The 7Smoke Tennis Project

So, it's been an incredibly long one, but we are finally at the end of our journey. Tonight, Tennis 4 will finally be publicly released for the first time. Tonight, we'll finally be able to show the world what we have been working on for all those months. Tonight, all the efforts we've put into making this enormous mappack will finally pay off.

I don't know about you, but while I'm of course very excited to finally be able to finish Tennis, another part of me is also sad. It's been amazing to see what everyone has put on the table for this project, mappers and voice actors alike. Just look - there's a noticeable quality gap between some of the maps. Now I'm not going to call out any names, and I'm not saying any of you have failed your jobs. In fact, no matter how long or short or slow or fast your map is, or no matter what you think of your final voice auditions - they're all amazing. Just for the simple fact that you've spent time to dedicate yourself to working on a project like this, where mappers of all skill levels have come to enter their submissions.

I remember, back when we did the very first Tennis round... we thought six people was a lot. In fact, Noam had originally predicted we would get only three people in. Then we did it with six people again, then four... All the products were incredible. And then in July of 2015, we announced a fourth round... and the participants just kept flooding in. The hype was off the roof, and we even had some of 7Smoke's most respected modders joining the club. About two weeks later, the festivities began... and so we went on our journey to fifteen maps, filled with: overtime, inappropriate stuff, not working on maps until the very last moment, etc, etc... (again, I'm not calling out any names here).

It might have taken eight months for everyone to finish their maps, but there's a lot of variety in there, and I can say in advance that this is one of the greatest Serious Sam experiences that I've played so far. And that's what so unique about Tennis - the variety in level setting, map pacing, all that stuff. It really shows what you can accomplish in a group. Afterwards, we decided to add voice acting to the mod, which included having to wait a month for a certain person to finish their voice lines... but in the end, the lines finally arrived, which is now two weeks ago.

In those last two weeks, the team (basically just Noam) devoted themselves to improving the Tennis experience as much as possible. Most of this was just bug fixing, and while we had to change some maps entirely, we did not do so without your permission. Because it is still your work. And as for the voice actors, you guys have done amazing jobs too. I know some of you haven't seen the finished product yet, but you'd be surprised to see how well your voices fit in.

In conclusion - it's been a wild nine months, and it almost hurts to see all the work finally coming to an end. It's been an amazing ride. On behalf of everyone involved in supervising the Tennis Project - we have just two words:

THANK YOU!

You guys are the best! Never stop being awesome.

See you in Tennis 5. *wink*

(PS: Everyone should have recieved a contributor invite for every part of tennis 4, so please accept those. Don't change the visibilty just yet though!)

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650956626

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650968152

http://steamproxy.net/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=650983944