Super Video Golf News

It recently occurred to me: I've got a Steam Deck, I've got a comfy couch… why the heck aren't I playing golf? I couldn't find a whole lot of Deck-friendly golf games that didn't require an emulator or weren't some sort of golf variation like What the Golf?, but I eventually stumbled upon Super Video Golf. It's chill but still challenging, and perfect for the Steam Deck with undemanding low-fi '90s looks and support for 8 players in local or online PvP...
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Hello golf fans!

I'm happy to say that the new Super Video Golf update is available - bringing with it the anticipated Career Mode! That's not all it brings however and, while I've outlined some of the other new features in a previous post, I'll be covering those in detail further down. But first:

Career Mode



So how does it work? Career mode builds on the existing league system, introduced in 1.14. Currently the 'Club League', as it is known, takes your scores from a free play round, converts them using the Stableford scoring system and uses the results to calculate your league standing.

Other players in the league are purely 'hypothetical' - that is they are created from a set of pseudo random stats, generated at the beginning of the season, which are then used to generate a fantasy football style league. A league lasts one season, the length of which depends on which league you are currently playing. The Club League, for example, lasts 24 rounds. The goal is to finish as high as possible in the league after completing the final round.

Career mode, then, builds on this league system, creating a progression across 6 leagues, each of which have a season lasting for 6 rounds. These rounds are split across all 12 courses available in Super Video Golf - with two rounds on the front 9, two rounds on the back 9 and two rounds of 18 holes, played over two different courses per league. If that's a bit wordy, here's a full breakdown of all 6 leagues:

• The Country Club Tour
  - Front 9 Sunny Cove
  - Front 9 Westington Links
  - Back 9 Sunny Cove
  - Back 9 Westington Links
  - All 18 Sunny Cove
  - All 18 Westington Links
  
  
• The Badlands Cup
  - Front 9 Fairland Rock
  - Front 9 Terdiman Cliffs
  - Back 9 Fairland Rock
  - Back 9 Terdiman Cliffs
  - All 18 Fairland Rock
  - All 18 Terdiman Cliffs
  
  
• Links Challenge
  - Front 9 Moulin Plage
  - Front 9 Roving Sands
  - Back 9 Moulin Plage
  - Back 9 Roving Sands
  - All 18 Moulin Plage
  - All 18 Roving Sands
  
  
• Hill and Hole Valley Run
  - Front 9 Nguyen Valley
  - Front 9 Grove Bank
  - Back 9 Nguyen Valley
  - Back 9 Grove Bank
  - All 18 Nguyen Valley
  - All 18 Grove Bank
  
  
• Chippers Pitch 'n' Putt
  - Front 9 Old Stemmer's Lane
  - Front 9 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt
  - Back 9 Old Stemmer's Lane
  - Back 9 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt
  - All 18 Old Stemmer's Lane
  - All 18 Purcitop Pitch 'n' Putt
  
  
• The Woodland League
  - Front 9 Dackel's Run
  - Front 9 Hertog Regis
  - Back 9 Dackel's Run
  - Back 9 Hertog Regis
  - All 18 Dackel's Run
  - All 18 Hertog Regis
  

To start with only the first league is unlocked. You must play the entire season and finish in the top 3 to progress to the next league. Finishing a league also rewards you with unlocked cosmetics - a new ball for 3rd place or better, a new piece of headwear for 2nd place or better, and finishing first will unlock a new player avatar. All of these items, once unlocked, will also be available in free play, including online matches - so you can wear your new cosmetics as a badge of honour! 😅

And if you don't finish with gold first time? Don't worry! You can go back and play any league that's been unlocked again at any time. You can even have multiple leagues in progress because...

Save Games
A much asked for feature, save games are now available in Career Mode. They *haven't* yet made it into free play mode, however while working your way through the career you can drop out of a round at any time. Resuming the league will continue from the last hole you were playing on the currently active course. And it'll also even remember the weather!

