Hi! I bought your game a few days ago and it's fantastic! Hands down the best golf game of recent years, it's been years since a golf game came out that was so fun and refreshing even from a stylistic point of view!
I've been a collector and passionate about video games all my life (I started with the Atari 2600 in the 80s and currently I have 36 consoles and more than 1400 original games) and my favorites are golf games!
I see a huge potential in this game and it's very close to becoming a real absolute masterpiece, that's why I want to share with you some additions or changes that in my opinion would make it much better, I don't know how much the game is still in development or if you'll take into consideration some of these suggestions, maybe some things are too complex or would distort your idea too much but as I've already said in my opinion each of these things would make the game much better.
Sorry it's going to be a really long message but I can't resist.
1) Visible Fringe:
I noticed that there is an imaginary fringe from which you can hit with the putter, but it would be better to actually make it visible, this would also make the graphics more pleasant.
2) Hittable trees and obstacles:
I don't know if I've always been lucky but it seems that trees and other obstacles are not hit by the ball, this also makes many shots that would be risky too easy, also it would be better to have some trees or obstacles more in the middle of the trajectories, at the moment almost all the routes do not have obstacles (except for the bunkers).
3) Ugly faces in the editor:
You probably wanted to create a retro aesthetic on purpose but the faces in the editor are really too ugly, especially because in the real game the characters are very cute, so it's just a problem with the editor.
4)Rain and humidity do not change the gameplay:
I noticed that rain or fog do not make the ball fly or roll less, this is a real shame, especially in putters (usually with rain you have to hit 50% more, for example if the distance is 10m you have to hit more or less 15m), this would make everything more realistic and satisfying.
And when there is fog we should have a similar situation but less effective than rain.
In this regard it is boring that if a rainy day happens the whole game is with rain, it would be nice to see the sky clear up after a few holes, or rain again after many holes.
5)No penalty for obstacles:
It would be nice to have the classic ball view on one side of the screen that shows us what type of terrain we are on or how far it has sunk into the bunker with the relative penalty % (for example, from the rough you should have a 75% effective shot and you should calculate how much more to hit).
6)No elevation reported:
It would be useful to always have the difference in height between the ball and the hole on the screen (for example -2m) and that this would influence the shots, so if the hole is higher we will have to hit a little more or a little less if it is lower.
7) Incomprehensible score on screen:
I don't quite understand what that "score" at the bottom of the screen means but there we should have our current score (example -4 or +10).
8) All playable courses in career mode:
At the moment the career is a bit short and easy, it's a shame that not all courses are present.
9) More celebrations for excellent shots:
When you put a chip in from far away or any shot off the green at the moment the game says the usual ''eagle'' or ''birdie'' which doesn't give any satisfaction, the game should celebrate more with (random example) fireworks or showing us an instant replay of the shot.
10) Impossible to save or review the best shots:
In my opinion this is something that should never be missing in any golf game, the ability to save the holes that we have played well or where we have made incredible shots, to then review when we want in the clubhouse.
11) Nice shot:
It would be nice to have a voice that says the classic ''nice shot'' when you perform a perfect shot (maximum power and maximum precision) with writing on the screen, it is one of the classic things that should not be missing in a golf game.
12) power shot:
It would be nice to have a limited amount (6?) of power shots to use on par 5s to attempt an eagle, perhaps that are not consumed in case of a nice shot (just like in Mario golf).
In this regard, all par 5s at the moment seem unreachable, but some should be reachable to make eagle, perhaps only when you are lucky enough to have the wind in your favor or using the power shots.
13) Par of the hole:
This is a small but a bit annoying thing, at the moment the writing ''par 4'' of the hole is at the bottom right of the screen, completely disconnected from the hole data, it should be together with the data on the left, example: hole 1 - par 4 - 350 meters
14) More variety in the courses:
At the moment all the courses are very similar to see (except the desert and the sea) maybe you could differentiate some?
examples: snowy course, course in the woods with many tall trees on the sides, course with many lakes or waterways etc...
15) The character does not rotate when aiming:
It is a bit strange to see that you aim to the sides but the character (and the view) remain still, it would be much more dynamic if the camera rotated in real time, this would also improve the gameplay allowing us to see better where we are aiming.
16) Ambient noises:
It would be a nice touch to add ambient noises like the sound of the sea, birds in the woods etc.
17) animals:
Another nice touch would be to add some animals, like deer at the edge of the woods or seagulls in the sea, squirrels when you hit trees (if you can hit them) or some fish jumping from the waterways, it would make everything more dynamic and well-groomed.
18) Save exact shot when exiting a game:
When you exit the career the game restarts from the beginning of that hole, this allows a cheat... if we hit the ball in ob we can exit and re-enter to redo the hole from the beginning, or we can repeat a par 3 endlessly to make a hole in one, the game should save our last shot exactly to avoid this, alternatively it is better not to save anything and have to redo the whole course from the beginning rather than being able to use this trick.
19) Easier online:
I don't really understand how online works but it would be better if it were easier to meet people (maybe in a lobby) or find online tournaments, probably the reason why it isn't like that is because then you would need a server to manage, but anyway at the moment online is pretty useless and it's a shame.
20) More complexity in prizes and statistics:
It would be nice to earn money playing and have a virtual shop in the clubhouse where you can buy better clubs, clothes with stats or bonuses or things like that, at the moment you receive random and useless prizes, it's a shame.
Also it would be nice to be able to use experience points to level up the character's statistics, the classic power, accuracy, spin etc.
21)More tees:
We would need 2 more tees at longer distances to have the career of different levels (rookie, amateur, expert) this would greatly extend the longevity of the game and would allow to reach more reasonable distances (220 as maximum distance of the driver is too little, for the last tee a 260 or 280 would be more appropriate).
That's all for now, I don't know if you will take into consideration some of these ideas but the game with these changes would become a masterpiece.
Of course this is not a criticism, I could talk for hours about all the great things this game has, the graphic style, the music style, the customization of the graphic options, the intuitive and fun gameplay, a real gem!
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the game 😁 Yes, I'm still updating it, and I'm always happy to hear feedback. I'll try to answer each of your points here, but if you're on Steam (you can claim a Steam key with your itch download) we'd love to see you in our community chat: https://s.team/chat/ERNurHg8 where many of us get together to talk about new features or things that could improve the game. We also have a weekly online game every Sunday if that's something you would be interested in. Back to your comments:
1) I agree with this, and I did experiment with it. However I couldn't get it looking the way I wanted. I might try again at some point though.
2) Someone else has suggested this in the past. I've made notes as to how it might be done, but on a technical level it's actually quite difficult because of the multiplayer networking. Even when you play single player the game still creates a local server, so it's always 'multiplayer' even if there's only one person playing, if you see what I mean. The trees and shrubs are generated in a pseudo-random way on the client each time, so you never eally get exactly the same trees every time you play. It also means that in a network game everyone has slightly different trees (you just don't notice if you can't see the other player's computer). The server, however, which performs all the physics and collision has no trees at all, because they were intended as purely a visual effect - and this is why there's no collision. Maybe I should have thought about it in the beginning (but to be honest I never thought the game would get this far... it was just a hobby), but to add tree collision I'd have to completely rework the server side code, and then find some way to sync it with all of the clients. So it's *technically* possible, but it's also a lot of work, and I'd like to put the effort into other features for now. Maybe one day in the future 😁
3) Yeah, I'm a better programmer than an artist. Although it could be a scaling issue with the textures used to show the faces in the editor. I'll make a note to look into it.
4) I might look into this. I'll have to put it to community vote first though - when I messed with the wind in one update there was a lot of confusion as to why the game felt like it had changed 😅 I do like the idea of a damp green affecting the putt. If you set the weather to 'showers' it will switch between raining and being sunny while you are playing (so it's not always raining).
5) Bunkers and long grass both affect the the distance of your stroke. The top right corner of the screen also has an up or down arrow indicating the ball's lie when you're in the sand. There's a guide here which explains how it all works in detail: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2910207511
6) I did consider adding this berfore, but there was a lot of push back from the community. Although I think that maybe now you are also for adding it, maybe I'll try again 😅
7) I'm not sure which score you mean, but at the bottom of the screen you will see numbers appear which are XP that has just been awarded. You can see your round score at any time by pressing Tab or the back/option button on your gamepad.
8) The career mode should take you through every single hole on each course. The courses are split into 'leagues', and each league is played on 2 courses. When you complete the first league and finish in the top 5 the next league opens up along with the next 2 courses, and so on. When you have unlocked all the leagues you will have played all of the courses.
9) I agree with this, but the celebrations are limited to my resources. For instance all of the announcer voices are from the 'Super Golf Announcer Pack' here on itch. There are fireworks, although those are reserved for a hole in one 😁.
10) Replays and being able to save them have been requested a few times. Again this is down to being a technically challenging thing to add, especially with the networking. I've thought hard about how I might add it, and I do have some designs so it might get added in the future, but I couldn't say when.
11) I think the nearest to this is the 'awesome shot' callout, which you get when making a powerful and accurate shot. It does mix it with some other random voices though so it always says something a bit different each time.
12) As you gain XP and start to level up you'll start to get access to more clubs with a longer range (there's an explanation of that in the guide I linked above). When you have the 'pro' clubs you'll find that a par 5 eagle is possible with, as you say, the right wind conditions (and even a par 5 albatross on hole 15 of course 12!).
13) You know I never thought of it like that but you're quite right. For now though you should be able to see all of that together on the scoreboard. I'll make a note to look at rearranging the layout to something more sensible.
14) I actually thought they kind of were! I've tried to take influences from around the world for the different courses, hence the desert and the beach, but there are also the mountains/cherry blossom courses, and course 12 is meant to be quite hilly and stoney. I do have some more ideas in the works for future courses though, so I'll definitely bear it in mind when designing them.
15) The character will rotate when aiming but not until you reach the edge of the aiming cone (although in hindsight I don't really know why I did it like this 😅). If you hold the aim button the character will eventually do a complete 360 turn. You can also rotate the camera with 3 & 4 on your keyboard, or the right thumbstick on your controller. (You can also switch to the drone camera or a free camera by pressing 1 or 2, or Up or Down on the d-pad)
16) The game sound be packed with ambient noises - in fact I went to great lengths to make sure they work well if you have surround sound speakers, or HTRF capable headphones. Double check the environment sounds aren't turned down - you can either change the volume in the options menu, or if you press F1 to open the console and click on the Audio tab there are sliders for the different audio effects volumes.
17) There are a few animals in the game. For instance the desert course (course 10) has grazing sheep scattered around it. There are also birds which fly away when the ball lands in the bushes. There's always room for more animals though, so I'll look at adding some in the future 😁
18) Saving has always been a problem when it comes to cheating. Originally there was no opportunity to save at all, as the Steam version has competitive online leaderboards which could be otherwise cheated. In the end I compromised where you can only save in Career mode and only score on the leaderboards in freeplay, where you can't save the game. However if you're playing the version without leaderboards I guess this doesn't make much sense. Unfortunately the game requries a service like Steam to support leaderboards, as renting my own servers is just too expensive for a hobby game.
