iGP Manager's 9th Birhtday
By Jack Basford
Last updated: Fri, 11 Dec 2020 19:21
It is nine years ago today that iGP Manager first arrived in browsers, offering a completely new style of real-time massively multiplayer race team strategy. Three and a half years ago, iGP Manager arrived on the app stores and began to grow beyond our wildest dreams because of the unique experience it introduced there. In the time since it may look as if progress slowed, but rest assured, we have been working on something very special which will be well worth the wait. I can state definitively now that it will launch in Q1 2021. For those of you who have stuck with us on this journey, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. It is this wonderful community and your support that has made this all possible.
Going into next year we are very excited to finally reveal what we’ve been working on. For now, all I can say is that it’s something we believe will be a step forward not only for iGP Manager but for this genre of games as a whole.
Part of the trade-off we accepted in getting there was that 2019 and 2020 would be slower years than usual for development as our focus was split with this update. Once it is released we can return to shorter-term updates and better maintain the game.
Meanwhile, we have been working on some other updates in parallel which will be released soon. The first is a cosmetic update allowing you to change the appearance of drivers and staff.
As you will know you can currently modify the appearance of drivers and staff but without much in the way of customisation options. This update expands that to significant customisation of the appearance of drivers and staff.
New features include: the ability to customise the attire of drivers, such as hats and other accessories, as well as the ability to customise hairstyles and facial hair, with dozens of new options to choose from.
A quick glance at our changelog will still show how busy we have been maintaining iGP Manager, even with everything we are working on. In recent weeks we released a much requested and long overdue change to the league filters, ensuring search results return more accurate results and always return results.
Going back across the year, we launched a new Hall of Fame and added new features such as flags, the Safety Car, Augmented-Reality mode, the basic ability to edit the appearance of drivers and staff, custom calendars and season lengths, new translations, full detailed live timing on mobiles, Google Play and App Store login capabilities, a new header and menu system and more.
Every month we also addressed performance and gameplay balancing issues, such as most concerns about qualifying. There is scope in future to revise the qualifying system itself to get more improvements out of it. We also improved app performance and memory usage across a range of devices and much more.
Really, it has been a quietly productive year, in spite of how difficult it has been for everyone. We’ve all been affected by the global pandemic and it introduced some setbacks to our plans as it has for everyone else. But we also didn’t expect to get so much done, all while working on the major update I referred to at the beginning.
3 years on from the app launch, things are looking better than ever for iGP Manager and we believe 2021 is going to be a very special year for iGP Manager and iGP Games.
Do your best to look after yourselves and your loved ones this holiday season, stay safe.