Super Video Golf News

Hello folks! Another month has passed us by, so it must be time to share some more of what I've been working on.

The biggest addition has to be the new course, Fairland Rock. This is a full sized course, featuring a similar theme to the putting course, Terdiman Cliffs. It also has sheep 😁

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Speaking of Terdiman Cliffs, the putt camera has been updated to much improve the view of ball once it has travelled far enough away from the player camera:



And, while we're here, courses with smaller holes such as Terdiman Cliffs will now automatically zoom on the minimap.




Updated Input
I've also been trying to address player feedback as much as possible. I've had a couple of requests to implement 'thumbstick swing' - that is to be able to play by drawing back the thumbstick on the controller and pushing it forward again to take a stroke. I've dubbed the implementation "Swingput" - a terrible pun on the word input 😅 It works both on controllers and the mouse. Swingput is always active so the player can choose whether to take their current shot using the existing input mode, or with the thumbstick/mouse.



Also on the input side of things, controller assignment has now been made automatic, and is no longer done when selecting a player. Controllers will assign themselves to the player with the same ID - that is controller 1 will be used for player 1, and automatically reassign themselves if a controller is disconnected or reconnected mid-play. This way sharing two controllers between 3 or 4 players is much more fluid. It also prevents other players interfering with your shot with their own controller 😉 Thanks to an updated version of libSDL Playstation controllers are now natively supported in all versions of the game. This means that they'll work automatically even if you don't have a wrapper such as DS4Win installed.


Graphical Updates
Lots of tweaking has been done to polish up the graphics. On the technical side the way the ball's movement is calculated from network data has been updated to make it appear much smoother. Most noticable is the removal of 'jitter' from the ball shadow, which has been something that irked me for a long time 😅 I've also added antialiasing options to the configuration menu, so it's now possible to render the course with up to 8x MSAA. Whether this suits your tastes in a supposedly retro themed game is, of course, up to you 😁 (click for embiggenment)



If you've played an older version of the game then you may also notice the the pavilion model has been updated. It is now much more detailed, and is re-textured to better suit the art style which has evolved somewhat since the model was first made. (click for embiggenment)



Also, based on feedback, it's now possible to see which players are CPU controlled by looking at the scoreboard. These icons are reflected across network games so it's possible to see when other participants are using CPU controlled golfers. Instead of a network quality icon, players will have a small microchip next to their name 😁 (click for embiggenment)



There are, of course, many other small updates and improvements, too numerous to detail here. Once the update is released I'll post a full list of changes.


Thank you for the continued support of the project - the release of 1.10 is so close now I can almost taste it 😅 - if you haven't already then make sure to wishlist the game to be notified when it's released. I have plenty of (unannounced) ideas for the game beyond the next update, and if you're curious then this is the place to hear about them first!

In the lead up to the release I thought I'd share some of what I've been working on behind the scenes. Here are some of the highlights:

Updated CPU Controlled Players
For some time commenters have noted that, while a welcome addition, CPU controlled players weren't the brightest and were often very easily beaten. When I first added the feature my idea was to create a player which played 'fairly', in that it was fed only the same information that a human player received such as distance to the pin and the current wind speed and direction. While this worked to some extent it became very clear that, without the 'human instinct' as such, the computer controlled players would make (sometimes wildly) inaccurate guesses about the state of play. With the new version I've taken a different approach which, at first, may seem a little 'cheaty' - for any given power/club/angle combination the computer can quickly run the simulation internally and predict the outcome of a stroke. This way the CPU player can take several guesses and pick the 'best' result to play. However it is also fine tunable by preventing the computer from being too accurate at guessing and introducing deliberate 'mistakes' into play such as an occasional hook shot. This means that computer controlled players can now dynamically adjust how well they play depending on the rank of the human player, providing a greater challenge as players level up, whilst still being competitive for new players. Did I say rank..?

XP System
Yes, there is now an XP system in place, so over time players will level up. XP is awarded whenever a single human player on a client plays an online game, or against computer controlled opponents. Good shots, good scores and good final rankings all contribute XP, as well as time spent on the Driving Range. Nice drives and good scores on the Drivng Range also award XP. The result of leveling up not only affects how well the computer opponents play, but also increases the accuracy required to not make a hook or slice shot. This affects both human AND computer controlled players. In the Steam version the Steam user's rank will also affect matchmaking, returning results in the lobby system which best match the player's current level. It won't exclude other players with vastly different levels, just skew search results so that discovered lobbies are as similar as possible. There is also a series of new achievements, awarded at regular intervals for leveling up.




Steam Network Integration
The Steam version has now been fully integrated with Steam Networking, meaning that matchmaking is handled automatically via a lobby search, or by selecting friends from your friends list to join. No more messing with firewalls, NAT or port forwarding! The Steam version also has leaderboards for the Driving Range. Now not only does the Driving Range provide a place for players to practice but also the challenge of getting the most accurate scores. Boards are split between rounds of 5, 9 and 18 holes, and can be viewed either as global rankings, or just amongst friends.

Updated Putting
Commenters and playtesters have pointed out that probably the weakest point of Super Video Golf is the putting. It was previously very difficult to guess how much power to use beyond estimating a percentage based on the maximum putter distance and the distance to the pin. It was also difficult to see the contours of the ground when the graphics style is based around a solid flat colour. The first issue has been addressed by placing a small flag icon above the power bar when putting. This flag shows the (approximate) amount of power required to hit the ball into the hole. However players will still need to account for any slope in the terrain and the current wind direction, so to address the second problem the putting grid has been overhauled. It has a greater resolution, as well as better colour tints to highlight elevation and depression in the green. Also added in this version is an arrow icon which points to the hole once the flag has been raised. It uses the same rules as the existing flag beacon, so changing the colour of the beacon or disabling it in the options menu also affects the arrow icon. Finally a 'putt assist' mode has been added which can be enabled from the options menu. When this is active the power bar moves much more slowly and the hook/slice bar is disabled making it easier to take more accurate shots. However when putt assist is enabled the XP rewards are reduced slightly, to reflect the fact that the shot was less difficult.




Overhauled UI
A side effect of Steam integration is the requirement to support much longer user names. To this end much of the UI has been updated, either by allowing it to dynamically expand to best fit the current resolution, or simply to just use larger graphics where applicable. The most notable of these are the lobby menu and the in-game scoreboard, where player names appear. When playing golf there is also now an emote wheel available, to let other players know how you're feeling 😁. It works similarly to other games and defaults to the Left Ctrl key or the Y button on an XBox style controller




Finally...
Based on feedback, wind behaviour has been updated so that it only changes strength and direction once per hole. This seems a lot fairer on players allowing them all to attempt the same shot. On the cosmetic side of things the wind system has been updated so that wind movement in trees and prop models are calculated consistently, making them all behave the same way. Wind effects are also now applied to billboards so that the flowers and grass sway in the breeze. There's also a new pitch 'n' putt course and several new ball models have been added.




There's still more to be done, however, particularly new content. There's a second new course being created called Fairland Rock:

as well as a series of small tweaks to be made to Terdiman Cliffs. Some of the older courses are also receiving some polish in the form of new prop models. Here's a before and after look at the clubhouse on Sunny Cove:


While this is not an exhaustive list of changes I hope it provides a good idea of what to expect from the upcoming release. Thanks for following and look out for more updates soon!