SnakeX: Whos responsible for the spark behind the production of a new tennis game?
Pierre André: The Breakpoint studio had the desire to create a tennis game, the team being passionate about sports and having worked in the past with members of the PAM studio.
Our collaboration started a year and a half ago (january 2016) with the creation of a technical demo on the basis of the Top Spins gameplay with the introduction of a new tactical dimension.
(they concretely started from the TS4 assets to make this new game
Not a good point IMO).
SX: Tennis World Tour seems to be the heir of Top Spin, how do you start a new license that both respects the DNA of the franchise and provide the players with innovations?
P.A.: Just like Top Spin, it is our desire to propose a realistic physical engine that respects the physical constraints of a tennis player. You will not be able to change direction at any time, run in all directions or do a 360 on yourself like in Virtua Tennis, you will have to take in account the ground support and the players inertia.
Tennis World Tour offers a precise control of the shots, which will be varied. You will indeed have to master & control 3 specific aspects : the power, the precision and the risk of your shots.
Our game will stand out from Top Spin through the introduction of a tactical dimension . A tennis match can have many twists and turns and we wanted to break the linearity of Top Spin matches by introducing the system of « game plans ». Concretely, these are tactics chosen by the player before each match starts, within the brand new skills-system which is based on attack, defense and volleys.
If the player plays neatly, that is to say, respecting the timing of strikes, avoiding to put himself in trouble, but also respecting his play style, the game plan selected before the match will be activated, granting bonuses at various moments of the match. For instance, the stamina recovery could be enhanced as well as the ability to hit better control shots and powerful shots.
(gadget idea & it seems they keep the horrible Top Spin 4 concept of « control shots » and « power shots »
. )
SX: Will Tennis World Tour offer official players and varied environments?
P.A.:The title will feature thirty male and female professional players under license including Roger Federer, Gaël Monfils, Angélique Kerber and Garbiñe Muguruza. The players will be pleasantly surprised by the rendering of these different stars thanks to laser scanning technology.
We will propose about twenty tournaments which wont be under license but that will respect the atmosphere and surface variety of the ATP tour.
SX: No tennis game has been developed for this generation of consoles, can we expect a game that will visually takes full advantage of the new technologies?
Tennis World Tour has nothing to do with what has been done in the past. We have worked on an exceptional rendering of the public in terms of animations and textures. It makes the atmosphere. very immersive. And the motion capture enable us to achieve a rare realism in the modeling and facial expression of different professional players.
(The motion Capture is done with Maxime Texeira, a french pro player from Top 100-200, who has to imitate Nadal, Federer etc
In TS4 the motion capture has apparently been done with actors and a few ones by the guy who is interviewed here
.)
SX: Will the career mode offer the complete experience of a real life tennis player or will it be a succession of matches in unlinked tournaments ?
The Career Mode makes you live the rise of a professional player from the top 100 to the n°1 spot. You will have a team composed of your trainer, who manages the technique, fitness and mental aspect of your career, and your agent who will find you sponsors, make you sign up to tournaments, manage your money and your fans. The career is really focused on this feeling of becoming a tennis world star through the training and the management of your brand image.
SX: Which form (s) will take the training and management of our career?
P.A.: There are two types of training: playable (forehand, backhand ...) and non-playable (running in the Andes).
For developing of the game, we keep in mind this legitimate question any gamer is entitled to ask: what does Roger Federer in his life?
He plays tennis, trains on the top of a mountain to improve his cardio but he also has a clothing brand on his name and participates in charity galas to raise funds. This is what Tennis World Tour will offer.
SX: What about the online mode?
P.A.: For online mode, the « World Tour » mode from Top Spin 4 will be back (cf : 3 rounds to play in 3 sets of 3 games in Top Spin 4).
Each week, you will have tournaments to play and a ranking is displayed based on these results.The tournaments will be reset every week and you will be able to play single, double and mixed match.
SX: Are you in touch with gamers for game development?
P.A.: There is a community of gamers who are fond of all tennis games since the 1st Top Spin called the Inter Top Spin Tour (ITST). They master this type of games perfectly and compete each week. It is mainly them who provide us with the most important feedback to help develop the title with and for the players.
(WTF, is this true ?)
After six years without a tennis game, we imagine that the fans of the genre are going to be very demanding...while novices can also be interested, so who do you target with Tennis World Tour?
P.A .: The game is geared to everyone. We rely on our community of hardcore players to develop a demanding experience, especially for the timing of the shots. But the game remains accessible to all players, with a gameplay that remains easy to master. There will be no simulation or arcade mode controls, Tennis World Tour is a mix of both worlds, for a more realistic result.
In addition to the difficulty and the level of requirement, did you work on the AI?
P.A.: Making an AI unbeatable in a tennis game is very easy. The challenge was to propose an interesting IA that adapts itself according to several parameters: the playstyle of the gamer, the profile of the player used by the AI, or the type of match that is played.
The AI will not be the same in a low-ranking match of a minor tournament as in a Grand Slam final. We think we have found a good balance so that the AI is varied, hence breaking the linearity of matches, and offers an interesting challenge.
You are planning for a release in 2018, can you give us a more accurate window?
P.A.: If it were up to me, we would get out the game in 2020. There is always one aspect of the game that needs to be improved and we are never satisfied with it.
In terms of content, were working on original weekly online tournaments for the world tour mode, that will provide the winners with rewards for their virtual characters (equipment for instance) And the biggest part of the work that we still have to do is about the balance of the different skills involved for the « game plan » system, which takes a lot of work.
