Development update & Livery competition

Here are some juicy previews of features and updates coming in the next release. We know many of you are eagerly awaiting the next iGP Manager update. It has been a long time coming and we are making good progress.

What's the hold-up?

This is probably the first question a lot of you want an answer to. The bottleneck for any update currently is the simulator. Many aspects need to be rewritten to accommodate the new car performance attributes. Additionally, work has been underway for some time to improve the efficiency of the networking aspects of iGP to expand the quality and capacity of the service. This also requires a rewrite of substantial areas of the simulator. We understand this is the main focus for a lot of you, and it is our top priority. Our target is to release both the game updates and service improvements by 2014, and soon if beta testing goes smoothly.

As announced previously, we have a new member of the team in Chris Foster, who is helping to accelerate work on the simulator and race viewer. The first thing Chris has done for us is to write a loading screen for the race viewer applet. This means no more white screens waiting for the viewer to load, but instead a clear loading screen that takes you all the way to the race. Click here to preview the loading screen.

Web developments

While intensive work has been happening on the simulator, I've made good use of this extra time to implement some updates and finishing touches to the web game.

The public website / splash page has been completely redesigned. First impressions count for a lot, and I was never happy with the current website. It was a compromise as the focus previously went on finishing the game for release rather than designing a solid promotional website. Click here for a preview.

Another key point is that the iGP websites will be mobile compatible. A lot of effort has gone in to rewriting the core of the websites to utilize a 'responsive' templating system. This basically means it will scale to fit the screen of the device (not as simple as it sounds). The website structure has to change completely in many ways and many elements need to disappear to allow it to display at full size on smaller screens. Click here for a manager profile preview on a Samsung S3 screen. The live race viewer will take longer to port to mobiles and won't yet be viewable on most mobile devices.

There are also many functional as well as visual changes coming. Check out our previous blog on the new design system, which will also be included in the update. In the run up to release we will be publishing more feature previews, so stay tuned.

Livery competition

We will also be running a competition on our Facebook page to promote some of your lovely livery designs. The favourite (as voted for on Facebook by other managers) will win 500 Reward Points, the runner-up will get 250 and third place 125 Reward Points. Follow our Facebook page to be updated on the competition when it begins and for details on how to enter.