Interview with Stéphane Baudet, Founder & CEO of The Tiny Digital Factory
Can you walk us through a typical day in your role at TDF and how it contributes to the overall success of GT Manager?
➡️ My role at The Tiny Digital Factory is to lead and direct the creative aspects of the game along with managing the studio. On a typical day, I work in the morning with game designers and artists to define the high level design of the next game features and content to be included in the next milestones. My afternoons are mostly about reviewing in-progress features or assets.
Our work on the project is very collaborative, co-design and co-development is very frequent. It is important for me that all the developers on the project take ownership of their individual contribution from design until polish and debug and give their opinions and feedback on the overall game during frequent game reviews.
In your opinion, what sets GT Manager apart from other racing management games currently available in the market?
➡️ There aren’t that many quality racing management games on PC, especially in the GT or Endurance categories.
Although I enjoyed playing both F1 Manager and Motorsport Manager, I felt one was very realistic and visually stunning, but not so great to play, and the other had great core mechanics, but its content is not about real cars and drivers and it looks a bit dated.
Therefore, GT Manager was designed to offer the best of both worlds: great core mechanics with AAA officially licensed content (cars, teams and drivers). The GT world is less restrictive than F1, offering more opportunity to mix brands, teams and drivers, which is the key to a great management game. The large number of GT categories also provide an opportunity for a longer career progression starting from GT4 to Hypercars.
Are there any specific user feedback or suggestions that have significantly influenced the direction of the game's development?
➡️ At The Tiny Digital Factory, we are in direct connection with our player community. We always had the idea of developing or racing management on PC along with our mobile game, but we felt we should build a different game.
We had many detailed player feedbacks about what they wanted to see next in GT Manager, but most of the time, those were great ideas, but not necessarily appropriate for a short session type mobile game.
Based on our own vision and those player feedbacks, It took us about a year to design GT Manager before we started its development in January 2023. Features like the driver swap during races and the team budget were among the features often requested by the player community.
How do you balance incorporating realistic elements from the world of GT racing while ensuring that the game remains accessible and enjoyable for a broad audience?
➡️ This is probably where GT Manager is slightly different from its competitors. The overall accessibility and progressive introduction of management features through the game progression makes GT Manager more appropriate to an audience fan of GT cars and Endurance races than typical management game hard care players.
The race simulation remains very realistic, but cars, drivers and team stats are aggregated into simple stats such as car speed, acceleration, reliability or driver’s ability to overtake or drive under wet conditions.
We also let the player progress at his own pace, the best players will probably be promoted in the GT3 category at the end of their first season in GT4, while it will take maybe 2 seasons for more casual players.
GT racing has some unique characteristics – what are you looking to add to create that extra bit of magic?
➡️ When we launch, we want to make sure the game is built on a strong race simulation. We want each race to be fun to play and remain not 100% predictable.
Although making the most impactful investments at the factory is definitely a factor of success (cars and driver stats), the decisions to take during the race, based on the race events, are as important. Accidents, weather changes or alternative strategies are many events to master in order to make a difference at the end of the race.
Could you tell us more about the upcoming features?
➡️ Unlike most games, the Practice sessions are available at any time during the championship. You can go with your test team to every circuit of the championship ahead of the races to practice.
During the practice, you have 5 laps to evaluate your drivers’ raw performance, compare the different tires and adapt the setup of your car to the track specifics. Going to practice also increases the experience of your team and drivers.
With more and more manufacturers coming to WEC, who do you think is going to win it this year?
➡️ I think Porsche will be one of the strongest contenders, but honestly we should have great battles both in WEC and IMSA. I don’t see Alpine, Lamborghini nor BMW strong enough yet.
We'll see you on the pit wall!
_____
Join our community:
➡️ My role at The Tiny Digital Factory is to lead and direct the creative aspects of the game along with managing the studio. On a typical day, I work in the morning with game designers and artists to define the high level design of the next game features and content to be included in the next milestones. My afternoons are mostly about reviewing in-progress features or assets.
Our work on the project is very collaborative, co-design and co-development is very frequent. It is important for me that all the developers on the project take ownership of their individual contribution from design until polish and debug and give their opinions and feedback on the overall game during frequent game reviews.
In your opinion, what sets GT Manager apart from other racing management games currently available in the market?
➡️ There aren’t that many quality racing management games on PC, especially in the GT or Endurance categories.
Although I enjoyed playing both F1 Manager and Motorsport Manager, I felt one was very realistic and visually stunning, but not so great to play, and the other had great core mechanics, but its content is not about real cars and drivers and it looks a bit dated.
Therefore, GT Manager was designed to offer the best of both worlds: great core mechanics with AAA officially licensed content (cars, teams and drivers). The GT world is less restrictive than F1, offering more opportunity to mix brands, teams and drivers, which is the key to a great management game. The large number of GT categories also provide an opportunity for a longer career progression starting from GT4 to Hypercars.
Are there any specific user feedback or suggestions that have significantly influenced the direction of the game's development?
➡️ At The Tiny Digital Factory, we are in direct connection with our player community. We always had the idea of developing or racing management on PC along with our mobile game, but we felt we should build a different game.
We had many detailed player feedbacks about what they wanted to see next in GT Manager, but most of the time, those were great ideas, but not necessarily appropriate for a short session type mobile game.
Based on our own vision and those player feedbacks, It took us about a year to design GT Manager before we started its development in January 2023. Features like the driver swap during races and the team budget were among the features often requested by the player community.
How do you balance incorporating realistic elements from the world of GT racing while ensuring that the game remains accessible and enjoyable for a broad audience?
➡️ This is probably where GT Manager is slightly different from its competitors. The overall accessibility and progressive introduction of management features through the game progression makes GT Manager more appropriate to an audience fan of GT cars and Endurance races than typical management game hard care players.
The race simulation remains very realistic, but cars, drivers and team stats are aggregated into simple stats such as car speed, acceleration, reliability or driver’s ability to overtake or drive under wet conditions.
We also let the player progress at his own pace, the best players will probably be promoted in the GT3 category at the end of their first season in GT4, while it will take maybe 2 seasons for more casual players.
GT racing has some unique characteristics – what are you looking to add to create that extra bit of magic?
➡️ When we launch, we want to make sure the game is built on a strong race simulation. We want each race to be fun to play and remain not 100% predictable.
Although making the most impactful investments at the factory is definitely a factor of success (cars and driver stats), the decisions to take during the race, based on the race events, are as important. Accidents, weather changes or alternative strategies are many events to master in order to make a difference at the end of the race.
Could you tell us more about the upcoming features?
➡️ Unlike most games, the Practice sessions are available at any time during the championship. You can go with your test team to every circuit of the championship ahead of the races to practice.
During the practice, you have 5 laps to evaluate your drivers’ raw performance, compare the different tires and adapt the setup of your car to the track specifics. Going to practice also increases the experience of your team and drivers.
With more and more manufacturers coming to WEC, who do you think is going to win it this year?
➡️ I think Porsche will be one of the strongest contenders, but honestly we should have great battles both in WEC and IMSA. I don’t see Alpine, Lamborghini nor BMW strong enough yet.
We'll see you on the pit wall!
_____
Join our community:
- Discord: https://discord.com/invite/6DS25RmVhe
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/gtmanager24
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gtmanager24/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/gtmanager24