19) The above applies for online games too I guess. Without, as you say, special servers to facilitate match making it can be difficult to set up an online game. Again, the Steam version doesn't have this problem, you can click on your friends (or join a group like the Super Video Clubhouse) and get into an online game easily.
20) The shop and stats have been suggested before. I'd like to add both, however the main problem with the shop is that it would take weeks or even months just to make all the items to put in it. For now I need to prioritise my time on other parts of the game.
21) This is a nice idea actually - although as I mentioned earlier you will get longer clubs, all the way up to 260 eventually. It could work as a combination though.
I hope that answers some of your questions! Thanks for the feedback, I do take it all seriously, even though you probably won't see any suggestions appearing over night. As I say, we'd love to see you on Steam https://s.team/chat/ERNurHg8 but if not do make sure to check back on this page where I'll be posting new about any upcoming updates.
Tried to start the game on POP! OS and got this log from Lutris instead:
Started initial process 167 from gamemoderun ./golf
Start monitoring process.
./golf: error while loading shared libraries: libBulletDynamics.so.3.25: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
Monitored process exited.
Initial process has exited (return code: 32512)
All processes have quit
Exit with return code 32512
So it says the library doesn't exist, even though it's right there in the lib folder. Not sure how to fix shared objects not being recognized.
I'm away from my linux box atm - but you can try this: use readelf to check the rpath of golf (it should be the lib directory). If it's not you can use chrpath or patchelf to fix it.
Or you can try installing the libraries to somewhere in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Failing that the Windows version *should* work under Wine.
Failing that you can redeem the Steam key from the download page - the Steam version has a native linux build.
Hello, I love your game, the artstyle and the concept! I would like to mention an issue that I have with running the windows version under wine in linux. When I try to enter the IP-Adress to connect to, as soon as I click the textbox, I cannot enter anything and it doesn't seem to register any keystrokes anymore. Everything else seems to work fine.
Is it possible to connect to a host via console or via startup arguments? If not, I would like to kindly suggest something like this. That would be so fantastic.
Anyway, love your game! Hope either wine gets better to be more compatible or some other way to connect. Cheers
Hey, thanks! Sorry you're having that problem - I have to admit I haven't tested it in Wine for a while. I'll look into adding some console commands for connecting - that's a good idea! You could possibly also try using proton (if you don't mind using Steam) or even try using the Steam version (Steam key is on the download page). I know that works OK because it runs on the Steam Deck. If not, no worries I'll look into updating the linux build. Thanks again!
No no, thank you! :D I've added the connect command to the console, which will be included in the next update (due out pretty soon). I've also worked on fixing up the linux build, so if I can get the thing to package properly there'll be a native version with the next release too! (Though not the Steam version unfortunately).
I've included a new linux native build in the 1.14 update - hopefully it works better for you! If not I have a friend helping me out getting a native build running in Steam Runtime which should make a better distributable. Fingers crossed 🤞
Hello! I really like your game, I've been playing it on steam on my windows pc and wish I could also play with my characters on my mac laptop on the go. Any news on when that will come?
If you need some help compiling, I can look into building crogine on my m1 macbook pro and help you compile a version for steam.
Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I appreciate the offer to compile a mac version - but while the game is still in flux (I have plenty of updates planned 😉) collaborating on multiple builds is just too far out of scope. Once a more final version of the game is on the horizon I'll re-evaluate the mac options available.
You can still build the non-steam version from the source on GitHub - though there may be kinks in the mac version. Someone else has also been working on mac builds - perhaps you could collaborate with them? With that you can copy the assets directory from Steam to the app bundle and copy your characters from %appdata%/Trederia/golf/user/profiles/ on Windows to /users/<user>/library/application support/golf/user/profiles (I think, my mac is *very* rusty). It's rather inconvenient, I admit, although there are bound to be some automated solutions out there, even if it's just a shell script 😅
Thanks again for the support, I really appreciate it! 😁
Hey I'm looking to get this on the Spring Steam Sale as I primarily game on the Steam Deck, are you going to release the native Linux bianaries on Steam and ensure Steam Deck compatibility moving forward?
That's a definite "maybe" - I want to, but native versions are ridiculously complex to build. I can promise that I'll always test every update on Steam Deck hardware and on Manjaro desktop with Proton though, to make sure it works. Being officially verified is very important to me 😁
Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere, but is there a way to carry achievements over from the itch version to Steam? I don't think I'm ever gonna get that knock the drone out one ever again.
Hi, I did consider making this possible, but it turned out it would be far too easy for someone to cheat all the achievements on the Steam version by manipulating the user files of the itch version, sorry. The new update is due soon though, and I'm hitting the drone by accident, mostly on the pitch n putt course, more frequently than I'd like 😅 I'm sure it won't be long before you get the achievement again 😁
Wow, so glad I found this game. An absolute beauty!
So many great memories flooding back, like World Class Leaderboard, PGA Tour 1 and 2, VR Golf 99 (Think it was also called Actua Golf) and Links. Love the vibe, the colors, the scenery and little things like the drone, planes, leaderboard, scenery, boats etc... Adds some nice atmosphere.
As a lifelong golfer and player of golf games, I'd like to add just a few suggestions if you don't mind.
- A few different swing animations, like a 3/4 swing, 1/2 and a 1/4 swing. A full swing from just off the green looks very bizarre and off.
- A button to pull up the scoreboard at any time (or add it to esc menu)
- More outfit combos, customize options (eg: pants for a male golfer)
- An explanation of power for shots. Almost all my shots seem like they don't go as far as they should after doing the power meter math. Or does the rough affect power, and does the sand affect power or accuracy?
- Landing in some of the rough seems playable, but you get an automatic penalty stroke. The extreme stuff I get, but you can play out of many kinds of rough really with strategic decisions.
- Why the restriction in moving left and right for shot direction? I feel you should be able to shoot in any direction you choose.
- Hoping steam release will have a full club selection? And did you fix auto club selection? It's awkward and a pain to switch clubs every single shot. And maybe with experience and good play, your yardages become farther for driver etc. Would add repeat playability to improve your player's skill and club power etc.
- Green size, shape variety and adding a fringe. They look like they are just plopped in a sea of dark green usually. A few outer rings of fringe or small amounts of fairway / lighter green brought around would be visually more appealing.
- Tournaments (even against a large field of computer opponents), Career or season mode, more elaborate breakdown of your stats etc.
- Scoreboard between holes flashes too quickly. Make that an x button click thru when ready. Also remove the zeroes from unplayed holes, makes it really confusing to figure out where you are on the scorecard.
- Your overall score on the scorecard and main playing screen at all times would be nice too. (-2 or +12 or whatever) Maybe beside name of player
- Could it always be in yards and not feet on the green. 3.55 yards etc. Or put the feet of the putters max in feet (not yards) too. Weird trying to convert yards to feet on the green.
- On one green (9th hole and 13th hole at Westing Links ) I was 8 yards away on green. Putter goes 7 yards. So technically, it can't even reach the hole?
- 11 yards away ( on fairway - Use wedge that can go 32 yards. I'm 11 yards away. 50% should easily get me there. Side wind. I go about 60% and still end up 11 ft short. Accurate second click too. Doesn't add up and is the only frustrating part of the game.
- Get rid of the cry sound effect (like nails on a chalkboard to me lol) Maybe a grumble or cartoon swearing (ala Home Alone)
- Computer opponents take too long
- Press x to skip the brown pop-up score after draining the ball. Skip when you're up (with brown box again) to speed up play if you prefer to go faster.
Anyways hope that doesn't sound critical. This is a fantastic start and progress in a truly enjoyable game. Excited to see it grow.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, this is the kind of information I thrive on. You're not the first to raise a few of these points, so I'd like to reassure you that many of them have already been addressed and updated for the next release. You do bring up some new points however, so I'll make sure to look into them. Just to clarify:
I agree about the animations - however as a solo dev I'm limited to whichever stock animations I can obtain. I agree entirely about the slightly jarring impact of hitting a ball apparently full pelt and having it drop only a few yards. Unfortunately it's not something I can foreseeably do anything about, although if I find a way I will 😁
The scoreboard can be viewed at any time by holding Tab or Back on the controller. It's missing from the Options graphic, but I'll make sure to add it.
Increased avatar customisation will come later. I'm hoping to add it as a Steam workshop item, so people will be able to add their own, increasing the variety available.
The current release here on itch has slightly broken power values for shots. It also doesn't select a good default club. This has been completely re-done for the next update so that the power bar more intuitively represents a percentage of the club's power. The terrain does affect the shot, I've uploaded a guide to the Steam page which explains how it works - although it's more applicable to the upcoming release rather than the current one. You can read it here.
The restriction on left/right aiming is apparently a much debated topic! There are those who say, justifiably, that in real golf you could hit the ball anywhere you like - however others say that in real golf you wouldn't say 'well the hole is over those trees so I'll just hit it that way' because you don't (or maybe you do?) have a mini map which tells you where the hole lies... so it's a difficult topic to balance. In the upcoming version the direction is still limited, however the angle is much wider. It's also possible to deliberately hook or slice the ball for a further increase in angle if that's a tactic you'd like to employ. It probably sounds a bit weird, I know, but as I get more feedback I'll certainly try to refine it.
The club range is designed to try and best fit the game, rather than reflect an actual set of golf clubs. Similarly to the par values - for instance there are no par 5s simply because the game engine isn't capable of making holes that big. The included range of clubs are enough to play the game tactically enough that it's competitive, without overwhelming players who aren't well experienced with golf. The auto selection is fixed for the next release, and I have vague notions of a 'shop' which allow you to buy different clubs based on experience, although there's no solid plan for that yet. Perhaps based on your and other player's feedback I can refine that idea in the future.
I agree the greens could use some work, if at least visually. It already irks me that many of them have stripes which don't go in the same direction as the fairway 😅. I've worked to refine them for the next update (and the update after that which is already being worked on!) so I'll take this under consideration, particularly the transition from fairway to green.
Tournaments and other gameplay modes have been on my list for a long time, but have not been implemented for weird technical reasons involving the layout of the lobby menu 🙄 This will first be addressed as I redesign it to allow for custom courses and course thumbnails to preview the selected course, at which point I hope to add extended gameplay modes as part of the game rule selection that currently covers matchplay/skins/gimme rules etc.
I could possibly make the scoreboard show a little longer, although as I mentioned you can view it at any time with tab / back button. The problem is that in multiplayer games online if someone refuses to acknowledge the scores it holds up the entire game. I'll spend some time trying to find a better solution to this. I'll definitely remove the zeros from unplayed holes - it won't be in the initial Steam release, but certainly in the first update afterwards.
