Super Video Golf News

A small update to 1.14.1, which addresses the following:

• Only play Honour announcement if honour taker is on the current client
  
• Fix resizing menu banners in the clubhouse when window is resized
  
• Fix awarding skins pot to player winning sudden death round
  
• Fix correct club unlocks when host applies club set limit
  
• Move Steam notification back to top right corner
  

Happy golfing!

Hello! I'm happy to say that the latest version, 1.14, is out now! In last month's round-up I detailed some of the new features, which you can read about here - but, to summarise, the following has been added:

• New game modes:
  
• - Stableford
  
• - Stableford Pro
  
• - Short Round
  
• - Multi-target
  

• New single player league
  
• New monthly challenges
  

Since then I've updated the game with the way bunkers are handled - it's now possible for the ball to lie buried, or sitting up in the sand after landing, depending on its speed when it hits the ground. You can see the lie of the ball with the new arrow icon next to the terrain label in the top right of the screen:



When the lie of the ball is sitting up the bunker won't affect play too much - however when the ball is buried the range of the ball is curtailed, and it's harder to make an accurate shot.


Thanks to feedback from the play sessions on Super Video Sundays I've now added a host option to limit the player club set in multiplayer games to that of the lowest player. This means that the host can choose to prevent high-ranking players from using powerful club sets which may be advantageous over lower skilled players.

And, don't forget, Super Video Sundays are still open to all, so if you want to meet up with other players online hop on over to the Steam group now!



On the visual side of things I've added an in-flight camera to the ball, which appears in the top left corner while the ball is in motion. It's a nice way to see the terrain in detail when the ball lands.



Beyond that there have been many small fixes and tweaks, particularly to some of the more foliage-intense courses, to improve performance on lower end machines. Here's the full change list for the 1.14 update:

• Added Monthly Challenges - A new challenge every month for 500xp and an award for the trophy cabinet
  
• Added awards for completing the active monthly challenge
  
• Added awards for every 10th level unlock which also unlocks a new ball
  
• Added awards for top 3 placement in Club League
  
• Added club league-table to compete against virtual players
  
• Added Stableford and Stableford Pro game modes
  
• Added ‘multi-target’ game mode
  
• Added Short Round game mode
  
• Added the lie of the ball in bunkers now affects available clubs
  
• Added the lie of the ball in bunkers now affects accuracy
  
• Added the lie of the ball in bunkers now affects maximum distance
  
• Added host option to limit all players to the lowest ranked player’s club set
  
• Added in-flight ball camera
  
• Added console variable to enable shuffling custom music playlists
  

• Fixed cropping minimap icons to minimap bounds
  
• Fixed skins games now continue to sudden death until all skins are won
  
• Fixed post-game scorecard par values when playing in reverse
  
• Fixed current honour is carried over in event of a tie
  
• Fixed controller navigation in lobby menu if having previously quit the lobby with any menu but course selection active
  
• Fixed origin of scaled billboards
  
• Fixed frame rate drop on lower spec systems when switching screen resolution mid-game
  

• Increased XP reward for hitting the drone to 250xp
  
• Reduced volume of seagulls on beach courses
  
• Updated emote wheel with applause
  
• Updated emote wheel with controller buttons
  
• Extended range of clubs when teeing off par 3s
  

• New Achievement: Big Bird
  
• New Achievement: Barn Stormer
  
• New Achievement: Hit The Spot
  
• New Achievement: Behold the Impossible
  
• New Achievement: League Champion
  
• New Achievement: League Participant
  
• New Achievement: ???
  

Thanks as always to the enthusiastic community who have given feedback and suggestions during the development of the update - and for the countless hours they put in! You all make the game what it is. If you want to get involved, either with feedback, bug reports or just want to hang out with other players, then join us on the Steam chat which you can find here - we look forward to meeting you!

The next update will focus on bringing some more content to the game, which I'll detail in a later post. Until then though, happy golfing! 🏌️‍♀️⛳

It's been a busy month here on the range - I've been working on update 1.14, which is centred on bringing new modes and updated game play - so let's dive right in!

First up I've implemented the following new game modes:

• Stableford
  
• Stableford Pro
  
• Multi-target
  
• Short Round
  

Stableford & Stableford Pro
The Stableford modes are played the same way as traditional Stroke play, however the score is tallied slightly differently. In Stableford obtaining par for the hole is worth 2 points. Extra points are awarded for every stroke under par, for example a Birdie is worth 3 points and an Eagle 4 points. Regular Stableford games clamp the value at zero - that is a Bogey or worse are worth no points, and the hole is ended for any player who has used up all their strokes and can't score. This can be beneficial for more casual games as it both speeds up the game play, and means that lower tier players are less likely to fall a long way behind on the scoreboard as the game progresses.

Stableford Pro is the similar, though negative scores are awarded for Bogey and worse. A Bogey is worth -1 point, Double Bogey -2 and so on. This has the potential for a longer running game - and keeps the contestants on their toes!

