Slammed! is a text-based interactive novel written by Paolo Chikiamco and published under the Choice of Games label in 2013.
In this "pro-wrestling RPG", you play as a wrestler (or promoter), hoping to become the biggest star in professional wrestling. Your relationships, wrestling style, matches, and interactions with the front office affect the ending. There's even a "kayfabe" stat.
The first part of the game can be played for free on the Choice of Games website here
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Provides examples of:
- Action Girl: If the PC is one, then loads of them will pop up. Even if she isn't, there will still be some of these.
- Always Someone Better: The PC can consider themselves as having always been stuck in JJ's shadow.
- Batman Gambit: JJ eventually reveals that the reason they betrayed you was because they wanted you to get angry, so the two of you could finally have an all-out, guilt-free match.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: JJ and Griss/Giana, who pose as your friends and then stab you in the back. Though the former is just trying to act out a Batman Gambit, and the other is just being dragged along for the ride.
- Career-Ending Injury: Usually what triggers the game overs.
- Charlie Brown from Outta Town: After you're (genuinely) fired, you rejoin the GWA under a mask.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: If a female PC romances Ecstasy, She'll mention to Sam later that he's "The Jealous type." The female version shows signs of this as well.
- Consummate Professional: One way to play the PC is as a wrestler who doesn't care for attention or looking good, just doing their job and getting the money.
- Cruel to Be Kind: This is what Super Horns thinks he/she's doing by betraying Solitary and pushing him off the scaffold before he can grab the title belt; Super Horns is convinced that Solitary has "spinal stenosis", a disease caused by damage to the spine that can lead to paralysis if left untreated, but Solitary refuses to let a doctor examine him for the disease, so Super Horns thinks if Solitary no longer has a title to defend, Solitary would have no choice but to get examined.
- Deadpan Snarker: The PC and JJ, which usually leads to Snark-to-Snark Combat.
- Determinator: Despite being massively unsuited to wrestling, Ecstasy won't give up trying and can even place in the final two of the Reality Show if you help them, which is noted to be their greatest asset. When you ask them about it, they'll say they're doing it as a sort of homage to their birth dad.
- Drowning My Sorrows: It's telling how bad the PC's Heroic BSoD is that they can drop their "no drinking" policy to do this.
- Et Tu, Brute?: This happens twice:
- First, JJ betrays you by getting you fired from the GWA by having Griss/Giana plant an illegal drug in your bag, and sabotaging a mandatory drug test to motivate the promoters to search your bag.
- Second, in the Ladders and Scaffolds match with you, JJ, Solitary, and Super Horns vs. Paul Prototype and his Lawgivers, just as Solitary is about to grab the belt, Super Horns betrays him by pushing him off the scaffold.
- Face–Heel Turn: During your comeback, you can pull one of this as part of your Kayfabe.
- Frame-Up: JJ frames you for illegal drug use, resulting in your firing and subsequent Heroic BSoD.
- Gambit Pileup: It's a mess, and not just under kayfabe either.
- Guile Hero: A possible way to win the final challenge on the Reality Show portion is to get Ecstasy to sing instructions, which drown out the instructions given by the opposing team's manager.
- Harpo Does Something Funny: After your return to the GWA and subsequent unmasking, Alex Dobbs doesn't even try to script your storyline, though she'll interfere if you don't create any hot angles for her to work with. All she cares about is that you play your part with complete commitment.
- Heroic BSoD: A six-month long one occurs after the PC gets betrayed and ruined by their supposed best friend.
- It's All My Fault: The PC never really talks about it, but it's clear they blame themselves heavily for the car accident that seriously wounded JJ.
- Kayfabe: Exists, and with the integration of shootfighting into the GWA, all the lines between reality and kayfabe are getting tangled. How strictly you keep kayfabe is up to you.
- Lets Wait Awhile: Non-sexual example; Ecstasy will ask you this the first time you pursue them, because they aren't ready for a relationship. Later, the PC can do the same to them for the same reason.
- Love Interest: Three of them—JJ, Ecstasy, and Madeline Rio. The former is always the same gender as you and thus a Gay Option, Ecstasy is always the gender you're interested in, and Madeline Rio is always female.
- Love Triangle: Can be booked at one point under Kayfabe. You're expected to play along; how real it gets is up to you.
- Masculine Girl, Feminine Boy: If the PC is female and Ecstasy male, this trope comes into play, with her being the athletic wrestler and him being the charming singer.
- Obfuscating Disability: Alex Dobbs was kicked in the head as a child as part of a storyline, and no one outside of the upper-echelons of the GWA know for certain that it's an act.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: Paul Prototype is a misogynistic asshole and the only unambiguous (non-kayfabe) villain in the game.