Showing your own score at all time would be nice. I'll try to add this.
Imperial measurements are not what I'm used to, so I have to apologise for any inconsistencies. I'll make sure the putter values and the green values at least match up, and stick with yards rather than feet.
Again, as mentioned, the overall power/aim/distance of clubs have been overhauled, hopefully for the better 😄. It's one of the things I've worked hardest on improving.
The sound effects are, as a solo developer, what I can get my hands on 😁. The voices do vary between avatars, although you can always turn down the voice effects from the options menu (scroll through the selection at the top of the first page, it lets you set the volume for different groups of sounds) - or failing that just delete the sound file from the assets directory. It won' t break the game 😁
Computer opponents are completely rewritten for the next update. Without getting technical you'll just have to take my word that they're a lot better - although there is a brief overview here.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the feedback! I'm glad you're enjoying what you've played so far. The Steam release / next update is by no means the last, and I try to take in everyone's opinion and balance them as best I can. I hope you enjoy it once it's released!
Hello! First off--this is absolutely one of the best golf games I've ever played. I was wondering if there's some central place that folks making custom courses use as a repository, because I'd love to see what folks are making! Is there anything like that, or nah?
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it! As far as I'm aware there is currently nowhere dedicated to sharing content, however I am planning a post-release update for the Steam version to add workshop support for custom courses and custom balls 😁
I've put about 4 hours into the game over the last couple days with my partners, and there's a couple inconsistencies and quirks I've noticed with the game that I think could be improved!
1. The power gauge is pretty odd with how it determines distance. The gap wedge for example, lists itself as 32yd. Hitting a half-shot with that club should go around 16yd, but even with tailwind behind the player, I can never get it to go more than 10yd, and this is pretty consistent with the rest of the clubs in the bag, besides the putter. I think the game could be tons easier to get a feel for if the power gauge could read more accurately :]
2. I'm not a huge fan of the wind changing with every shot, primarily in multiplayer; My tee shot could have 1.9 knots of wind going straight forward, and hit the green in one, but then the next person to tee off could have 1.5 knots going straight backwards, and be 30yd away from the green still. I like the concept, especially if it were a challenge mode! But as a general balance-focused feature, I think wind should keep to one speed and one general direction per hole :]
3. On every shot, the game sets your default club to the driver. This is definitely not as big of an issue once you get it in your head that you have to switch every shot, but I think it'd be nice to have the game auto-set your club based on distance left (i.e, you have 60yd left and automatically sets you up to have the pitching wedge equipped, which is the closest club to that distance, while still being over the target as to not go full power and not have the distance to make the shot).
4. In other golf games I've played; when putting, and you're close enough to the cup where the caddy doesn't have to tend the flag (or in this case, the flag isn't in the cup), there'll usually be a small indicator above the hole to remind you where the hole is. This would be a great addition to this game, as sometimes the hole will either be camouflaged into the slope grid, or the pixelation will cause it to completely disappear at times. Perhaps a small, bouncing red arrow above the cup would be great, as it'd be a lot easier to tell where you're supposed to be aimed at all times!
Overall, this game's super fun and it's one of the only full course golf games out there that I can readily just hop on and play with friends and family. Most other games I find on Steam are either mini-golf, or cost an arm and a leg. I love this concept and it's executed really well!! Thank you for the constant updates and I hope these wouldn't be too hard to implement! Unfortunately I'm not too familiar with all that goes into game deving, so I hope I'm not asking too too much from you! Thank you for your time and for the very cool game :3
Hi! Thank you for the detailed post - I really appreciate feedback like this as it helps me to dial in the game. To address your points:
I'm inclined to agree with this - it's one of those things that I've gotten so used to now that it has fallen by the way. I'll definitely look into making this more intuitive for the next update.
Again, I agree. In hindsight it seems quite unfair that not every player gets to attempt the same shot. I guess this is a tell that I tend to play against the computer more than other human beings 😅. I'll modify the behaviour so that the wind only changes when the hole does.
This is a bug 😔 It used to auto-suggest a club based on distance, I'm not sure where or when it broke... I'll fix it 😁
This is a good idea. I'll tie it in with the flag beacon, so that players will have the option to turn it off and choose its colour. While red is a common choice colour-blind players will often choose blue or yellow as to them red is usually invisible or hard to see on a predominantly green background.
If you'd like to track the progress of the updates follow me on Twitter, as I post most often there. Thanks again for the feedback, it really is the people who share their thoughts who help steer and fine-tune the game. I'm glad you're enjoying it! By the way, if you haven't already, check out Tee Time Golf on Steam. There's no affiliation, I just think it's one of the better full-sized golf games available 😁
Hey again! I dunno if this is an issue on my end or not, but whenever I open the game, it doesn't seem to save my resolution? It always kicks me back into 480p and I have to manually reset it back to 1440p! Also- I wanted to mention the idea of putting borderless fullscreen into the game's video settings? I've been having to use Borderless Gaming on Steam to get it to work, and I'd love for it to be built straight in!
Hey! Sorry you have this problem. You can check to make sure the settings are being saved OK by opening the options menu, then closing it again (this forces the game to save the config file) then press F1 to open the game's console. In the console window there should be a message stating whether or not the file was saved successfully:
You can navigate to this directory to make sure (you may need to enable hidden folders, or use the %appdata% shortcut in windows) and then open cfg.cfg in a text editor. Make sure width, height and window_size are set as appropriate. You can even edit these and try launching the game again - if you accidentally put invalid settings and the game won't launch just delete the file.
If you're able to create a larger window, but the resolution still looks wrong try disabling 'pixel scaling' in the options menu. When this is enabled it takes a 640x480 resolution and stretches it to fill the window creating large retro(ish) pixels. By disabling it you will get the window's native resolution. If your keyboard has a number pad the + and - buttons can be used to toggle pixel scaling at any time, so you can quickly see how it affects the look of the game.
The game's default fullscreen mode is in fact borderless window - there's no fullscreen mode which completely takes control of the display as some other games do. Fullscreen mode will always set the resolution to match your current display. There's also a keyboard shortcut to toggle fullscreen at any time - alt+enter. Hope this helps!
Hi. The game is stand-alone so doesn't require an emulator. Which version do you have (windows, linux, etc)? And which graphics card do you have? Usually if the game doesn't launch it means your GPU doesn't support OpenGL 4.1 or higher, although on linux there may be some missing libraries. On windows if you go to %appdata%/Trederia/golf/ there should be a file called output.log which contains any error messages that may have been printed. On linux running the game from the terminal should print any errors there. If you find any error messages, post them here. Thanks!
Hello! I've heard great things and purchases the game to play with friends. I had a problem right off the bat. Under Options when I clicked to cycle the Terminal Display choices the screen went black. I can still hear the music and mouseover clicks. I tried deleting and re-downloading the files but it's still black. Please let me know how to fix, I'm looking forward to playing!
Hi! Sorry you've had this problem. You can reset the game settings to default by going to c:/users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/Trederia/golf and deleting prefs.cfg. Or if you don't want to reset all settings, open prefs.cfg in a text editor and change use_post_process = true to use_post_process = false.
Such a fun game. Been playing for a few months now with friends online, and every match is charged with drama, upsets, and tragedy. We look forward to each new update. I only wish the AI was a little smarter since right now it can't seem to handle the moderate to hard holes very well.
A very good question. Linux is a tricksy thing at the best of times. 😅 The rpath of the binary *should* be set to the lib directory - however you can check it with readelf -d vga_golf which will list all the dependencies and the current rpath of the binary. If the path is incorrect, or I've made a typo you can use chrpath -r lib vga_golf to set it to use the lib directory. For more in-depth information on this approach check out this blog: https://pvigier.github.io/2018/10/07/distributing-c++-program-linux.html
If that doesn't work I have been told that the Windows version of the game works well under proton so that might be worth a try. In the future I'm hoping to create an AppImage for the linux version, but until then this is the best advice I can offer 😥
Hi, love/hate the game (I love golf when I get par, I hate it when I get bogey, them's the breaks). However, I play on the Steam Deck. Game runs amazingly well using the Windows version in Proton, but the local server issue prevents me from playing the game when I'm away from a network. Is there any plans to add an offline mode?
Interesting. Firstly, thanks for letting me know how it works on a steam deck! I don't have access to one so I've not been able to test it (although I'd love to at some point). The local server thing should be fine without a network, at least it is on a regular Windows machine, so I can only assume it's a quirk of proton. There's a version of the game built with manjaro linux available to download (which valve recommend for steam deck development) - does that run at all? I'll definitely be making an effort in the future to make sure the game is fully steam deck compatible so I'll take your feedback into account. Thanks! 😁
Unfortunately not under the normal circumstances. Presumably, Valve's kang of Arch is missing one (or all) of the three dependencies (not sure how well the whole OS would fare without freetype though). I attempted to use the Steam Linux Runtime to no avail (it may require more work to run just any old Linux title).
The game provide the general "Failed to connect to local server" error. I may dig in with Protontricks and see what can be done to get around it in the meantime. I could also probably explore compiling the game in a Flatpak or AppImage, which Valve primarily recommends for running software in desktop mode
Shame. I'd be interested to know if steam deck supports installing packages from pacman (I *really* need to get my hands on one 😅) - although from what I hear it's generally easier to use use proton than it is to get native versions running... The game itself should dump some log files to your user directory if there's an error, although I have no idea where that would be under proton, presumably /home/user/.local/share/ but maybe not if proton handles this differently. If you have access to a keyboard you can also open an in-game console with F1 which ought to have some error messages printed to it. Thanks for all the feedback though, it's most appreciated! I've looked at flatpak in the past but my brain was unable to comprehend the packing process - if you can shed any light on that I (and all the linux users) would be eternally grateful!
Yeah, so to access most of the higher Arch features, you have to unlock the immutable filesystem Valve's put in place, then initialize and populate pacman-keys. Then you can pacman -Sy to get the repos updated. But you've heard right, running Windows software is only 2 steps more with Proton. You still can add the direct EXE to Steam (I have VGA Golf on my SD card), then you make sure you've enabled Steam Play for unsupported titles, and then you can choose a Proton version to run the game in.
With regards to running it in Proton, after enabling Hidden Files, the path of /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/########/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Trederia/ got me to the config files, no logs in sight.
I tried again with running the Linux build, in terminal, it states "./vga_golf: error while loading shared libraries: libBulletDynamics.so.3.24: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory" which is in /libs/
Yeah, reading the Flatpak guide makes my head spin a little. Alongside the software (or a .sh file representing the script), you need a runtime which will act as the environment, and then your deps are "bundled" as needed, depending on what your software would demand. The guide for AppImage is a lot easier, it seems you can use CMake as normal, change a few options e.g., rename to AppDir, explicitly define CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr, and then use linuxdeploy to wrap it up into an AppImage. It may just work with the release you have. I'll power on my desktop and try it.
