Mana Games

[polakis]

The game as we said is awesome. I think there are some things missing to make the game perfect

Moving nets
Drive volleys
Players walking after points
Face modding for better face details
Ball kids watching the ball and run when point ends

I think those 5 things are gonna make the game perfect in every kind of way. Dont know if manu will ever have the time to implement them or how difficult is to do it. I know you stopped developing the game, but i always have a secret hope hehe…

[Nicky Gi.]

Ball kids running to catch the ball has never happened in any tennis game ever, it’s not happening with this one and is not something important.

Moving their heads to track the ball can happen, but is not an easy thing to do. But manu has surprised us with even harder tasks like dynamic clay and mocap animations.

[Jirafalox]

I think manu should take a little break hahaha he’s introduced so many little new things and also has been helping the community fine tune the balance of the game so much lately I fear he will get burned out of working on te4 at this latest rate.
Anyways goes without saying I appreciate so much all the work you’ve done since the full release of the game too Manu!

[Its_Rafa]

At this point, I'm grateful for each and every update Manu releases. I already thought the game was great when I bought it back in January, and we've had so many nice updates since then, especially the one introducing dynamic clay.
Not even TopSpin or Tiebreak has such a feature implemented so well.

Personally, I think net physics and walking animations between points would be the finishing touches. Manutoo already made it possible to select gestures after points, and I thought modders would try adding some variety now that we can switch them manually, but that aspect of the modding possibilities doesn't seem to have gotten much attention (yet).

Net physics would be another standout feature. Manu even mentioned that he'd bought a plugin some time ago when he was considering implementing it, but he had to prioritize other aspects of the gameplay, if I'm not mistaken.
Hopefully, Manu might find a way to implement these features with the help of AI to make things easier.

Sometimes, I still can't believe that TE4 was essentially made by a single developer, or that Manu has been working on the TE series since the '90s. I was watching some gameplay footage from TE in 1996/1997, and it was already insane for its time. Then I watched some TE 2006 gameplay and discovered that the 2D crowd had head-tracking and applause animations. Clever implementation.



Simply amazing. I'm just mentioning all this to show how much passion has gone into the TE series over the years, with each iteration having different priorities but always aiming to make the gameplay feel as realistic as possible.

We've had some fine tennis games from some big studios, but none has really attempted to achieve this same depth of realism.
People will always notice graphics and animations first, which is why games like TopSpin, Virtua Tennis and Tiebreak often come up in these discussions.
However, those games have always been more tied to scripted animations, and you never really feel like you have complete freedom of movement. They have some cool animations, but there's a trade-off if you want greater freedom and realism in terms of gameplay.
Sorry for rambling, but I just feel like praising this game whenever I get the chance.