Golfing In Aether Update Released [Alpha 1.8.0]

Today’s update is a week earlier than planned due to progressing quite a bit ahead of schedule. Five new levels have been added, four of which feature a new type of mover obstacle. In addition, most of the existing levels have been reworked with various detail improvements and balance fixes.


A late game level featuring the mover obstables, multiple holes, and routes. This level has no less than four different route combinations; can you get a Hole-in-one?


These are mid-game levels that offer a fair level of challenge for thier size. Cliffhanger while looking relatively straight forward has you trying to stop yourself from careering off the edge with only the mover and good shot control to stop you.

Take a swing combines good shot reflection with the new movers; don't time or aim just right and you'll get pulled down the wrong path. The hole-in-one also takes good control of your power so you land just in the right spot of the hole area.


As the names suggest these are about figuring out the ideal angle of your shot so can reflect your way to the hole. These are both early levels and deliberately kept simple as potential game openers to get players into the idea of reflecting their shots.

Remember that players who wish for more of a challenge can turn off the sloped holes on all levels via 'Hard' difficulty.


Also in this update is a rework to the vast majority of existing levels with way more visual detail than previous. Some levels such as 'Tee Time' have had hole-in-one routes slightly tweaked for balance purposes.

As always, please let me know if you find any issues, however small or minor as these can be hotfixed. If you are enjoying playing the demo then please add the game to your wishlist as this really helps with how the game is ordered in the store and will help expose it to other players as-well :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

[h2]General[/h2]

• Added five new levels; four of which make use of the new mover obstacles. The level distribution is 2 early, 2 mid, and 1 late.
  
• Added additional level randomization category for specifically first level. This narrows the selection of what the first level could be to ensure it’s among the more straight forward. An example of levels excluded from being first would be ‘Goofy Golf’ which is likely not best for brand new players to start out on, but is fine for randomly being chosen for hole 2 or 3.
  
• Added changes to categorisation of some levels. ‘You Feeling Lucky?’ moved to early from mid, but not the new first category. As this is a relatively small level its fine for the early game, just not first as I don’t want people getting too frustrated over the windmill.
  
• Added improvement to hole camera tracking behaviour. Some levels like ‘Go for it’ where the exit pipe was a corner could result in the camera jumping slightly for a split second as it returns camera to the ball, this has been fixed.
  
• Fixed main menu fps cap behaviour. Some more recently added features and menu’s this wasn’t behaving as it should and it has now been fixed. All in-game / playing portions besides ‘waiting for players’ will use the main menu cap option of 60fps by default. You can change this in graphics settings to any value you wish, including off. Bear in mind the menu may render at several hundred fps and max out your gpu without a cap set and it has no effect on gameplay.
  
• Added various improvements to physics collisions responsiveness.

[h2]Environment[/h2]

• Added rework to ‘Gentle Swing’ to give more visual detail.
  
• Added rework to ‘Tee Time’ by changing the path of the hole in one bamboo to take slightly longer (to balance scores better), as well as add in pond and rocks visual detail.
  
• Added rework to ‘You feeling lucky?’ by adding in small pond detail on lower section.
  
• Fixed various ground meshes to remove gaps between grass and outer wall pieces.
  
• Added rework to ‘Getting tee-ed off” by adding in water detail below the bamboo section.
  
• Added replacement to the placeholder water material in various levels along with various aquatic plants for visual effect.
  
• Fixed up some wall gaps on ‘midhole madness’.
  
• Fixed ground not being seamless with walls on several meshes.
  
• Fixed an overlapping triangle on 1 meter straights with holes.
  
• Fixed normal on various 1 meter hole meshes.
  
• Added minor optimization by reducing the number of track pieces used to make some earlier courses with no visual difference to them.
  
• Fixed some out of alignment meshes on ‘See you on the other side’.
  
• Fixed some corner wall meshes that were inconsistent.

[h2]Interface[/h2]

• Fixed weirdness where 10% was receiving two decimals in the stats menu which was effecting padding.

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.