EDIT: My desktop runs Linux Mint and the highest version of libbullet right now in Ubuntu repos is 3.06, so I would have to compile 3.24 to even think of running VGA Golf. This is before even packaging it into an AppImage.
OK So I guess for now I'll stick with trying to get the windows version working with proton. It could be as simple as using 127.0.0.1 internally as the loopback address instead of 255.255.255.255, which is currently hard coded, so I'll try once I get set up. I'll have to see about installing proton on my desktop (although I'm by no means a linux expert, so adventures ahoy!) 😅 Thanks for digging out the user path, I had a feeling proton was going to do something like that when emulating the user dir of a windows system, so that's useful to know.
I did modify the rpath of the linux bin to point to the included lib folder, specifically because libraries like bullet are so varied between distros, but the fact that arch/ubuntu-debian are so different that it doesn't work doesn't surprise me all that much. It's a shame that linux distros are just so fragmented - it puts me off spending more time with the platform.
AppImage looks promising, especially if I can hook it up to the cmake script. I've still got a big chunk of work to do to get the next update to VGA Golf done, but after that I shall definitely be looking into this more. Oh, and you didn't hear it here, but there may be a chance of the game coming to steam in the future 😉 Potentially this could make things a little simpler when running on steam deck, if only because it'll be ported to Valve's networking libraries.
Thanks again for the help and feedback, it's really appreciated!
Hello! I recently got into golf and wanted to play this game because it looked super cool. I booted up the game and was met with 2-5 fps :(. I tried going into options to change the graphics but was met with a crash. I'm running this on 12.4 MacOS Monteray 2017 Macbook and was wondering if there is any way to open options and optimize my setup. I also tried playing the tutorial, and was met with 2-5 fps again. Thanks!
Hi! Sorry you've had problems, I've been having real difficulty getting golf to run well on a mac unfortunately. If you are using an M1 mac then game won't run too well on Rosetta, and I don't have a newer mac capable of creating a Universal binary (not yet anyway). If you are using an intel mac, there is a bug with intel graphics cards that causes a crash, particularly in the options menu. As it's a driver problem it's up to Apple to fix it, but again unfortunately, they're unlikely to fix/update older software. There is an alternative options menu which you can open by pressing F1 at any time, perhaps that will help - usually turning off post processing gives a good performance boost. If that doesn't help I can add an option to disable shadows - but that won't get added until the next update comes out. One last thing you can try is after a crash click on the button that says 'Report' and then from the new window copy paste the text between 'Thread 0 crashed' and 'Thread 1'. Paste it here and it should at least tell me if the crash is related to the intel bug, or if it is a new one I might be able to fix.
Great update!! Love the attention to detail. And the CPU player option. I'm getting a hard crash when I try to go to the practice range. Mac 10.15.7
A few other thoughts: - No par 5s? Or did I miss them. - Why limit the club selection on par 3s? I often don't have enough power to reach. - A small quibble, the player with the lowest score on a hole should be the first to tee off on the next hole (they have the 'honour').
Thanks! re: the crash - does your mac have an intel GPU? I've noticed on my HD4000 (mac mini) that there's a very specific bug which causes the game to crash when it tries to display tool tips. I've had people test it on other mac hardware without problems, so I think it's a niche Apple aren't going to fix (they're trying to steer everyone towards using their proprietry graphics APIs, and would rather sell you a new mac than fix an old one 🙄) which is unfortunate. Best I can do is isolate tool tips in the next update and, as ridiculous as it sounds, ask people to navigate menus by keyboard (or controller) rather than mouse for now - sorry!😅 To address your other points:
There's a hard limit on the physical size of the holes in the game engine, so par 5s tend to be a bit too easy because they're too short. However you can edit the hole files by exploring the app bundle and going to Contents/Resources/assets/golf/courses/ where you'll find the course data. The files ending in .hole are simply text files in which you can edit the par. Make sure to back these up before editing though, as it'll cause problems if you try playing a network game and they don't match the other player's version.
The club limit is a side effect caused by the game trying to guess your club set based on the distance to the pin. This was introduced with the Pitch n Putt to prevent players being able to drive the ball 200m on a 70m hole 🤦♀️. I'll look into adjusting this.
This is very true. I will endeavour to add it in the next update 😁
Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it. It's what keeps me motivated and the game improving!
Thanks! Yes it's an old imac with an i7 processor. I tried just now using the keyboard and it still crashed. Also I didn't experience the crash with previous versions. Just let me know if you want me to do any further tests.
Oh, hum. Sounds like you've found a new bug 😥 If you could tell me exactly the steps you do to cause it to crash, that would be awesome, so I can try and reproduce it myself. Also, if it's possible, if there's a message which says 'vga_golf quit unexpectedly', could you click on the button that says 'Report' and then from the new window copy paste the text between 'Thread 0 crashed' and 'Thread 1' and send it to me? You should be able to paste it here. I'd really appreciate it, thanks! 😁 (You don't need to send it to Apple, I doubt they'd do much lol)
Oops I read CPU, not GPU. The video card in this thing is a GeForce GTX 680MX
The steps to reproduce are just to run the programme then select Practice and then Driving Range with the keyboard. The game shuts down at that point. Here's the error report:
Awesome, thanks. This looks unrelated to the other crash, in fact I'm pretty sure I know what this is, and it should be an easy fix. FWIW the other crash happens if you hover the mouse over an option in the option menu, or over the Add Player icon - it *should* have a little tool tip/bit of text which tells you what the option does, but on intel graphics cards it just crashes 😥 This crash on the other hand is just me being forgetful (not setting the file path correctly to load something on the driving range) 😳 Thanks again for the help, I'll have an update uploaded ASAP!
Which platform are you on? Linux builds have only been tested on Arch/Manjaro specifically and require SDL2, FreeType and bullet to be installed. On Windows make sure you have the latest VC_redist.x64 installed. If you launch the game from a command line are there any errors printed?
I'm on windows and I've run the VC redist installer and restarted my computer as prompted. No errors were printed when I tried to launch the game from a command line. Still quit immediately.
P.S. A window named "crogine game" was opened briefly though. The icon of the window started with a golf ball then to what looks like the crogine game logo.
Sounds like it's starting but running into one of a couple of possible issues. It may not be able to start up the graphics mode required (opengl 4.1) - this can sometimes happens with on-board intel GPUs, or mobile GPUs if you're on a laptop. The only potential fix for this is checking to see if there are any updated drivers. It may also be having trouble reading or writing the file system - preferences are stored in %appdata%/Trederia/golf which should be fine for the current user. Game assets are stored in the assets folder along side the executable so you might need to check the current user has permissions to use the install directory (you can test this by seeing if the game runs with administrator permission). There might also be a text file named output.log next to the executable which stores some error messages - although this won't exist if the game exits before it can write to the file.
That could be the problem then. Purcitop Garden uses an older version of opengl (2.1) for compatibility, but VGA Golf uses a newer version. Sorry about that :/
Thank you! I have on occasion wondered if some of the changes have damaged the aesthetic in some way, but the feedback is pretty much all positive so far! I still have plenty more ideas in mind too, so update 1.4 is well under way 😁
I've been having a blast with this for the past couple of days. I wish clubs had a bit more variety in power (particularly the putter, since some full power shots barely get close to the hole for me!), but that hasn't stopped it from being great fun.
Course editor's looking amazing as well. Was looking at the mod kit/Blender template for course creation, but I can gladly wait for that. Thank you for an awesome golf game.
I'm glad you're enjoying it! 😁 I agree about the club variety - in fact I added another wedge in the 1.3 update to improve the playability of the pitch 'n' putt course. Putting is due an overhaul, including a practice area (not unlike the the driving range), although it will likely get pushed back to the update after the editor is done, probably 1.5. Hopefully at that point it will enable some mini-golf style putting courses too. Thank you for the kind words and constructive feedback, which motivate me to keep working on the game!
You've captured the early DOS game feeling pretty well. Even the font is the same that many PC/Amiga games used back then :D Also, love the color palette.
Thanks for the links! Well, there's no such thing as a genuine DOS palette since most games had their unique palettes but it conveys the these games look very well!
Very fun game that really felt like the golf games of old. Heres a small gameplay video to show you how to "not" play golf. Can't wait to see what you work on next!
Hi, as far as I can make out it's to do with microsoft giving their vc redist installer the same name for each new release - even though the versions they install are different. Try downloading the latest version from their site, rather than the one included in the zip file: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist If it works let me know and I'll update the download, thanks!
Hi! Thanks for the comment! The music is made with the ADLPlug VST which uses the MAME emulation core of the OPL chip used in adlib soundcards / the sega megadrive etc. It's a free download from here: https://github.com/jpcima/ADLplug
Wow! This is gold! I have no idea how to turn it into a VST, tho (I'm a music composer, not a coder). I won't bother you with it, you've been kind enough already. Thank you so much!
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Hi! I bought your game a few days ago and it's fantastic! Hands down the best golf game of recent years, it's been years since a golf game came out that was so fun and refreshing even from a stylistic point of view!
I've been a collector and passionate about video games all my life (I started with the Atari 2600 in the 80s and currently I have 36 consoles and more than 1400 original games) and my favorites are golf games!
I see a huge potential in this game and it's very close to becoming a real absolute masterpiece, that's why I want to share with you some additions or changes that in my opinion would make it much better, I don't know how much the game is still in development or if you'll take into consideration some of these suggestions, maybe some things are too complex or would distort your idea too much but as I've already said in my opinion each of these things would make the game much better.
Sorry it's going to be a really long message but I can't resist.
1) Visible Fringe:
I noticed that there is an imaginary fringe from which you can hit with the putter, but it would be better to actually make it visible, this would also make the graphics more pleasant.
2) Hittable trees and obstacles:
I don't know if I've always been lucky but it seems that trees and other obstacles are not hit by the ball, this also makes many shots that would be risky too easy, also it would be better to have some trees or obstacles more in the middle of the trajectories, at the moment almost all the routes do not have obstacles (except for the bunkers).
3) Ugly faces in the editor:
You probably wanted to create a retro aesthetic on purpose but the faces in the editor are really too ugly, especially because in the real game the characters are very cute, so it's just a problem with the editor.
4)Rain and humidity do not change the gameplay:
I noticed that rain or fog do not make the ball fly or roll less, this is a real shame, especially in putters (usually with rain you have to hit 50% more, for example if the distance is 10m you have to hit more or less 15m), this would make everything more realistic and satisfying.
And when there is fog we should have a similar situation but less effective than rain.
In this regard it is boring that if a rainy day happens the whole game is with rain, it would be nice to see the sky clear up after a few holes, or rain again after many holes.
