Flurry of updates ahead of iGP apps

There’s so much going on that it’s hard to know where to begin. The iGP Manager iOS and Android mobile apps are nearing completion, and will be ready for public testing in March. We’re aaalmost ready to begin international translations of iGP Manager, and several important updates have been made this week.

Some of you may recall the December 2016 blog where I announced that we were hiring. I’m pleased to say that we have found additional developers and our team is five strong now, a big improvement over three when working with such numbers.

This is allowing us to move in several directions at once, rather than being entirely focused on one thing at a time. A new WebGL livery editor in the works, at the same time as the mobile apps are being completed. The full rules and regulations of iGP Manager are also being written up now, to go live on the “Help” section on the menu soon. Translations of the entire game will begin once that is complete. The HQ page also has some cool improvmeents on the way, which I'll keep under wraps for now. :)

This week, a few updates are worth highlighting that will change the gameplay experience:

• The new Race Review dialog appears after each race. It shows how much XP, reputation and cash you gained along with the race results.
• Chief Designer’s strength and weakness impacts have changed on next season designs. Weakness now results in small gains rather than no gains, while strength has lessened impact to balance out the overall design points allocated. This means better and more realistic designs with no level 1 attributes when starting a new season. As designs are done at each race, only leagues with at least a few races left until the end of their season will notice a significant difference for the upcoming season.
• Pit crews are less likely to make mistakes, keeping most factors that determine a race outcome within the control of the managers, and less down to chance.
• Many of you will know that it was possible to set a push level in the strategy and have it reflected in the practice laps, but this is no longer possible. All practice laps will be conducted on neutral push levels, as was originally our intention.

Other updates include: Driver attributes all have a tooltip when you place the cursor over them now, explaining their impacts. Teams are given a random colour when they are created to avoid too many teams of the same colour. There have also been dozens of tweaks and fixes to prepare the game for mobile compatibility, as we prepare for app launch.

Our server configuration also received a substantial update yesterday, to improve latency and avoid “freezes”, which we’d seen reports of in recent weeks due to demand. We made it a top priority to address that quickly, and if you had seen a freeze, you should now see it's improved.

There is also work going on to optimise the auction system and improve our tools for administration of the service. All of this is less exciting work, but absolutely necessary for the scale we're preparing to see on mobiles. It should be quite a big jump from where we are now in browsers.

There's plenty of red tape in organising a game launch like this too, but it’s work I quite enjoy. I’m sure it will all pay off and iGP Manager will have a much brighter future for it.

So, that’s where we are right now. We’re working our socks off to finish the mobile apps and get iGP Manager translated sooner rather than later. We appreciate all your continued support and encouragement. Thank you!