded a YouTube Short showcasing some of the new designs.

Some viewers might notice what appear to be duplicates, like Ric Flair, or unexpected color combinations, like Vicious. This is intentional. It makes palette changes more versatile and efficient.

For example, Ric Flair 1 has C1 linked to his trunks and boots, while C2 is for the kneepads. Ric Flair 2 flips it. C1 is for trunks and kneepads, while C2 controls the boots. Similarly, Sting 1 and Sting 2 may look almost identical, but the color-changing setup allows you to recreate his full range of variants, such as the ones he wore against Muta or Cactus Jack.

After studying countless WCW matches from 1989 to 1993 to gather reference material, I worked to create accurate color combinations that match each wrestler’s attires from that era. The most challenging were Windham and Rhodes, who had multiple trunks-and-boots combinations over the years. My favorite attire through this week is Ron Simmons’ Tomahawk PRIDE attire. It’s always a fun challenge to get unique designs under 16 colors. This is the full-size of those tights textures :

You may also notice that some wrestlers are currently missing from the roster. After completing Ron Simmons, I decided to focus on the Medium Body Shape first before moving on to other characters.

I attempted to reengage with Reddit, visiting a few topics, but I have concluded that it is no longer a productive outlet for me. Participation there proved to be a significant distraction.

Moving on to Week 2, I have gathered reference material for Steve Austin and will focus on developing his character next. Additionally, I plan to finalize several wrestlers, including both attire and head designs, to facilitate themed matchups for Halloween Havoc. Notably, a match between Vader and Cactus Jack is at the top of this list.

I’m finally settling into a consistent groove with these weekly updates and look forward to sharing more progress next Sunday.