Simulated matches
Real-time bouts driven by strategic move selection and scrolling match commentary.
FREEWARE · WINDOWS · 1999—2002
AlterWorld Wrestling: The Visual FoxPro Wrestling Game I Built in 1999
I was Jason “Jay” Jones, an aspiring developer with a wrestling obsession and an unusual weapon of choice: Microsoft Visual FoxPro.
It started with one screen and a probably unreasonable amount of ambition.
I began building AlterWorld Wrestling around 1999. Visual FoxPro was an odd choice for a wrestling simulator, but it was also surprisingly capable—and I kept finding new things to make it do.
The earliest version had one screen and predetermined one-on-one matches. There was no grand architecture and no roadmap to version 8.6. There was just the next feature, then another, and eventually a freeware game much larger than the little experiment I had started.
Players did not directly steer a wrestler around a ring. They made strategic move choices while the match played out through scrolling commentary. That design let the game feel part simulator, part booking sandbox, and part text-driven wrestling broadcast.
What it grew into
ONE FEATURE AT A TIMEWays to play
Exhibition, career, and tag-team modes alongside created wrestlers and teams.
A large roster
More than 40 wrestlers, imported photographs, finishing moves, and improved computer opponents.
Make it yours
Editable and custom moves plus tools for building wrestlers and teams.
Beyond the ring
An e-fed manager, Franchise Manager, and 35 missions by version 8.5.
Yes, bowling
A built-in bowling game that began as an experiment to see what else Visual FoxPro could do.
Franchise Manager
THE GAME INSIDE THE GAMERun the promotion, not just the match.
Franchise Manager let players hire and train wrestlers, set ticket prices, advertise, stage events, and manage money. The long-term objective was wonderfully modest: make enough money to buy out the WWF.
It turned AWW into more than a match simulator. You were managing the roster, the show, and the business—usually while I was thinking of one more system to add.
Hire wrestlersTrain the rosterSet ticket pricesAdvertise eventsStage showsManage the money
Release history
1999—2002Development begins
One screen, predetermined one-on-one matches, and the start of a very long feature list.
Version 7.0
A surviving original download page explicitly identifies this build as v7.0.
Version 7.6+
The download page listed the Microsoft Visual FoxPro runtime libraries as included.
Version 8
Roughly 5–10 more wrestlers, updated pictures, a redesigned interface, finishing moves, Franchise Manager, and internal code improvements.
Version 8.3
A new release documented on the archived project site.
Version 8.4
The next public release, announced alongside an invitation to send bug reports.
Version 8.5
Added 35 missions and smarter computer-controlled opponents.
Version 8.6
The Anniversary Edition. Later that October, more Franchise Mode work was underway, including a player-versus-computer roster draft.
Planned, not released: AWW.NET was intended to support online matches. I planned to build the client while “iCE Breaker” worked on the server, but the archive does not show it becoming a released feature.
A surviving page
AUGUST 18, 2000
The web was part release channel, part devlog.
There were no app-store dashboards. I posted executables, wrote update notes, asked for bug reports, and hoped the right people found the page.
Looking back, the missing images and broken links are part of the record too. The Wayback Machine did not preserve everything—but it preserved enough to reconstruct the releases, the feedback, and the fact that people came back.
Open the original 2000 page ↗Did anybody actually play it?
THE ARCHIVE ANSWERSBack then, I genuinely did not know.
For a small freeware developer in 1999–2002, download counts and player behavior were mostly invisible. There were no analytics dashboards, social feeds, star counts, or automatic reviews waiting after every release.
Archived comments show real players rating AWW, comparing it with PWARS and EWARS/EW9000, praising its graphics and layout, anticipating releases, and reporting bugs—including one wonderfully specific complaint that the “holey match” was not working.
The evidence does not justify pretending there was a huge community. It does show something better than a guess: repeat visitors, feature requests, bug reports, comparisons with competing wrestling simulators, and people waiting for the next version.
Gameplay preserved
WATCH THE GAMEIf the embed is unavailable, watch the gameplay-preservation video on YouTube ↗. There is also a broader wrestling-game retrospective ↗.
Preservation and surviving copies
THREE DISTINCT INSTALLERS| Capture | Apparent version | Original size | SHA-1 | Archive |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| August 18, 2000 | v7.0 | 4,486,573 bytes | 818921be5be67cd42fe9439d070e427bd70dd291 | Archived installer ↗ |
| October 27, 2001 | v8-era build; exact minor version unconfirmed | 5,500,088 bytes | 0ff7eb49a5060fc66b1a8b1fa8956b806ec45231 | Archived installer ↗ |
| August 2, 2002 | v8.6; server file dated May 21, 2002 | 5,811,941 bytes | a84a275de2aa992fcf7a9b6b46945377559c6848 | Archived installer ↗ |
Historical executables: Preserve these files unchanged and verify their hashes. Scan them before analysis, and use an isolated legacy-Windows virtual machine rather than running them directly on a modern everyday computer.
Identity note: a MobyGames credit appears to combine two different people named Jason Jones. I had no involvement with the unrelated 2024 game Concord.
Credits
THE PEOPLE BEHIND ITJason Jones
Screen design, programming, research, development, alpha testing, and technical work.
Tim Lorens
Technical expertise.
Beta testers
The players who sent emails, bug reports, ideas, and feedback.
What could a modern AWW look like?
THREE DESIGN STUDIESRingside — broadcast simulator →Promoter — franchise command center →Underground — retro-modern successor →
These are speculative interface concepts, not announced products or release commitments.
LOOKING BACK
For years, I did not really know how many people had played it.
I built AlterWorld Wrestling before social media, analytics dashboards, app stores, GitHub stars, or easy feedback loops. Finding the archived comments, videos, catalog entries, and surviving installers more than twenty years later proves that the game reached people. For a freeware wrestling simulator written in Visual FoxPro, that is a pretty satisfying legacy.