5)No penalty for obstacles:
It would be nice to have the classic ball view on one side of the screen that shows us what type of terrain we are on or how far it has sunk into the bunker with the relative penalty % (for example, from the rough you should have a 75% effective shot and you should calculate how much more to hit).
6)No elevation reported:
It would be useful to always have the difference in height between the ball and the hole on the screen (for example -2m) and that this would influence the shots, so if the hole is higher we will have to hit a little more or a little less if it is lower.
7) Incomprehensible score on screen:
I don't quite understand what that "score" at the bottom of the screen means but there we should have our current score (example -4 or +10).
8) All playable courses in career mode:
At the moment the career is a bit short and easy, it's a shame that not all courses are present.
9) More celebrations for excellent shots:
When you put a chip in from far away or any shot off the green at the moment the game says the usual ''eagle'' or ''birdie'' which doesn't give any satisfaction, the game should celebrate more with (random example) fireworks or showing us an instant replay of the shot.
10) Impossible to save or review the best shots:
In my opinion this is something that should never be missing in any golf game, the ability to save the holes that we have played well or where we have made incredible shots, to then review when we want in the clubhouse.
11) Nice shot:
It would be nice to have a voice that says the classic ''nice shot'' when you perform a perfect shot (maximum power and maximum precision) with writing on the screen, it is one of the classic things that should not be missing in a golf game.
12) power shot:
It would be nice to have a limited amount (6?) of power shots to use on par 5s to attempt an eagle, perhaps that are not consumed in case of a nice shot (just like in Mario golf).
In this regard, all par 5s at the moment seem unreachable, but some should be reachable to make eagle, perhaps only when you are lucky enough to have the wind in your favor or using the power shots.
13) Par of the hole:
This is a small but a bit annoying thing, at the moment the writing ''par 4'' of the hole is at the bottom right of the screen, completely disconnected from the hole data, it should be together with the data on the left, example: hole 1 - par 4 - 350 meters
14) More variety in the courses:
At the moment all the courses are very similar to see (except the desert and the sea) maybe you could differentiate some?
examples: snowy course, course in the woods with many tall trees on the sides, course with many lakes or waterways etc...
15) The character does not rotate when aiming:
It is a bit strange to see that you aim to the sides but the character (and the view) remain still, it would be much more dynamic if the camera rotated in real time, this would also improve the gameplay allowing us to see better where we are aiming.
16) Ambient noises:
It would be a nice touch to add ambient noises like the sound of the sea, birds in the woods etc.
17) animals:
Another nice touch would be to add some animals, like deer at the edge of the woods or seagulls in the sea, squirrels when you hit trees (if you can hit them) or some fish jumping from the waterways, it would make everything more dynamic and well-groomed.
18) Save exact shot when exiting a game:
When you exit the career the game restarts from the beginning of that hole, this allows a cheat... if we hit the ball in ob we can exit and re-enter to redo the hole from the beginning, or we can repeat a par 3 endlessly to make a hole in one, the game should save our last shot exactly to avoid this, alternatively it is better not to save anything and have to redo the whole course from the beginning rather than being able to use this trick.
19) Easier online:
I don't really understand how online works but it would be better if it were easier to meet people (maybe in a lobby) or find online tournaments, probably the reason why it isn't like that is because then you would need a server to manage, but anyway at the moment online is pretty useless and it's a shame.
20) More complexity in prizes and statistics:
It would be nice to earn money playing and have a virtual shop in the clubhouse where you can buy better clubs, clothes with stats or bonuses or things like that, at the moment you receive random and useless prizes, it's a shame.
Also it would be nice to be able to use experience points to level up the character's statistics, the classic power, accuracy, spin etc.
21)More tees:
We would need 2 more tees at longer distances to have the career of different levels (rookie, amateur, expert) this would greatly extend the longevity of the game and would allow to reach more reasonable distances (220 as maximum distance of the driver is too little, for the last tee a 260 or 280 would be more appropriate).
That's all for now, I don't know if you will take into consideration some of these ideas but the game with these changes would become a masterpiece.
Of course this is not a criticism, I could talk for hours about all the great things this game has, the graphic style, the music style, the customization of the graphic options, the intuitive and fun gameplay, a real gem!
Congratulations again for the excellent game!
Greetings from Italy.
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying the game 😁 Yes, I'm still updating it, and I'm always happy to hear feedback. I'll try to answer each of your points here, but if you're on Steam (you can claim a Steam key with your itch download) we'd love to see you in our community chat: https://s.team/chat/ERNurHg8 where many of us get together to talk about new features or things that could improve the game. We also have a weekly online game every Sunday if that's something you would be interested in. Back to your comments:
1) I agree with this, and I did experiment with it. However I couldn't get it looking the way I wanted. I might try again at some point though.
2) Someone else has suggested this in the past. I've made notes as to how it might be done, but on a technical level it's actually quite difficult because of the multiplayer networking. Even when you play single player the game still creates a local server, so it's always 'multiplayer' even if there's only one person playing, if you see what I mean. The trees and shrubs are generated in a pseudo-random way on the client each time, so you never eally get exactly the same trees every time you play. It also means that in a network game everyone has slightly different trees (you just don't notice if you can't see the other player's computer). The server, however, which performs all the physics and collision has no trees at all, because they were intended as purely a visual effect - and this is why there's no collision. Maybe I should have thought about it in the beginning (but to be honest I never thought the game would get this far... it was just a hobby), but to add tree collision I'd have to completely rework the server side code, and then find some way to sync it with all of the clients. So it's *technically* possible, but it's also a lot of work, and I'd like to put the effort into other features for now. Maybe one day in the future 😁
3) Yeah, I'm a better programmer than an artist. Although it could be a scaling issue with the textures used to show the faces in the editor. I'll make a note to look into it.
4) I might look into this. I'll have to put it to community vote first though - when I messed with the wind in one update there was a lot of confusion as to why the game felt like it had changed 😅 I do like the idea of a damp green affecting the putt. If you set the weather to 'showers' it will switch between raining and being sunny while you are playing (so it's not always raining).
5) Bunkers and long grass both affect the the distance of your stroke. The top right corner of the screen also has an up or down arrow indicating the ball's lie when you're in the sand. There's a guide here which explains how it all works in detail: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2910207511
6) I did consider adding this berfore, but there was a lot of push back from the community. Although I think that maybe now you are also for adding it, maybe I'll try again 😅
7) I'm not sure which score you mean, but at the bottom of the screen you will see numbers appear which are XP that has just been awarded. You can see your round score at any time by pressing Tab or the back/option button on your gamepad.
8) The career mode should take you through every single hole on each course. The courses are split into 'leagues', and each league is played on 2 courses. When you complete the first league and finish in the top 5 the next league opens up along with the next 2 courses, and so on. When you have unlocked all the leagues you will have played all of the courses.
9) I agree with this, but the celebrations are limited to my resources. For instance all of the announcer voices are from the 'Super Golf Announcer Pack' here on itch. There are fireworks, although those are reserved for a hole in one 😁.
10) Replays and being able to save them have been requested a few times. Again this is down to being a technically challenging thing to add, especially with the networking. I've thought hard about how I might add it, and I do have some designs so it might get added in the future, but I couldn't say when.
11) I think the nearest to this is the 'awesome shot' callout, which you get when making a powerful and accurate shot. It does mix it with some other random voices though so it always says something a bit different each time.
12) As you gain XP and start to level up you'll start to get access to more clubs with a longer range (there's an explanation of that in the guide I linked above). When you have the 'pro' clubs you'll find that a par 5 eagle is possible with, as you say, the right wind conditions (and even a par 5 albatross on hole 15 of course 12!).
13) You know I never thought of it like that but you're quite right. For now though you should be able to see all of that together on the scoreboard. I'll make a note to look at rearranging the layout to something more sensible.
14) I actually thought they kind of were! I've tried to take influences from around the world for the different courses, hence the desert and the beach, but there are also the mountains/cherry blossom courses, and course 12 is meant to be quite hilly and stoney. I do have some more ideas in the works for future courses though, so I'll definitely bear it in mind when designing them.
15) The character will rotate when aiming but not until you reach the edge of the aiming cone (although in hindsight I don't really know why I did it like this 😅). If you hold the aim button the character will eventually do a complete 360 turn. You can also rotate the camera with 3 & 4 on your keyboard, or the right thumbstick on your controller. (You can also switch to the drone camera or a free camera by pressing 1 or 2, or Up or Down on the d-pad)
16) The game sound be packed with ambient noises - in fact I went to great lengths to make sure they work well if you have surround sound speakers, or HTRF capable headphones. Double check the environment sounds aren't turned down - you can either change the volume in the options menu, or if you press F1 to open the console and click on the Audio tab there are sliders for the different audio effects volumes.
17) There are a few animals in the game. For instance the desert course (course 10) has grazing sheep scattered around it. There are also birds which fly away when the ball lands in the bushes. There's always room for more animals though, so I'll look at adding some in the future 😁
18) Saving has always been a problem when it comes to cheating. Originally there was no opportunity to save at all, as the Steam version has competitive online leaderboards which could be otherwise cheated. In the end I compromised where you can only save in Career mode and only score on the leaderboards in freeplay, where you can't save the game. However if you're playing the version without leaderboards I guess this doesn't make much sense. Unfortunately the game requries a service like Steam to support leaderboards, as renting my own servers is just too expensive for a hobby game.
19) The above applies for online games too I guess. Without, as you say, special servers to facilitate match making it can be difficult to set up an online game. Again, the Steam version doesn't have this problem, you can click on your friends (or join a group like the Super Video Clubhouse) and get into an online game easily.
20) The shop and stats have been suggested before. I'd like to add both, however the main problem with the shop is that it would take weeks or even months just to make all the items to put in it. For now I need to prioritise my time on other parts of the game.
21) This is a nice idea actually - although as I mentioned earlier you will get longer clubs, all the way up to 260 eventually. It could work as a combination though.
I hope that answers some of your questions! Thanks for the feedback, I do take it all seriously, even though you probably won't see any suggestions appearing over night. As I say, we'd love to see you on Steam https://s.team/chat/ERNurHg8 but if not do make sure to check back on this page where I'll be posting new about any upcoming updates.
Cheers!
Tried to start the game on POP! OS and got this log from Lutris instead:
So it says the library doesn't exist, even though it's right there in the lib folder. Not sure how to fix shared objects not being recognized.I'm away from my linux box atm - but you can try this: use readelf to check the rpath of golf (it should be the lib directory). If it's not you can use chrpath or patchelf to fix it.
Or you can try installing the libraries to somewhere in your LD_LIBRARY_PATH
Failing that the Windows version *should* work under Wine.
Failing that you can redeem the Steam key from the download page - the Steam version has a native linux build.