- Professional Wrestling: You play as a wrestler on their rise to fame, but it's a journey fraught with hardship and betrayal, both in and out of the ring.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real: Zig-zagged. The game brings attention to kayfabe, and scripted outcomes of matches on numerous occasions. However, the GWA has incorporated unscripted fights in order to increase interest. As such, multiple times the player will be involved in matches that are treated like a legitimate competition.
- Purely Aesthetic Gender: Averted. Most of the wrestling world doesn't care about your sex, but Paul Prototype is a Straw Misogynist, and this becomes a plot point at one point.
- Revenge: This is seemingly why JJ betrays the PC... after which the PC can choose to get some revenge of their own.
- Shout-Out: So, so many to the world of wrestling storylines.
- A possible line during your unmasking is "It was me, JJ! It was me all along!"note
- One of the long-runners has three H's in his name, but is also said to be pushing retirement age.
- The achievement for sustaining a Career-Ending Injury by getting thrown off a scaffold is "Bah Gawd!"
- The achievement "Sell Like It's 2005" is a reference to the infamous match between Shawn Michaels and Hulk Hogan at Summerslam 2005, which currently provides the page quote for Wrestling Psychology.
- Other achievements that double as shout outs include Lie, Cheat, Steal, PlayerWinsLOL, Excellence of Execution, Pipe Bomber, Best in the World, Dirty Deeds, Legend Killer, Gravity Forgot, The Cleaner, Super Kick Party, Break the Wall Down, 1,005 Holds, Code of Honor, Ex-cuuuuse Me, World's Strongest, Heartbroken Kid, and The Beast.
- One of the choices given for your last name is Bloodnote
- At one point, a hotel chain is mentioned, and it's said to be known for having ridiculously high prices. The name of the chain? Hotel Di Biase
- The Samoan Atua Wrestling Family is a reference to the real-life Anoaʻi Wrestling Familynote , who are also Samoan.
- Shown Their Work: The game is filled with industry terms and, as evidenced above, shout-outs to famous wrestling storylines.
- Stepford Smiler: Ecstasy tends to cover up their insecurities and sadness with a big smile. They'll even try to do so if you gently turn their advances down.
- Straight Gay: Solitary is gay, but there aren't any hints of it in his behavior, fitting this trope. It's only mentioned briefly during an overview of his career, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it line if you successfully earn a title match with Solitary by grabbing the belt during the Ladders and Scaffolds match, as a blog post will report that Paul Prototype will accuse Solitary and Alex Dobbs (who is a woman) of being in bed with each other "literally, despite Solitary's known orientation".
- Supporting Protagonist: You to Solitary. It's downplayed as you and JJ still have an important story that creates a great deal of drama and tension. But you are mostly a pawn for other characters as they try to end Solitary's winning streak.
- The Teetotaler: The PC has a strict "no drinking" policy, after their drinking and driving resulted in an accident that mangled one of their friends' legs and emotionally scarred another.
- Training from Hell: Part of an off-screen bit where the PC trains with Sagramore in preparation for their return to the GWA as a Charlie Brown from Outta Town.
- Unskilled, but Strong: Having a high Strength and low Technique. Inversely, it's also possible to be Weak, but Skilled.
- Unusual Euphemism: Promoter Vinnie Gaider's most prominent idiosyncrasy is his use of wrestling terms in place of curses."What for clothesline's sake are you still doing here?!"
- What Happened to the Mouse?: Griss/Giana vanishes from the story after they help betray you.
- Will They or Won't They?: Part of Ecstasy's romance line is how you're both interested in a relationship but never have the right time for one, leading to this.
- Wrestling Family: The Atuas, a real (In-Universe) family of wrestlers (though Griss/Giana isn't a wrestler, but remains important to the plot).
- Worked Shoot: The GWA has begun including shootfighting in their lineup to mix things up, but except for the championship (always a shootfight), whether a fight is a work or a shoot is kept under the tightest secrecy. One fight is both at once: a fight that starts as a work, then goes shoot, and switches back to a work.
- Would Hit a Girl: If you choose to play as a female PC, most of your opponents will be gender-swapped to female as well. However, if you choose to refuse Paul Prototype's deal and go for the championship instead of settling things with your rival, the final fight will be against either the reigning champion Solitary or Prototype himself, both of whom are always male, and they will not hold back on account of the PC's gender.
- Xanatos Gambit: Alex Dobbs' response to Paul's coup d'etat is to run with it, since it's not her ass on the line. If Paul wins, then she gets rid of Solitary; if he loses, she loses nothing, and she has another champion lined up to challenge Solitary's reign. She even points that you and JJ are also not at risk, but in this case she's incorrect.
- Xanatos Speed Chess: In a world where only half the storylines are planned out, Alex' greatest strength is her ability to simply roll with events and take advantage of opportunities.
- You Fight Like a Cow: Your "promo" skill is (among other things) your ability to taunt opponents.