This makes it much easier to play, particularly when golfing on-the-go with the Steam Deck, an experience which has also been enhanced with offline progression stats. Previously, not having an internet connection would prevent your profile XP increasing (which, admittedly, was an oversight on my part 😳) - but now you can continue your career wherever you go, all progression is saved! Only leaderboards are unavailable offline, and that's because it's a technical limitation of Steam.

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So what else is new?
While working on the new menus for the Career mode, I've taken the opportunity to improve the profile editor, specifically when browsing for cosmetics. Previously all installed balls (either the default, unlocked, or installed from the Workshop) were clumped in to one very large fly-out menu - which often didn't even fit on screen.

I've completely overhauled this so that balls are now collected into a series of pages, and organised by where they originate - eg are they custom balls, or ones included in the game. I've also extended this to the headwear items, which can now be browsed in the same way.



Items also now have labels which can be associated with them, so I've updated the workshop tools to reflect this. When authoring a new item (or updating an existing one) just make sure to fill out the 'label' field in the editor. (A special thanks to creators Beetroot Bertie and VEKTA who've already updated their items!)



Also in the menus it now possible to open the stats for all the golf clubs directly from the status window, both in Career and Free Play modes. I've removed the slightly precarious Profile Reset button from the main menu, and placed it in the Options menu, next to a new option to reset the current career progress.



On top of this there are the previously mentioned new features: adjustable crowd sizes, new avatar materials, changeable ball colours and the Global League. You can read all about those here.




Here is the full change list since 1.15:

• Updated non-system preferences are now stored per Steam user and cloud sync’d
  
• Updated avatar materials now have reflection and self illumination properties
  
• Updated workshop tools can now author new avatar materials
  
• Updated workshop tools now allow adding item labels
  
• Updated workshop tools now allow setting preview rotation for balls
  
• Updated leaderboards are now sub-sorted by date so newer scores rank higher
  
• Updated league browser now includes new league tables
  
• Updated camera drone position is now dictated by host in multiplayer games
  
• Updated player profile editor with new browsers for ball and hair models
  
• Moved Profile Reset button to Stats page of Options menu
  
• Added Career Reset button to Stats page of Options menu
  
• Added option to adjust crowd density
  
• Added a global league based on monthly course scores
  
• Added option to set custom ball colours in profile editor
  
• Added ability to choose active club set from roster menu
  
• Added ability to open stats menu from roster menu
  
• Added Career Mode
  
• Added new set of unlockable balls
  
• Added new set of unlockable headwear
  
• Added new set of unlockable avatars
  
• XP Rewards have been buffed
  
• Fixed hair colour when playing in night mode
  
• Fixed rotation of ball models in preview window
  
• Fixed deleted profiles are properly removed from cloud sync
  
• Fixed Greens in Regulation being triggered if the player forfeits all holes in a round
  
• Fixed progression related stats in offline mode (steam deck now progresses when there’s no internet connection)
  
• Fixed avg monthly rank not including new courses from 1.15
  
• New Achievement: Semi-retired
  
• New Achievement: All Time Champion
  
• New Achievement: Vandal
  

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That's it for this update! Thanks as always to the wonderful community, especially to those who have helped test the public beta, and everyone who plays on Super Video Sundays. Don't forget that if you want to get involved by leaving feedback or join in on a Sunday game, you can always join the group chat here, and join the Super Video Clubhouse where community members come together to play online. And, of course, you can always post on the discussions board.

For now, however, happy golfing! 🏌️‍♀️⛳🏌️‍♂️

Every calendar month a new challenge runs, starting and ending at midnight UTC.

This month's challenge is to play a full 18 (or 12 in Short Round) holes in each game mode in Free Play. You can play solo, online or against CPU - are you up for it?

Rounds can be played at any time throughout the month, and completing the challenge awards 1000XP! Track your progress from the menu in the Clubhouse on the 19th hole, and look out for the notification in the top right corner of the screen.


And, don't forget, new monthly leaderboards are now live too! 😁

Happy golfing! ⛳

Every calendar month a new challenge runs, starting and ending at midnight UTC.