Hello, I love your game, the artstyle and the concept!
I would like to mention an issue that I have with running the windows version under wine in linux. When I try to enter the IP-Adress to connect to, as soon as I click the textbox, I cannot enter anything and it doesn't seem to register any keystrokes anymore. Everything else seems to work fine.
Is it possible to connect to a host via console or via startup arguments? If not, I would like to kindly suggest something like this. That would be so fantastic.
Anyway, love your game! Hope either wine gets better to be more compatible or some other way to connect. Cheers
Hey, thanks! Sorry you're having that problem - I have to admit I haven't tested it in Wine for a while. I'll look into adding some console commands for connecting - that's a good idea! You could possibly also try using proton (if you don't mind using Steam) or even try using the Steam version (Steam key is on the download page). I know that works OK because it runs on the Steam Deck. If not, no worries I'll look into updating the linux build. Thanks again!
Thanks so much! <3
Just a quick note, I can confirm the issue on Proton 8.0 and lutris-GE-Proton8-2-x86-64. Not sure about steam.
But not that big a deal, I LOVE the retro-style of the game! Reminds me of my childhood.
No no, thank you! :D I've added the connect command to the console, which will be included in the next update (due out pretty soon). I've also worked on fixing up the linux build, so if I can get the thing to package properly there'll be a native version with the next release too! (Though not the Steam version unfortunately).
Wow! Thank you so much, looking forward! Keep up the great work!
I've included a new linux native build in the 1.14 update - hopefully it works better for you! If not I have a friend helping me out getting a native build running in Steam Runtime which should make a better distributable. Fingers crossed 🤞
Hello! I really like your game, I've been playing it on steam on my windows pc and wish I could also play with my characters on my mac laptop on the go. Any news on when that will come?
If you need some help compiling, I can look into building crogine on my m1 macbook pro and help you compile a version for steam.
Thanks for making such a fun game! Cheers
Thanks! I'm glad you're enjoying the game. I appreciate the offer to compile a mac version - but while the game is still in flux (I have plenty of updates planned 😉) collaborating on multiple builds is just too far out of scope. Once a more final version of the game is on the horizon I'll re-evaluate the mac options available.
You can still build the non-steam version from the source on GitHub - though there may be kinks in the mac version. Someone else has also been working on mac builds - perhaps you could collaborate with them? With that you can copy the assets directory from Steam to the app bundle and copy your characters from %appdata%/Trederia/golf/user/profiles/ on Windows to /users/<user>/library/application support/golf/user/profiles (I think, my mac is *very* rusty). It's rather inconvenient, I admit, although there are bound to be some automated solutions out there, even if it's just a shell script 😅
Thanks again for the support, I really appreciate it! 😁
Thanks for the info! I think I'll give building from github a try.
I wish you the best of luck in finishing your game!
Thank you! Feel free to drop a comment on the GitHub issues if there's anything you come up against 😁
Hey I'm looking to get this on the Spring Steam Sale as I primarily game on the Steam Deck, are you going to release the native Linux bianaries on Steam and ensure Steam Deck compatibility moving forward?
That's a definite "maybe" - I want to, but native versions are ridiculously complex to build. I can promise that I'll always test every update on Steam Deck hardware and on Manjaro desktop with Proton though, to make sure it works. Being officially verified is very important to me 😁
Sweet ill get it on steam, love the concept keep it up!
Thank you!
Sorry if this has already been covered somewhere, but is there a way to carry achievements over from the itch version to Steam? I don't think I'm ever gonna get that knock the drone out one ever again.
Hi, I did consider making this possible, but it turned out it would be far too easy for someone to cheat all the achievements on the Steam version by manipulating the user files of the itch version, sorry. The new update is due soon though, and I'm hitting the drone by accident, mostly on the pitch n putt course, more frequently than I'd like 😅 I'm sure it won't be long before you get the achievement again 😁
Wow, so glad I found this game. An absolute beauty!
So many great memories flooding back, like World Class Leaderboard, PGA Tour 1 and 2, VR Golf 99 (Think it was also called Actua Golf) and Links. Love the vibe, the colors, the scenery and little things like the drone, planes, leaderboard, scenery, boats etc... Adds some nice atmosphere.
As a lifelong golfer and player of golf games, I'd like to add just a few suggestions if you don't mind.
- A few different swing animations, like a 3/4 swing, 1/2 and a 1/4 swing. A full swing from just off the green looks very bizarre and off.
- A button to pull up the scoreboard at any time (or add it to esc menu)
- More outfit combos, customize options (eg: pants for a male golfer)
- An explanation of power for shots. Almost all my shots seem like they don't go as far as they should after doing the power meter math. Or does the rough affect power, and does the sand affect power or accuracy?
- Landing in some of the rough seems playable, but you get an automatic penalty stroke. The extreme stuff I get, but you can play out of many kinds of rough really with strategic decisions.
- Why the restriction in moving left and right for shot direction? I feel you should be able to shoot in any direction you choose.
- Hoping steam release will have a full club selection? And did you fix auto club selection? It's awkward and a pain to switch clubs every single shot. And maybe with experience and good play, your yardages become farther for driver etc. Would add repeat playability to improve your player's skill and club power etc.
- Green size, shape variety and adding a fringe. They look like they are just plopped in a sea of dark green usually. A few outer rings of fringe or small amounts of fairway / lighter green brought around would be visually more appealing.
- Tournaments (even against a large field of computer opponents), Career or season mode, more elaborate breakdown of your stats etc.
- Scoreboard between holes flashes too quickly. Make that an x button click thru when ready. Also remove the zeroes from unplayed holes, makes it really confusing to figure out where you are on the scorecard.
- Your overall score on the scorecard and main playing screen at all times would be nice too. (-2 or +12 or whatever) Maybe beside name of player
- Could it always be in yards and not feet on the green. 3.55 yards etc. Or put the feet of the putters max in feet (not yards) too. Weird trying to convert yards to feet on the green.
- On one green (9th hole and 13th hole at Westing Links ) I was 8 yards away on green. Putter goes 7 yards. So technically, it can't even reach the hole?
- 11 yards away ( on fairway - Use wedge that can go 32 yards. I'm 11 yards away. 50% should easily get me there. Side wind. I go about 60% and still end up 11 ft short. Accurate second click too. Doesn't add up and is the only frustrating part of the game.
- Get rid of the cry sound effect (like nails on a chalkboard to me lol) Maybe a grumble or cartoon swearing (ala Home Alone)
- Computer opponents take too long
- Press x to skip the brown pop-up score after draining the ball. Skip when you're up (with brown box again) to speed up play if you prefer to go faster.
Anyways hope that doesn't sound critical. This is a fantastic start and progress in a truly enjoyable game. Excited to see it grow.
Will be buying day 1!
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you like it.
Thanks for the detailed feedback, this is the kind of information I thrive on. You're not the first to raise a few of these points, so I'd like to reassure you that many of them have already been addressed and updated for the next release. You do bring up some new points however, so I'll make sure to look into them. Just to clarify:
I agree about the animations - however as a solo dev I'm limited to whichever stock animations I can obtain. I agree entirely about the slightly jarring impact of hitting a ball apparently full pelt and having it drop only a few yards. Unfortunately it's not something I can foreseeably do anything about, although if I find a way I will 😁
The scoreboard can be viewed at any time by holding Tab or Back on the controller. It's missing from the Options graphic, but I'll make sure to add it.
Increased avatar customisation will come later. I'm hoping to add it as a Steam workshop item, so people will be able to add their own, increasing the variety available.
The current release here on itch has slightly broken power values for shots. It also doesn't select a good default club. This has been completely re-done for the next update so that the power bar more intuitively represents a percentage of the club's power. The terrain does affect the shot, I've uploaded a guide to the Steam page which explains how it works - although it's more applicable to the upcoming release rather than the current one. You can read it here.
The restriction on left/right aiming is apparently a much debated topic! There are those who say, justifiably, that in real golf you could hit the ball anywhere you like - however others say that in real golf you wouldn't say 'well the hole is over those trees so I'll just hit it that way' because you don't (or maybe you do?) have a mini map which tells you where the hole lies... so it's a difficult topic to balance. In the upcoming version the direction is still limited, however the angle is much wider. It's also possible to deliberately hook or slice the ball for a further increase in angle if that's a tactic you'd like to employ. It probably sounds a bit weird, I know, but as I get more feedback I'll certainly try to refine it.
The club range is designed to try and best fit the game, rather than reflect an actual set of golf clubs. Similarly to the par values - for instance there are no par 5s simply because the game engine isn't capable of making holes that big. The included range of clubs are enough to play the game tactically enough that it's competitive, without overwhelming players who aren't well experienced with golf. The auto selection is fixed for the next release, and I have vague notions of a 'shop' which allow you to buy different clubs based on experience, although there's no solid plan for that yet. Perhaps based on your and other player's feedback I can refine that idea in the future.
I agree the greens could use some work, if at least visually. It already irks me that many of them have stripes which don't go in the same direction as the fairway 😅. I've worked to refine them for the next update (and the update after that which is already being worked on!) so I'll take this under consideration, particularly the transition from fairway to green.
Tournaments and other gameplay modes have been on my list for a long time, but have not been implemented for weird technical reasons involving the layout of the lobby menu 🙄 This will first be addressed as I redesign it to allow for custom courses and course thumbnails to preview the selected course, at which point I hope to add extended gameplay modes as part of the game rule selection that currently covers matchplay/skins/gimme rules etc.
I could possibly make the scoreboard show a little longer, although as I mentioned you can view it at any time with tab / back button. The problem is that in multiplayer games online if someone refuses to acknowledge the scores it holds up the entire game. I'll spend some time trying to find a better solution to this. I'll definitely remove the zeros from unplayed holes - it won't be in the initial Steam release, but certainly in the first update afterwards.
Showing your own score at all time would be nice. I'll try to add this.
Imperial measurements are not what I'm used to, so I have to apologise for any inconsistencies. I'll make sure the putter values and the green values at least match up, and stick with yards rather than feet.
Again, as mentioned, the overall power/aim/distance of clubs have been overhauled, hopefully for the better 😄. It's one of the things I've worked hardest on improving.
The sound effects are, as a solo developer, what I can get my hands on 😁. The voices do vary between avatars, although you can always turn down the voice effects from the options menu (scroll through the selection at the top of the first page, it lets you set the volume for different groups of sounds) - or failing that just delete the sound file from the assets directory. It won' t break the game 😁
Computer opponents are completely rewritten for the next update. Without getting technical you'll just have to take my word that they're a lot better - although there is a brief overview here.
Thanks for taking the time to provide the feedback! I'm glad you're enjoying what you've played so far. The Steam release / next update is by no means the last, and I try to take in everyone's opinion and balance them as best I can. I hope you enjoy it once it's released!
