Mana Games

[manutoo]

Hello,

here's the version 1.0b of Tennis Elbow 4 !

It's the 1st big update after the end of the full-time development of TE4.

There are a bunch of fixes, tuning, and a few improvements and new features.

Gameplay-wise, if you like to play at the net, this update features the biggest change the game has had in years : now, the CPU, at Pro-10 and above, hits passing shots in a much more aggressive, and thus realistic way ; you won't be able to push the ball to the center waiting for an easy ball to score your volley winner. I hope you'll enjoy that change. In difficulty Junior-10, the change is much more tame, and in Club-10 and under, it is very light.




Free Demo

Windows : https://www.managames.com/download.php? ... _v1-0b.exe (~25MB Web Installer ; ~4GB installed)
Mac : https://www.managames.com/download.php? ... _v1-0b.exe (~25MB Web Installer ; ~4GB installed)


Requirements

- OS: 64-bit Windows 7/8/10, macOS 10.12+, Linux Ubuntu 16.04 or 18.04 (works on other Linux distros as well)
- 6GB of RAM
- For the 3D courts with high quality, a 3D card with about 5000 points here https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/high_end_gpus.html (to play with 60fps @ 1080p), and DirectX 11 support (on Windows) ; for ~100 fps @ 1440p, you'll need 10'000 points
- For the 2D courts, an IGP or a 3D card with about 1000 points here https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/mid_range_gpus.html , and DirectX 11 support (on Windows)


Comments about the updates

Comments go there so the changelog will be easier to follow : topic15-38726.php
Suggestions for TE4 : create a new topic in the forum
Version 1.0a Changelog : topic15-37147.php

For clarity, the latest additions to the game are listed in the next post.

[manutoo]

Version 1.0b - Build 163 ; SubBuild 2026.9.7:

New Features :
- Players : 4 new hair styles for the male player, thanks to matservant !
- Players : it is now possible to select the gestures for your player (although some gestures have only 1 option)
- Modding : you can now remap the Player Styles in the World Tour (eg: if you don't want to play against Volleyers anymore) (HowTo => topic60-38728.php )
- Modding : it's now possible to Mod the base body mesh of the players, but still not the outfits, so this is mostly aimed at changing the head (details will come here : topic60-33540.php )
- Modding : it's now possible to add sounds to gestures (HowTo => "6) Add sounds to gesture animations" here topic60-33725.php )
- Localization : Portuguese-BR translation updated by Antimouse
- Localization : Japanese translation proofread by Akihiro

Changes :
- AI : the CPU is now much better at doing passing shots, especially from Pro-10 difficulty and above
- AI : when far from the center, the CPU will now sometimes run back more to the center, meaning you can wrong-foot step him more easily, but also he'll cover the opposite side a bit better, so be vigilant where you send the ball !
- Controls : the Average AutoPos is now a bit slower when pressed before your opponent served, making the services a tad more efficient when using the AutoPos trick ( => https://www.managames.com/tennis/doc/Te ... tml#return )
- World Tour : tuned the Pro & Master skill decays so it'll be possible to reach 85~90% in all skills (instead of ~80%)
- World Tour : the CPU players will now have more varied gestures
- Online : the ball's position at the moment of impact during the serve is now limited to a designated area to prevent obviously unbalanced serves. (ie: the serve animation no longer allows you to hit the ball too far inside the baseline)

Bug Fixes :
- Animation : the player could bend a bit backward when running to a ball that was too far
- Controls : having several strikes using down on a controller was making all of them unusable
- Controls : the net jump could trigger in the wrong direction
- Controls : the AutoPos could lead to the wrong position when smashing a ball
- Controls : it's not possible anymore to prepare your return for a very long time by pressing the strike button before your opponent starts to serve
- World Tour : in Seasons Mode, the yearly new force screen wasn't shown
- Online : an incorrect answer from your router could lead the game to hang
- Online : if a router was answering only on IPv6 and not IPv4, the game couldn't use UPnP to automatically forward the UDP Port in your router
- Modding : the CPU acceleration specific grunt sounds weren't triggered

[manutoo]

SubBuild 2026.9.8:

Bug Fixes :
- Menus : the customisation screen had a couple of glitches
- Rendering : the new hairs were too bright on macOS
- Helpers : the ball preview was shown after a net clip even if the Preview was disabled

[manutoo]

Build 164 - SubBuild 2026.9.10:

Changes :
- Engine : optimized the game engine calculations to gain a couple of FPS on low-end CPUs (eg: PS4 & Xbox One), and possibly even more for online matches with high Delay

Bug Fixes :
- Gameplay : the game was lagging a lot when possibly missing a ball at the net

[manutoo]

Build 165 ; SubBuild 2026.10.3:

New Features :
- Rendering : now the ball and the player's feet leave their traces on the clay court ! You can disable or change the texture resolution with Settings -> Video -> Advanced -> Dynamic Clay. The Modders will have to allow their Clay to be modified, so right now it's working only on the unmodded clay (look for DynamicClay here topic60-34019.php ). The ball impacts aren't very accurate, so they may look like they touched the line when they didn't (and vice versa) ; ie: it's only a visual effect, don't yell at the umpire because of it !

Changes :
- Gameplay : greatly increased the run acceleration lowering when the player gets low Breath and/or low Energy
- Gameplay : slightly raised the AutoPos trick speed on return of serve
- Gameplay : slightly lowered the strike precision bonus when sliding
- Engine : optimize memory consumption, so the older consoles will have enough memory to use the new Dynamic Clay (at least in its Low Res version)
- Modding : allow disabling the MD5 check when downloading a Mod (in case mod.io server's one is actually incorrect) ; to do so, change this line in your Tennis.ini, under [Menu], from :
ModIgnoreMD5 = 0
to :
ModIgnoreMD5 = 1
(HowTo => topic19-32161.php )

Bug Fixes :
- Online : fixed a couple of issues with some rare cases of the ELO calculations
- Gameplay : the net jump could wrongly trigger when being lobbed
- Modding : the auto-reload on Mod change is now much more robust and most bugs should be fixed (hopefully )
- Modding : show tournament draws could get corrupted when playing with a Country Cup different from the base game one

[manutoo]

Build 166 ; SubBuild 2026.10.14:

New Features :
- Modding : the menu files are now patchable, allowing different Mods to mod the same menu (HowTo => topic60-38883.php )
- Modding : the Modding SDK now contains "Menu/Scripts/AGENTS.md" to feed your AI agent, both to Mod a menu as a whole (ie: full API description) and how to apply patches.
- Modding : the game will now try to repair the mod.io config if it got corrupted, and will reset to default if it fails to do so ; plus "Verifying" is shown between the Download and the Installation of the Mods
- Modding : the Crowd material (ie: texture & shader) is now moddable (for more detail, read "5) NPCs" here => topic60-34019.php )

Changes :
- Gameplay : raised a bit the loss of run acceleration when the player is out of Breath
- Physics : the twisted service now bounces a bit harder in the opposite direction, so it's more visible
- AI : the CPU is now a bit smarter with his movement when he doesn't have the time to reposition himself perfectly before his opponent hits the ball
- Strike : since the last Build, the smash could be hit a bit behind, leading to a fault, which was confusing, so now the player won't hit the ball, as before
- Rendering : improved the pushed clay shape done by the ball with the Dynamic Clay

Bug Fixes :
- Gameplay : fixed a few rare desyncs for match replay and online, as well as a couple of rare wrong predictions for the online