GOLF’D!
Formerly Known As:
Stupid Golf
Golf-Esque
Golf-ISH
Golf But Stupider
Golf With Yourself
…is a game that stems from the utter frustration of playing Golf with Your Friends, with friends, and with ball collisions turned on. Now, it’s more-so a collection of mini-games trying to bend the boundaries of the word “golf” without breaking them. How stupid can something be while still being somewhat recognizable as golf, or at the very least, golf-esque? Answering that question is the purpose of GOLF’D!
As development currently stands, the game has 5 distinct golfing modes: Mini-Golf, Maze Golf, PinGolf, Plinko-Golf, and Super Monkey Golf.
Work on this mode has been put on pause to work on my FIEA application project, The Monorail.
Mini-Golf
The project’s original intent was to be a relaxing, single-player mini-golf game. The first work done on the project was creating four mini-golf levels, along with scripting the gameplay to make them operate. The ball controller code is also re-used in many other minigames within GOLF’D!
Maze Golf
Maze Golf originally started out as an excuse to follow a tutorial on procedural maze generation that I had stumbled across. I also added systems that allow the player to change the size of the maze generated, along with the algorithm used to generate the maze itself.
While this idea does retain the golf-esque gameplay relatively well, it’s simply not the most enjoyable to play. Golfing your way through the maze can be quite tedious. Maze Golf is currently on hold, but I intend to return to it and add systems that make it actually somewhat playable. One potential addition could be a teleportation system randomly generated within each maze, adding somewhat of a puzzle mechanic to it.
Plinko-Golf
Plinko-Golf is exactly what it sounds like.
This particular subset of GOLF’D pushes the boundaries of what can be called “golf” further than any of the other mini-games do. Using varying gameplay mechanics, I aimed for a feeling closer to mini-golf than regular golf.
Plinko-Golf currently consists of 4 unique mechanics created using a mix of code and Unity elements such as physics materials and joints. In the future, these mechanics and more will be combined to create a variety of plinko boards to play through.
Pin-Golf
It’s Pin-Ball, but Golf!
Instead of trying to achieve a high score like one does in typical pinball, the player’s goal is to get the ball in the hole (like in golf). On the particular level pictured, the player needs to bounce the ball into every mushroom on the playing field twice. Each bounce will change the color of the mushroom, and once they’re all a bright shiny yellow, the ring spinning around the golf hole disappears. Instead of having a set number of balls to use, the player’s stroke counter goes up every time they launch a new ball.
This mini-game was a particular tricky one to work with, as it was the first time I had messed around with Unity’s hinge joint system. Using the joints and a plethora of physics materials, I was able to accurately-enough recreate the typical physics of pinball, with the “get in the hole” and stroke mechanics still somewhat tying the overall concept to golf.
Super Monkey Golf
Super Monkey Golf is a golfing mode heavily inspired by Super Monkey Ball.
Within the mode, the player has the ability to swap between four different “jumps”, that act as the different swings of different golf clubs. The four clubs the player can jump with include: putter, iron, wedge, and wood.
The different jumps creates a wide variety of options when designing courses for the mode, and leaves room for modes relating to speedrunning and time trials.