Multi-target mode
Multi-target is an all-new game play mode where each player must first hit a mid-point target on each hole, before holing out. Holing out (or even hitting the green) without first hitting the target forfeits that hole for the player with maximum strokes (12 on a regular course, 6 on the putting course).
Multi-target mode can be very challenging - missing a target first time effectively puts all other players one stroke ahead - and the games are often long and pretty intense! However the targets themselves offer a great opportunity for earning up to 70XP per target. The closer to the centre of the target you hit the more XP you earn.



Short Round
A Short Round mode has also been added for more casual game play. The selected course is reduced in length by 33% - so front or back 9 selections become 6 holes, and 18 hole selections become 12 holes. Which holes are available depend on whether the course is being played in forward or reverse, with the final 3 or 6 holes being omitted from the roster. The scoring is that of regular Stroke play - however final scores are not entered into the leaderboards.


As well as these new modes I've also updated skins rounds. If the final hole is drawn the game will enter Sudden Death! which isn't as gory as it sounds - simply put the first player to hole out on the last hole of the course wins the remaining skins pot. Of course, whether or not those skins are enough to win the entire round is another matter! 😁

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Monthly Challenges
Also new to this update are the Monthly Challenges. Starting from the first of each month, as the name suggests, you'll have the remainder of the month to complete a given challenge. The currently active challenge and your personal progress can be found by visiting the Clubhouse. Completing a Monthly Challenge awards a whopping 500XP as well as an award for the personal stats page.





While we're here at the Clubhouse we can find another new feature: the Club League. This is a passive challenge which tracks your progress out on the course, and charts it against a series of virtual CPU players. Imagine it being something a little like fantasy football. The Club League is split into seasons of 24 games - at the end of each season the scores are reset, each of the CPU players are re-evaluated and awards for top 3 placement are given out. CPU players who did well will have their internal stats incremented for a greater challenge, while poorer performers drop down the ranks. As the Club League also ties in with your personal progression stats, resetting your profile from the Profile page will also completely reset the Club League, and generate a new set of CPU players. Stroke play, Stableford games and Short Round matches all contribute to the league.



And, of course, as with all new features there are a series of new achievements to be gained too!

Public Beta
As these features have now all been implemented in-game you can try them out on the public beta branch, by right clicking the game in your library and selecting the Beta tab. This goes with the usual caveat of there may (will!) be bugs here and there - so you do try it out at your own risk. If you do find a bug or have a suggestion for the update, leave a note on the discussions page or drop into the Official Chat - I'm always happy to hear feedback!

While this mostly completes the update there are still a few tweaks, mini-features and quality of life improvements to make before it's ready to be released - so stay tuned for future news!

Thanks as always go to the fervent and enthusiastic testers who have been helping out, including (but not limited to!) yourjaguarlover and Dechrissen.

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Finally...
I mentioned in a previous post that the community are running Super Video Sundays - a place for people to get together each Sunday to match up online. Great fun has been had so far, and it's open for anyone to join - just head over to the Super Video Clubhouse group and say hello! Here's a video replay of one of last Sunday's rounds, featuring the new Multi-target mode:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Don't forget that, as it's a new month, the Monthly Leaderboards for August have now been archived - congratulations to everyone who placed a top 3! September's leaderboards are now underway and are logging scores for Stroke play games.

Thanks as always to everyone who has been joining in - I appreciate you all! 😁
See you in the next update!

One of my favourite things about making Super Video Golf has been the small community growing up around it. As a great example of this some members have taken it upon themselves to create the Super Video Clubhouse group - a place to meet other players and to play online. This group plans to feature events such as tournaments as well as host Super Video Sundays - where every Sunday players can get together and organise games between themselves and even play in a Sunday league!

If this sounds like your kind of thing, or you simply just want to hang out with other Super Video Golfers, then join the public group here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/supervideoclubhouse - and drop into the chatroom to say Hi!

Special thanks goes to Dechrissen and yourjaguarlover for their hard work. Hope to see you there! 🏌️‍♀️⛳

It's update time again, this time bringing the promised new features based around player stats and leaderboards, as well as the usual collection of quality of life improvements. Last month I covered some of the features which have already been implemented, so if you'd like to check out what they are you can find the details in this post here. Continuing on from that I've added these new options to Super Video Golf:

Driving range leaderboards are now broken down by target as well as try count. This means that for each target you attempt on the Driving Range, final scores are tallied independently from other targets. The consensus was that this gave an overall fairer competition, rather than mixing the results from a single easy target with those, say, of a run of random targets. To reflect this the Driving Range leaderboard viewer has been expanded and updated, so each one can be examined individually.



Alongside this the menus in the Driving Range have been given a lick of paint, to make them look neater and more polished with some new artwork.


Players on the Steam Deck have also made their voices heard, so this update includes some deck-specific updates. Firstly, when playing on Steam Deck (or in Big Picture mode) the power bar has been increased to double the size, so that it is more visible on a smaller screen, or when viewing from a distance.



The options menu, which previously included controller-specific artwork for XBox and Playstation controllers, has now been updated with artwork to reflect the Steam Deck's controls.



