MiniGolf Maker News

Happy Steam Summer Sale everyone!

In the last update I had mentioned that I wanted to have the Arcade update ready by the end of June, specifically for the Summer Sale, but I hate to say that this unfortunately will not be happening. So I wanted to give another update about what is being worked on.

[h2]Course Creator[/h2]
As I said in the last development update, I am overhauling the Course Creator, rewriting many parts of it from scratch and drastically improving all of the other parts.

I am building the Arcade course at the same time I am working on the Course Creator itself. As I am building the course, if I come across anything that needs fixing or improving, I fix it or improve it right there, even if it is a minor issue. I feel like this is a good way to ensure that no part is left forgotten.

Some of the improvements that I currently have done or will be working on are:

• Green pieces will automatically join together when placed next to each other. Green piece edges and points will also join together automatically when moved.
  
• The ability to undo and redo is being expanded to all aspects of the Course Creator.
  
• Behavior editing is being improved to include helpful gizmos and handles to make editing behaviors easier.
  
• An in-game Course Creator tutorial will be created.
  
• You will be able to select a pre-made environment when creating a new course, such as snowy, tropical island, etc. There will still be the option of a "Blank Canvas", which is the same as what loads for a new course now.
  
• Across-the-board visual improvements, including updated UI graphics (like I showed in the last development update) and more visual and sound effects.
  

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]
The gameplay won't be receiving as much love as the Course Creator, however there are still some things that I am improving:

• Updates to our netcode to a much newer version that should be more stable.
  
• Ability to select a power control scheme: Two Clicks (current style), Hold & Release, and Hold & Drag.
  
• Ability to freely move the camera around the course on your first shot.
  

If I am feeling frisky I might add a new power-up or two, of course not doing anything that would delay the update too much.

[h2]Arcade[/h2]
Finally, I don't want to leave without posting something to look at, so here's screenshots of some of the Arcade course holes in their very early prototype stages:


At this point, I don't feel comfortable giving a time estimate for when this update will be done because I don't want to make more promises that I don't keep. What I can promise is that this update will be worth the wait.

- Kevin

Hello everyone,

I know it has been really quiet around here as of late, so I wanted to do a post on what exactly I have been working on and what I will be working on.

[h2]Course Creator Rewrite[/h2]
The biggest thing that has been eating up my time is that I have rewritten a large chunk of the Course Creator code to clean things up a lot, make things more stable, and make things easier to work on.

Most of this has been boring behind-the-scenes programming stuff that you won't notice, but there have been some improvements that make the Course Creator feel less utilitarian. One thing in particular is an update to the style of the UI. It's a subtle change, but I think overall it has a fresh new look:


Another big improvement is with the context menu, which has been redone into a fancy radial menu (still a work in progress):


[h2]Arcade and Other New Content[/h2]
I have also been spending a lot of time preparing Arcade themed content, and finally finished brainstorming the 18-holes for the Arcade course. For the Arcade content, here's a look at most of the objects that will be a part of the Arcade theme:


I've also added a bunch of generic shapes that you will be able to use as obstacles or scenery:

(These shapes will be recolorable too!)

[h2]The Next Update[/h2]
I am very much hoping that the next update will be released sometime in June.

My priority at the moment is finishing the rewrite of the Course Creator. At the moment a fair bit of functionality is working, but there still are a lot of things that need to be done. The UI style update also spills over into the gameplay UI, which needs to be updated. At the same time I am working on these I will be working on actually building the Arcade course. Building the Arcade course will serve as a good test of the freshly rewritten Course Creator which is a bonus for me.

Once this update is done and released I will try by best to return to normalcy with updating the existing official courses (Dreamscape, Medieval, and Polyworld being the remaining courses), as well as getting around to things like an in-game tutorial, achievements and unlockables, public lobbies...

Thank you all for your patience and I hope things will be ramping back up real soon! Also, I hope everyone out there is staying safe and healthy through the current pandemic.

- Kevin

Hello everyone!

In the last update I said that I was going to be adding all-new Arcade content with an 18-hole Arcade course, however unfortunately I do not have that ready for this update. Some of the updates to the behaviors and events system took longer than expected, and I also ran into complications with some of the arcade assets. So, the Arcade content will be coming in April.

That being said I still have some things done that are worth an update, so let's check out the new stuff!


Lighting props got some love this month. You can now change the brightness and color of every light in the Properties window. You can also change light properties with the Light behavior.



A new course element, the Ball Trap, has been added for you to play with. You can find it in the Special category of the object list.

This trigger area will trap any ball that enters it at its center and can fire off events when a ball is trapped and released. You need to use the Ball Trap behavior to release it. You can of course move the ball trap around with behaviors while a ball is trapped for some interesting holes!


Modding support received a significant update to its architecture, and with that comes an update to the modding package. For those of you interested in modding I strongly recommend downloading the updated package. The updated package also contains new scripts for the new lighting functionality.

Warning: The updates will cause your assets to have missing scripts that you will need to re-assign.


As I mentioned above, the new Arcade content and course will be coming in the next update. I will also be focusing more on the gameplay side of the game, but I am also working on the behind-the-scenes of the Course Creator to massively clean things up and hopefully make things a lot better moving forward (at least for development).

Features

• Added ability to change light Brightness, Range, and Color from the Properties window.
  
• Added Light behavior to control light properties from behaviors.
  
• Added Animation behavior to control object animations from behaviors.
  
• Added Graphics option to enable and disable water transparency.
  
• Added Graphics option to enable and disable realtime shadows for lights (WARNING: This option is intensive!)
  
• Added Ball Trap trigger that traps and releases balls.
  
• Added Ball Trap behavior for releasing balls from the Ball Trap.
  
