Welcome back to The Baseline, dear reader! As announced yesterday, the team at Tennis Manager are working hard on developing the much-anticipated latest 2022 edition. Now that it is officially in the works, we can start to give you a little glimpse into some parts of the production process, and start to let you know what features we’re working on behind the scenes.
We’ve been collecting all the feedback that you’ve given us on social media, on reviews, and on videos, and we will try to address all of your concerns for TM22.
Why a New Game?
The first question that is perhaps in the minds of our readers is “Why make a new game? What about DLCs?” It’s a very good question, and it deserves a serious answer.
We chose the path of making a yearly edition of the game for multiple reasons. Firstly, each new edition will have a total refresh of the player database, starting at the beginning of the tennis calendar year. We believe it’s also important to preserve TM21’s roster list, as this alone brings unique gameplay possibilities that a full yearly replacement would ruin. Furthermore, with the sheer size of these databases, it would be impossible to have them side-by-side without some insane memory use.
Secondly, because each new instalment, TM22 included, is going to have a brand-new set of features that wouldn’t be compatible with past saves. The most effective way to implement new features, and to make such drastic gameplay and visual improvements, is to start afresh with a brand-new game and all the features added.
How we prioritise our Tasks
As with anything, finding the perfect balance is not so easy. All the different team leads have to come together and decide between them what is most valuable for you, the players, and what will take the most effort to implement. By effort, I mean labour-hours. There are of course only so many hours in the day to get our features off the ground, and that is why we have to spend a good amount of time properly planning (and throwing tennis balls across the office at each other) to make it all happen!
Therefore, over the last few months, we’ve built up a full and global roadmap that takes all these factors into account. We’ve made a plan that we will reveal slowly between now and Tennis Manager 2022’s release: not just because we want to tease you, but because we want to show everything in detail as it comes, to prove its value to us and to you.
I know that many of you will be impatient to discover exactly what’s new, but don’t expect to know everything immediately 😉 you will in time.
Let’s Go!
And so we start on the road to TM22! It’s going to be busy times ahead for Simon and the production team; for Bruno and the 3D team; for Thorvald and the coding team; and for ourselves at the marketing team. We each have our duties to work on, and one of mine is to write up each edition of The Baseline, letting you know what we’re working on. We hope you enjoy each step of the journey with us!
Until next week --- Jeremy
p.s. Don’t forget that TM21 is on sale until the 3rd of February. Get it now for 60% off!