You may have noticed random bull's-eye targets, normally reserved for Multi-Target mode, popping up on your course recently, and not known why! These targets are this months challenge 😁 During Stroke play, either solo, online or against CPU opponents, up to 2 targets will appear on the course in a single round. Hit the target with your ball and scratch one off for this month's challenge! You'll need to hit 25 targets to complete it.



Rounds can be played at any time throughout the month, and completing the challenge awards 500XP! Track your progress from the menu in the Clubhouse on the 19th hole, and look out for the notification in the top right corner of the screen.

And, don't forget, new monthly leaderboards are now live too! 😁

Happy golfing! ⛳

Howdy golfers! It's a new month so, in what's become a tradition around here, it's time to look at what's coming soon to Super Video Golf - let's jump right in!

Firstly I've been working on a selection of cosmetic changes. Thanks to a suggestion over on the discussions I've updated the profile editor to allow changing the colour of balls. This means that, for those who prefer, the 'vanilla' balls now have a greater range of possibilities. Simply go to the profile editor and click on the palette flyout to choose a new colour for your ball.



Colours are also synchronised in network games, so other players will also be able to see your customisations.

Version 1.15 brought with it night mode and a new lighting system - so in 1.16 I've updated avatar materials to take advantage of that. Once the update is available you'll be able to supply illumination and reflection maps to avatar models via the Workshop tools. As an example, allow our friendly neighbourhood cyborg to demonstrate his new neon trim 😁:



Another suggestion from the community was the option to have bigger crowds. While still in the early stages (the model placement needs to be fine-tuned) I have implemented this in the Options menu. It's now possible to select from anywhere between a group of casual observers all the way up to a tournament crowd:




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The biggest new feature coming soon, however, is the new Career mode. I mentioned it briefly at the end of last month's retrospective post, and now that things are a little more baked I can go into more detail.

Career mode builds on the concept of the Club League added in update 1.14. The Club League is an offline competition between the default player profile and 15 computer generated profiles, whose scores are calculated based on a series of fantasy-football style stats (you can read more about it here).

Currently regular 'free play' games in either Stroke or Stableford scoring mode contribute their scores to the Club League. In Career mode there are 6 new unique leagues, each of which are composed of 6 rounds of Stroke play across 2 courses. Complete all 6 rounds (which persist between sessions, so no need to complete them all at once!) and finish in the top 3 of the league to unlock the next one. Each league gets progressively more difficult, so you'll need to make sure to rank up your profile and unlock those fancy long range clubs!



If, upon completing a league, you're not happy with your final position then fear not! You can replay any unlocked league at any time in an attempt to beat your previous placement, and unlock something new.

Oh yes - completing the leagues, as well as dishing out plentiful XP, also unlocks new cosmetics 😁 - I haven't actually made these yet, so I can't share anything specific, however there will be 6 new balls for each 3rd place achieved, 6 new hair styles/hats for each of the 2nd place rankings and coming top of the league will unlock one of 6 new player avatars. Once unlocked all of these cosmetics will be available in free play, and sync across network games too.

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Finally, to further expand on the league system, there is also a new Global League. This league is based on the existing monthly Steam leaderboards - it takes the sum total of a player's monthly best scores and inserts it into an online leaderboard so you can see how you're doing compared to your fellow golfers.



The league lasts one calendar month, along with the monthly leaderboards, starting and finishing at midnight UTC. There are 36 rounds, or total scores, for the league - one for each front, back and 18 hole round on each course. Scores can be contributed at any time throughout the month, and if you improve on an existing score the league is updated to reflect that. To help track which rounds you've already played there's a new message in the lobby:




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That's it for this month! There's more going on behind the scenes, but I'll talk about what those things are in the next post. If you have any comments or questions about the Career mode, or anything in general, please feel free to post in the discussions, or join the Chat Room. Also, don't forget that every Sunday is host to Super Video Sunday where we get together to play Super Video Golf online, very often with the public beta, so you can always join in and try out new features as they are available! More information on how to join can be found at the Steam group here.

Thanks as always to everyone who plays the game, leaves comments and makes suggestions for new features - I couldn't do it without you!

Until next time, happy golfing! ⛳