And, as a final buff for Steam Deck and game controller users, menu navigation has been completely overhauled when using the DPad or thumbstick. This means that pushing up or down actually moves the selection up or down now! 😅 This was a surprisingly... detailed... amount of work, so there may be an edge case in one or two places where things don't work as intuitively as you might think. If this is the case, please make sure to let me know via the discussions or the Steam Chat, and I'll do my best to fix things.


One of the biggest features in this update is the addition of the Stats browser to the Clubhouse, to accompany the new leaderboard viewer. The stats browser is broken down into 4 main views:

Club Stats:
This page details all of the available golf clubs, so you can see the different ranges offered by different club sets (Novice, Expert, Pro) and at which level the clubs are unlocked, as well as their current unlock status. Each club also includes stats that provide information as to how much adding top or side spin to the shot will actually affect play. For example the wedges are highly affected by top and back spin, while irons are also affected by side spin.



Player Performance:
The performance page charts the scores attained for each hole of each course. This is logged separately for each player profile, including CPU profiles, and is not available publicly via Steam. The stats are tracked locally, and act as a way to view your own personal improvement (or not!) in scores over time.



Score logging was enabled in 1.12.5, so existing players should have some data to view already. New players (welcome!) will have to play a few rounds before anything tangible is visible.

Course History:
The history page displays the total number of times you, as a Steam user, have completed each course, either as a full 18 hole round, or one of the front or back 9 plays. It also displays the total, aggregated, number of rounds completed by all Steam users. At the bottom you can also see the average amount of time spent playing each course. These are all based on your Steam stats, and are the same as those visible from the Stats tab in the Options menu.



Awards:
The final page displays any awards you may have won. Currently this only displays awards for coming in the top 3 of one of the monthly leaderboards - however more awards will be added in future updates.




Some players have also requested that there is music when playing the game, instead of just on the menus. While there are no immediate plans to add any music to the game, I've now updated the music system so that it's possible to add your own custom playlist of music, which will play from your hard drive. The details of which are too lengthy to go into here, however I have added a guide which explains how to create and add your own custom music playlist. You can view the guide here.



These are, of course, the highlights of the update - here's the full change list of everything that's been added or updated since 1.12:

• Added incidental audio for spectators
  
• Updated lobby menu layout
  
• The previous round’s scores are no longer shown on the ticker if the round wasn’t fully completed
  
• Added previous round’s scoreboard to lobby menu
  
• Added leaderboard browser to clubhouse and lobby menu
  
• Increased maximum clients in a network game to 8
  
• Overhauled CPU behaviour (special thanks to yourjaguarlover for the thorough testing/feedback)
  
• Added Auto-skip mode for CPU players
  
• CPU Power bar is hidden for players at level 10 or above
  
• Profiles can now have short biographies
  
• Profile editor can now take mugshots
  
• Players can now choose which range of clubs to use for the next round, once unlocked
  
• Players can now choose which range of clubs to use for the driving range, once unlocked
  
• Driving range leaderboards are now broken down by target as well as try count
  
• Updated driving range menus now show current record holder for the selection
  
• Power bar is double size when playing on Steam Deck to increase visibility
  
• Options menu now has controller artwork for Steam Deck
  
• Overhauled UI navigation when using a controller/Steam Deck
  
• Added option to reset keybinds to their default values
  
• Added overview map (open from menu or key 6) to view the current hole's contours
  
• Added current putter range to the power bar when putting
  
• Ball can now collide with the flag
  
• Game will now play user selected music from any playlists found in the user/music directory
  
• Added stats browser for Club Stats to Clubhouse
  
• Added stats browser for course play time to Clubhouse
  
• Added stats browser for per-profile score history to Clubhouse
  
• Added awards browser for monthly awards to Clubhouse
  
• Added awards for placing top 3 in the monthly leaderboards
  
• Added grid view browser for ball selection to profile editor
  
• Fixed regression which prevented tool tips displaying in Options menu
  
• New Achievement - Nested
  
• New Achievement - Gimme Gimme Gimme
  
• New Achievement - Drive It Home
  
• New Achievement - Gamer
  
• New Achievement - Cause A Racket
  

As always thanks to everyone who has been testing the public beta and offering feedback - you really do help make the game what it is 😁 Don't forget, if you do have any comments/suggestions/bugs, you can always leave a comment in the discussions section, or join in on the Steam Chat here.


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Looking forward to 1.14 I've already started work on monthly personal challenges - these are tasks/challenges for which you have up to a month to complete, earning yourself a healthy dose of XP (and maybe an achievement or two!). Monthly challenges are not reflected on Steam, and are entirely optional. Each month will provide a new challenge, and the active challenge along with your current progress will be viewable from the Clubhouse.

1.14 will also hopefully see the introduction of some new game modes to play, particularly shorter, challenge based modes, ideal for more casual couch play (although they'll also work online). I have a variety or modes in mind - however I won't share any details just yet until something more concrete is formed, so look out for those in a future post!

That pretty much wraps up this update - thank you all for playing (and reading this far!), I'll see you in the next one. Happy Golfing! ⛳