Hello! First off--this is absolutely one of the best golf games I've ever played. I was wondering if there's some central place that folks making custom courses use as a repository, because I'd love to see what folks are making! Is there anything like that, or nah?
Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you're enjoying it! As far as I'm aware there is currently nowhere dedicated to sharing content, however I am planning a post-release update for the Steam version to add workshop support for custom courses and custom balls 😁
Oh hell yeah, super stoked to hear you're gonna do workshop support, that's gonna rule!! Thanks!
Hello! Seasoned golf-video-game fan here :3
I've put about 4 hours into the game over the last couple days with my partners, and there's a couple inconsistencies and quirks I've noticed with the game that I think could be improved!
1. The power gauge is pretty odd with how it determines distance. The gap wedge for example, lists itself as 32yd. Hitting a half-shot with that club should go around 16yd, but even with tailwind behind the player, I can never get it to go more than 10yd, and this is pretty consistent with the rest of the clubs in the bag, besides the putter. I think the game could be tons easier to get a feel for if the power gauge could read more accurately :]
2. I'm not a huge fan of the wind changing with every shot, primarily in multiplayer; My tee shot could have 1.9 knots of wind going straight forward, and hit the green in one, but then the next person to tee off could have 1.5 knots going straight backwards, and be 30yd away from the green still. I like the concept, especially if it were a challenge mode! But as a general balance-focused feature, I think wind should keep to one speed and one general direction per hole :]
3. On every shot, the game sets your default club to the driver. This is definitely not as big of an issue once you get it in your head that you have to switch every shot, but I think it'd be nice to have the game auto-set your club based on distance left (i.e, you have 60yd left and automatically sets you up to have the pitching wedge equipped, which is the closest club to that distance, while still being over the target as to not go full power and not have the distance to make the shot).
4. In other golf games I've played; when putting, and you're close enough to the cup where the caddy doesn't have to tend the flag (or in this case, the flag isn't in the cup), there'll usually be a small indicator above the hole to remind you where the hole is. This would be a great addition to this game, as sometimes the hole will either be camouflaged into the slope grid, or the pixelation will cause it to completely disappear at times. Perhaps a small, bouncing red arrow above the cup would be great, as it'd be a lot easier to tell where you're supposed to be aimed at all times!
Overall, this game's super fun and it's one of the only full course golf games out there that I can readily just hop on and play with friends and family. Most other games I find on Steam are either mini-golf, or cost an arm and a leg. I love this concept and it's executed really well!! Thank you for the constant updates and I hope these wouldn't be too hard to implement! Unfortunately I'm not too familiar with all that goes into game deving, so I hope I'm not asking too too much from you! Thank you for your time and for the very cool game :3
heather
Hi! Thank you for the detailed post - I really appreciate feedback like this as it helps me to dial in the game. To address your points:
If you'd like to track the progress of the updates follow me on Twitter, as I post most often there. Thanks again for the feedback, it really is the people who share their thoughts who help steer and fine-tune the game. I'm glad you're enjoying it! By the way, if you haven't already, check out Tee Time Golf on Steam. There's no affiliation, I just think it's one of the better full-sized golf games available 😁
Hey again! I dunno if this is an issue on my end or not, but whenever I open the game, it doesn't seem to save my resolution? It always kicks me back into 480p and I have to manually reset it back to 1440p! Also- I wanted to mention the idea of putting borderless fullscreen into the game's video settings? I've been having to use Borderless Gaming on Steam to get it to work, and I'd love for it to be built straight in!
Excited to hear back once again!
heather
Hey! Sorry you have this problem. You can check to make sure the settings are being saved OK by opening the options menu, then closing it again (this forces the game to save the config file) then press F1 to open the game's console. In the console window there should be a message stating whether or not the file was saved successfully:
You can navigate to this directory to make sure (you may need to enable hidden folders, or use the %appdata% shortcut in windows) and then open cfg.cfg in a text editor. Make sure width, height and window_size are set as appropriate. You can even edit these and try launching the game again - if you accidentally put invalid settings and the game won't launch just delete the file.
If you're able to create a larger window, but the resolution still looks wrong try disabling 'pixel scaling' in the options menu. When this is enabled it takes a 640x480 resolution and stretches it to fill the window creating large retro(ish) pixels. By disabling it you will get the window's native resolution. If your keyboard has a number pad the + and - buttons can be used to toggle pixel scaling at any time, so you can quickly see how it affects the look of the game.
The game's default fullscreen mode is in fact borderless window - there's no fullscreen mode which completely takes control of the display as some other games do. Fullscreen mode will always set the resolution to match your current display. There's also a keyboard shortcut to toggle fullscreen at any time - alt+enter. Hope this helps!
Hello, I really want to play the game but for some reason it won't launch, do I need an emulator or something?
Hi. The game is stand-alone so doesn't require an emulator. Which version do you have (windows, linux, etc)? And which graphics card do you have? Usually if the game doesn't launch it means your GPU doesn't support OpenGL 4.1 or higher, although on linux there may be some missing libraries. On windows if you go to %appdata%/Trederia/golf/ there should be a file called output.log which contains any error messages that may have been printed. On linux running the game from the terminal should print any errors there. If you find any error messages, post them here. Thanks!
Hello! I've heard great things and purchases the game to play with friends. I had a problem right off the bat. Under Options when I clicked to cycle the Terminal Display choices the screen went black. I can still hear the music and mouseover clicks. I tried deleting and re-downloading the files but it's still black. Please let me know how to fix, I'm looking forward to playing!
Hi! Sorry you've had this problem. You can reset the game settings to default by going to c:/users/<username>/AppData/Roaming/Trederia/golf and deleting prefs.cfg. Or if you don't want to reset all settings, open prefs.cfg in a text editor and change use_post_process = true to use_post_process = false.
I was able to fix it by deleting prefs.cfg like you said. Thank you for the quick reply and for a lovely game.
Happy to help, glad you fixed it! Thank you for the kind words and your support 😁
Such a fun game. Been playing for a few months now with friends online, and every match is charged with drama, upsets, and tragedy. We look forward to each new update. I only wish the AI was a little smarter since right now it can't seem to handle the moderate to hard holes very well.
Thank you! I'm glad you've been enjoying it. I shall definitely look into improving the AI in a future update 🤖
Hi, interested to have a look at the 1.8 update, but I'm getting "Error - No course data found" on the main start page. MacOS Monterey, Intel i9.
Whoops! This should be fixed now, if you'd like to try downloading it again. Thanks!
I'm trying to play the game on Ubuntu 22.04 and have the following error:
./vga_golf: error while loading shared libraries: libBulletDynamics.so.3.24: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
I see that libBullet3Dynamics.so.3.24 is located on lib folder . What's the problem?
A very good question. Linux is a tricksy thing at the best of times. 😅 The rpath of the binary *should* be set to the lib directory - however you can check it with readelf -d vga_golf which will list all the dependencies and the current rpath of the binary. If the path is incorrect, or I've made a typo you can use chrpath -r lib vga_golf to set it to use the lib directory. For more in-depth information on this approach check out this blog: https://pvigier.github.io/2018/10/07/distributing-c++-program-linux.html
If that doesn't work I have been told that the Windows version of the game works well under proton so that might be worth a try. In the future I'm hoping to create an AppImage for the linux version, but until then this is the best advice I can offer 😥
Don't work for me . I will wait for the AppImage
Hi, love/hate the game (I love golf when I get par, I hate it when I get bogey, them's the breaks). However, I play on the Steam Deck. Game runs amazingly well using the Windows version in Proton, but the local server issue prevents me from playing the game when I'm away from a network. Is there any plans to add an offline mode?
Interesting. Firstly, thanks for letting me know how it works on a steam deck! I don't have access to one so I've not been able to test it (although I'd love to at some point). The local server thing should be fine without a network, at least it is on a regular Windows machine, so I can only assume it's a quirk of proton. There's a version of the game built with manjaro linux available to download (which valve recommend for steam deck development) - does that run at all? I'll definitely be making an effort in the future to make sure the game is fully steam deck compatible so I'll take your feedback into account. Thanks! 😁
Unfortunately not under the normal circumstances. Presumably, Valve's kang of Arch is missing one (or all) of the three dependencies (not sure how well the whole OS would fare without freetype though). I attempted to use the Steam Linux Runtime to no avail (it may require more work to run just any old Linux title).
The game provide the general "Failed to connect to local server" error. I may dig in with Protontricks and see what can be done to get around it in the meantime. I could also probably explore compiling the game in a Flatpak or AppImage, which Valve primarily recommends for running software in desktop mode
Shame. I'd be interested to know if steam deck supports installing packages from pacman (I *really* need to get my hands on one 😅) - although from what I hear it's generally easier to use use proton than it is to get native versions running... The game itself should dump some log files to your user directory if there's an error, although I have no idea where that would be under proton, presumably /home/user/.local/share/ but maybe not if proton handles this differently. If you have access to a keyboard you can also open an in-game console with F1 which ought to have some error messages printed to it. Thanks for all the feedback though, it's most appreciated! I've looked at flatpak in the past but my brain was unable to comprehend the packing process - if you can shed any light on that I (and all the linux users) would be eternally grateful!
Yeah, so to access most of the higher Arch features, you have to unlock the immutable filesystem Valve's put in place, then initialize and populate pacman-keys. Then you can pacman -Sy to get the repos updated. But you've heard right, running Windows software is only 2 steps more with Proton. You still can add the direct EXE to Steam (I have VGA Golf on my SD card), then you make sure you've enabled Steam Play for unsupported titles, and then you can choose a Proton version to run the game in.
With regards to running it in Proton, after enabling Hidden Files, the path of /home/deck/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/compatdata/########/pfx/drive_c/users/steamuser/AppData/Roaming/Trederia/ got me to the config files, no logs in sight.
I tried again with running the Linux build, in terminal, it states "./vga_golf: error while loading shared libraries: libBulletDynamics.so.3.24: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory"
which is in /libs/Yeah, reading the Flatpak guide makes my head spin a little. Alongside the software (or a .sh file representing the script), you need a runtime which will act as the environment, and then your deps are "bundled" as needed, depending on what your software would demand. The guide for AppImage is a lot easier, it seems you can use CMake as normal, change a few options e.g., rename to AppDir, explicitly define CMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr, and then use linuxdeploy to wrap it up into an AppImage. It may just work with the release you have. I'll power on my desktop and try it.
EDIT: My desktop runs Linux Mint and the highest version of libbullet right now in Ubuntu repos is 3.06, so I would have to compile 3.24 to even think of running VGA Golf. This is before even packaging it into an AppImage.
OK So I guess for now I'll stick with trying to get the windows version working with proton. It could be as simple as using 127.0.0.1 internally as the loopback address instead of 255.255.255.255, which is currently hard coded, so I'll try once I get set up. I'll have to see about installing proton on my desktop (although I'm by no means a linux expert, so adventures ahoy!) 😅 Thanks for digging out the user path, I had a feeling proton was going to do something like that when emulating the user dir of a windows system, so that's useful to know.