• Added events for Pipe entering and exiting.
  
• Added ability to play courses when offline.
  
• Updated Pipe, Event, and Ball Trap graphics to seamlessly tile over the trigger cube instead of being stretched.
  
• Updated Event link lines to be dashed lines.
  
• Updated Event Editor window to have a dropdown for the various event types so that it is more compact.
  
• Updated artwork for intro splash and loading screens.
  
• Updated selection highlighting graphics.
  
• The Reset option for events no longer resets an object's position, it now only resets the sequence.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed Behavior icons showing up for deleted objects.
  
• Fixed some UI "spinners" being able to be dragged with the mouse.
  
• Fixed some objects not saving sequences correctly.
  
• Fixed some lighting issues.
  
• Fixed errors when loading old Blueprints.
  
• Fixed Course Creator inputs not being disabled when in menus.
  

Hello everyone!

Apologies for being a few days late with this update. I was getting hung up on some critical things that needed to be addressed. But enough about that, lets get into the update!

Modding Support

The main feature of the update is the introduction of modding support. You can now mod in custom objects, green styles, flag styles, music, and ambient sounds!

You can check out the Official Modding Steam Guide for a tutorial on how to mod MiniGolf Maker.

New Main Menu and Lobby Features

The main menu and game lobby have been given an all-new Workshop browser menu, which you can use to browse and play Workshop courses without having to use the Steam Overlay! Courses (and their mods) will automatically be downloaded when you choose to play a course from the in-game Workshop browser.

New Course Creator Features

The Course Creator has also received several new features:
[h2]New Object List[/h2]
The object list as recieved a major overhaul. Objects have been re-categorized and there are now additional filters that allow you to filter by Themes and Tags as well as the existing custom search.


[h2]New Green Pieces[/h2]
The existing library of pre-made green pieces has been expanded, including a brand new type of green piece that has a hole in it!


[h2]Other Course Creator Features[/h2]

• Objects can now be moved to different holes.
  
• Holes can now be reordered by dragging and dropping holes in the Hole Management window. The Behavior Editor has also been updated to use drag-and-drop to reorder behaviors.
  
• A new button has been added to the bottom toolbar to show the ball's path from the last test mode run.

Next Update - The Arcade Update

I'm going to be taking it easy with next month's update so that I (hopefully) won't have to delay it. Since I have gotten requests for it, I am going to be adding a somewhat re-imagined version of MiniGolf Mania's Arcade course! This course will include the same original 9 holes, plus 9 more holes to make it a full 18-hole Arcade course with additional content far beyond what was in MiniGolf Mania.

Features

• Added Mod Manager to Course Creator for uploading mods to the Workshop.
  
• Added View Used Mods button to Publish Course window so that you can view the mods a course uses and upload them if needed.
  
• Added option to course publishing window to automatically upload hole previews to the Workshop.
  
• Added Workshop course browser to main menu and the lobby so you can browse and play workshop courses without using the Steam Overlay.
  
• Added ability to move objects to a different hole.
  
• Added ability to reorder holes via drag-and-drop.
  
• Ball path from the previous test mode run can now be viewed in the Course Creator to help with hole designing.
  
• Reworked object list categorization to allow for better categorization and more detailed filtering.
  
• Created a larger set of green pieces with pre-added walls that can be spawned in.
  
• Added new Green prefab with an adjustable hole in the middle.
  
• The selected sequence name is now shown on event list item headers.
  
• Added "Move With Object" option to Move To Position and Path behaviors so that positions will move when the object moves.
  
• Updated Behavior Editor to use drag-and-drop Behavior ordering.
  
• Objects that don't have collisions (such as bushes) now have a white dot as a selectable element in the Course Creator so that they are easily identifiable as not having collisions.
  
• Added progress bars to many loading screens.
  
• Updated Dreamscape assets to look much nicer.
  

Bug Fixes & Behind-The-Scenes Improvements

• Fixed Steam avatars sometimes not loading correctly in the game lobby.
  
• Fixed mouse aiming sensitivity being very high at low FPS.
  
• Fixed camera animations when returning to the lobby from a game.
  
• Fixed object list not correctly adding & removing Blueprint list items.
  
• Improved green and barrier generation optimization.
  
• Fixed course not being added to the Load Course dialog after saving.
  
• Fixed hole previews not being deleted when a hole is deleted.
  
• Fixed ball color selection not working after returning to the lobby.
  
• Fixed Gridify not working if Position Snap is turned off.
  
• Fixed course name not showing on the Whole Course Select lobby menu if the course has no banner.
  
• Fixed banner selection from the Publish Course window not updating the banner in the Edit Banner window.
  
• Upgraded Unity version to 2018.2.21.
  
• Improved many parts of the code to better handle unexpected errors, especially for Steam integration.
  
• Reorganized and removed unnecessary assets to reduce build size.
  
• Improved memory usage by unloading all Course Creator content when loading a course, so that used memory doesn't accumulate as much over time.
  

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to let you all know that I unfortunately am going to have to delay the next update until February. I was hoping to get an update out for the new year, but there are still things that need to be polished up and I don't want to rush a release out the door.

So with that said, the next update will be on February 7th, 2020, and will contain:

1. Modding Support - The ability to mod in custom objects, green styles, flag styles, music, and ambient sounds.
   
2. Dreamscape Course - The Dreamscape Course will be receiving a major overhaul into a full 18-hole course.
   
3. Workshop Integration Improvements - Including an in-game Workshop browser, the ability to automatically upload hole preview images as Workshop previews, and more!
   
4. Additional Course Creator Features - Like the ability to re-order holes and move objects to different holes.
   

I hope you all have a happy new year!

- Kevin