I did modify the rpath of the linux bin to point to the included lib folder, specifically because libraries like bullet are so varied between distros, but the fact that arch/ubuntu-debian are so different that it doesn't work doesn't surprise me all that much. It's a shame that linux distros are just so fragmented - it puts me off spending more time with the platform.
AppImage looks promising, especially if I can hook it up to the cmake script. I've still got a big chunk of work to do to get the next update to VGA Golf done, but after that I shall definitely be looking into this more. Oh, and you didn't hear it here, but there may be a chance of the game coming to steam in the future 😉 Potentially this could make things a little simpler when running on steam deck, if only because it'll be ported to Valve's networking libraries.
Thanks again for the help and feedback, it's really appreciated!
ebautifull game really
Thank you 😁
Hello! I recently got into golf and wanted to play this game because it looked super cool. I booted up the game and was met with 2-5 fps :(. I tried going into options to change the graphics but was met with a crash. I'm running this on 12.4 MacOS Monteray 2017 Macbook and was wondering if there is any way to open options and optimize my setup. I also tried playing the tutorial, and was met with 2-5 fps again. Thanks!
Hi! Sorry you've had problems, I've been having real difficulty getting golf to run well on a mac unfortunately. If you are using an M1 mac then game won't run too well on Rosetta, and I don't have a newer mac capable of creating a Universal binary (not yet anyway). If you are using an intel mac, there is a bug with intel graphics cards that causes a crash, particularly in the options menu. As it's a driver problem it's up to Apple to fix it, but again unfortunately, they're unlikely to fix/update older software. There is an alternative options menu which you can open by pressing F1 at any time, perhaps that will help - usually turning off post processing gives a good performance boost. If that doesn't help I can add an option to disable shadows - but that won't get added until the next update comes out. One last thing you can try is after a crash click on the button that says 'Report' and then from the new window copy paste the text between 'Thread 0 crashed' and 'Thread 1'. Paste it here and it should at least tell me if the crash is related to the intel bug, or if it is a new one I might be able to fix.
Sorry I can't be more help! 😢
Great update!! Love the attention to detail. And the CPU player option.
I'm getting a hard crash when I try to go to the practice range. Mac 10.15.7
A few other thoughts:
- No par 5s? Or did I miss them.
- Why limit the club selection on par 3s? I often don't have enough power to reach.
- A small quibble, the player with the lowest score on a hole should be the first to tee off on the next hole (they have the 'honour').
Keep up the good work!
Thanks! re: the crash - does your mac have an intel GPU? I've noticed on my HD4000 (mac mini) that there's a very specific bug which causes the game to crash when it tries to display tool tips. I've had people test it on other mac hardware without problems, so I think it's a niche Apple aren't going to fix (they're trying to steer everyone towards using their proprietry graphics APIs, and would rather sell you a new mac than fix an old one 🙄) which is unfortunate. Best I can do is isolate tool tips in the next update and, as ridiculous as it sounds, ask people to navigate menus by keyboard (or controller) rather than mouse for now - sorry!😅 To address your other points:
Thanks for all the feedback, I really appreciate it. It's what keeps me motivated and the game improving!
Thanks! Yes it's an old imac with an i7 processor. I tried just now using the keyboard and it still crashed. Also I didn't experience the crash with previous versions. Just let me know if you want me to do any further tests.
Oh, hum. Sounds like you've found a new bug 😥 If you could tell me exactly the steps you do to cause it to crash, that would be awesome, so I can try and reproduce it myself. Also, if it's possible, if there's a message which says 'vga_golf quit unexpectedly', could you click on the button that says 'Report' and then from the new window copy paste the text between 'Thread 0 crashed' and 'Thread 1' and send it to me? You should be able to paste it here. I'd really appreciate it, thanks! 😁 (You don't need to send it to Apple, I doubt they'd do much lol)
Oops I read CPU, not GPU. The video card in this thing is a GeForce GTX 680MX
The steps to reproduce are just to run the programme then select Practice and then Driving Range with the keyboard. The game shuts down at that point. Here's the error report:
Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread
0 libsystem_platform.dylib 0x00007fff73bfce52 _platform_strlen + 18
1 libcrogine.dylib 0x000000010bac7869 cro::ConfigObject::loadFromFile(std::__1::basic_string<char, std::__1::char_traits<char>, std::__1::allocator<char> > const&, bool) + 713
2 vga_golf 0x000000010b65fa5a DrivingState::createScene() + 9242
3 libcrogine.dylib 0x000000010baf8f45 cro::Window::loadResources(std::__1::function<void ()> const&) + 149
4 vga_golf 0x000000010b65476b DrivingState::DrivingState(cro::StateStack&, cro::State::Context, SharedStateData&) + 2187
5 vga_golf 0x000000010b5b2ab7 std::__1::__function::__func<void cro::StateStack::registerState<DrivingState, SharedStateData&>(int, SharedStateData&)::'lambda'(), std::__1::allocator<void cro::StateStack::registerState<DrivingState, SharedStateData&>(int, SharedStateData&)::'lambda'()>, std::__1::unique_ptr<cro::State, std::__1::default_delete<cro::State> > ()>::operator()() + 71
6 libcrogine.dylib 0x000000010badac80 cro::StateStack::applyPendingChanges() + 944
7 libcrogine.dylib 0x000000010bada898 cro::StateStack::simulate(float) + 24
8 vga_golf 0x000000010b5aa7e6 GolfGame::simulate(float) + 118
9 libcrogine.dylib 0x000000010bac0aa3 cro::App::run() + 1587
10 vga_golf 0x000000010b84d471 main + 49
11 libdyld.dylib 0x00007fff73a02cc9 start + 1
Thread 1:: SDLTimer
Awesome, thanks. This looks unrelated to the other crash, in fact I'm pretty sure I know what this is, and it should be an easy fix. FWIW the other crash happens if you hover the mouse over an option in the option menu, or over the Add Player icon - it *should* have a little tool tip/bit of text which tells you what the option does, but on intel graphics cards it just crashes 😥 This crash on the other hand is just me being forgetful (not setting the file path correctly to load something on the driving range) 😳 Thanks again for the help, I'll have an update uploaded ASAP!
I've uploaded version 1.6.1 which should fix this now, thanks!
The game seems to quit immediately when I open it :/ . (I installed it using the itch launcher)
Which platform are you on? Linux builds have only been tested on Arch/Manjaro specifically and require SDL2, FreeType and bullet to be installed. On Windows make sure you have the latest VC_redist.x64 installed. If you launch the game from a command line are there any errors printed?
I'm on windows and I've run the VC redist installer and restarted my computer as prompted. No errors were printed when I tried to launch the game from a command line. Still quit immediately.
P.S. A window named "crogine game" was opened briefly though. The icon of the window started with a golf ball then to what looks like the crogine game logo.
Sounds like it's starting but running into one of a couple of possible issues. It may not be able to start up the graphics mode required (opengl 4.1) - this can sometimes happens with on-board intel GPUs, or mobile GPUs if you're on a laptop. The only potential fix for this is checking to see if there are any updated drivers. It may also be having trouble reading or writing the file system - preferences are stored in %appdata%/Trederia/golf which should be fine for the current user. Game assets are stored in the assets folder along side the executable so you might need to check the current user has permissions to use the install directory (you can test this by seeing if the game runs with administrator permission). There might also be a text file named output.log next to the executable which stores some error messages - although this won't exist if the game exits before it can write to the file.
It doesn't work with administrator permissions and I'm using an on-board intel GPU :|. My drivers are probably relatively outdated though.
P.S. Purcitop Garden works fine
That could be the problem then. Purcitop Garden uses an older version of opengl (2.1) for compatibility, but VGA Golf uses a newer version. Sorry about that :/
You're doing a great job with this game!
Thank you! I have on occasion wondered if some of the changes have damaged the aesthetic in some way, but the feedback is pretty much all positive so far! I still have plenty more ideas in mind too, so update 1.4 is well under way 😁
Great to hear!
I've been having a blast with this for the past couple of days. I wish clubs had a bit more variety in power (particularly the putter, since some full power shots barely get close to the hole for me!), but that hasn't stopped it from being great fun.
Course editor's looking amazing as well. Was looking at the mod kit/Blender template for course creation, but I can gladly wait for that. Thank you for an awesome golf game.
I'm glad you're enjoying it! 😁 I agree about the club variety - in fact I added another wedge in the 1.3 update to improve the playability of the pitch 'n' putt course. Putting is due an overhaul, including a practice area (not unlike the the driving range), although it will likely get pushed back to the update after the editor is done, probably 1.5. Hopefully at that point it will enable some mini-golf style putting courses too. Thank you for the kind words and constructive feedback, which motivate me to keep working on the game!
Just to let you know, when you try to run this through the Itch launcher, it thinks that the Visual Studio installer is the main executable
Oh! OK, I hadn't tried the launcher, thanks for letting me know :D
You've captured the early DOS game feeling pretty well.
Even the font is the same that many PC/Amiga games used back then :D
Also, love the color palette.
Thanks! The font is actually called IBM-CGA and is from this site: https://int10h.org/oldschool-pc-fonts/fontlist/
The colour palette is called colordome-32 which I discovered on lospec.com. Not a genuine DOS palette, but I think it's nice :D
Thanks for the links!
Well, there's no such thing as a genuine DOS palette since most games had their unique palettes but it conveys the these games look very well!
Very fun game that really felt like the golf games of old. Heres a small gameplay video to show you how to "not" play golf. Can't wait to see what you work on next!
Thanks! Glad you like it :)
Seems pretty neat, but it asks me to install a version of Visual Studio I already have. When it can't install it, it won't open. Any advice?
Hi, as far as I can make out it's to do with microsoft giving their vc redist installer the same name for each new release - even though the versions they install are different. Try downloading the latest version from their site, rather than the one included in the zip file: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/cpp/windows/latest-supported-vc-redist If it works let me know and I'll update the download, thanks!
Wow! You really captured the DOS vibe here! Can you tell me how you did the music? Sounds like AdLib Gold. Nice work, mate! Thank you!
Hi! Thanks for the comment! The music is made with the ADLPlug VST which uses the MAME emulation core of the OPL chip used in adlib soundcards / the sega megadrive etc. It's a free download from here: https://github.com/jpcima/ADLplug
Wow! This is gold! I have no idea how to turn it into a VST, tho (I'm a music composer, not a coder). I won't bother you with it, you've been kind enough already. Thank you so much!
No problem! There are direct downloads of the VST here: https://github.com/jpcima/ADLplug/releases/tag/v1.0.2
You are an angel. <3 Thank you so much!
You're welcome!