Month: May 2018

0.61 update is out!

0.61 update is out!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello golfers!

That was a quick turnaround! Got some great feedback and bug reports on the Steam discussion page for Boss Golf, and I went ahead and fixed it!

So here’s the full breakdown of 0.61:

  • AI no longer gets lost when trying to find a ball in the Wall
  • AI will now favor walking through paths, and move faster when on them
  • Fixed distance on Driver and Wood 2 being the same
  • Fixed issue with the terrain tool being turned on when using other tools
  • Removed unused popup for tile order
  • Game will now launch automatically after loading
  • Decreased panning area on the top bar
  • Readded speed controls (may have adverse effects on gameplay)
  • Added pause button by space bar
  • Increased size of demo resort
  • Fixed issue of not being able to place decorations on top of unbuilt land tiles

So there you go! You can download it in the same usual place, at the same usual time!

Enjoy!

Alpha 0.6 is now available!

Alpha 0.6 is now available!

by Gus Martin ♥ 1 Comment

Hello folks!

Without further ado, Boss Golf has been updated to 0.6! Hurray! For a much better experience, go and download it and play it!

Here’s the break down of things new for 0.6:

  • Complete UI overhaul
  • Ability to rename your hole
  • Ability to pick up and drop AI characters
  • AI Golfers will now apply to become members if they enjoy their time at the course
  • You have full power to accept or reject said application
  • Move the AI generation to another script with a better spawning system. Game now spawns 200 AI golfers at the start, and they visit your resort routinely.
  • You can now hire and fire more landscapers
  • Completely new Financial panel, including tons of charts to show you the financial aspects of your resort
  • Ability to set prices for yr resort
  • A marker for the hole will now be enabled while you are playing golf, so that you don’t get lost
  • Improved AI shot creation
  • Made the height stick to the terrain collider, no more ghost hills
  • Increased game speed
  • No longer need to approve any landscaping changes
  • New display for price while landscaping the terrain
  • Several base systems for future expansions

That’s most of the new stuff for 0.6. Over the next couple of days, I’ll go on fixing whatever you guys find broken, and add a couple more small things, and begin tackling bigger things. For 0.7, I want to have the water system back in, as well as a building system, and more depth to the AI golfers and their social relations.

So, go! Enjoy 0.6! Tell me what’s broken!

Oh and if you haven’t already, add Boss Golf to your wishlist on steam!

Wishlist Boss Golf!

Hole Naming, Guest List, and more!

Hole Naming, Guest List, and more!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Sorry progress has been a bit slow recently! Caught a stupid cold that really knocked me out!

But things are progressing well! Last thing to add is a better Resort panel, which will come with a list of members, pending applications, and some other goodies. Once that is in, by tomorrow, version 0.6 of Boss Golf’s alpha will be released!

So here’s a screenshot!

names_guests_more

A couple of things going on here!

On the bottom left, you have the Guest panel. It shows you a list of people currently visiting your resort.

Above it, you have a new hole named Super Hole! Yes, from 0.6 onwards you’ll be able to name your holes whatever you wish. The interface for this is inside the Hole Editor, as you can see on the top right.

And lastly, as you may notice, poor Tiger over there is hovering aboveground! That’s because I’m currently handling him around to place him somewhere else on the course! So the pincers (is that a good name?) are also working!

There’s also a couple of quality of life improvements added, such as markers for where the hole that you’re paying on is so you don’t get lost.

That’s all for today, folks! Stay tuned for tomorrow’s update!

-Gus

Financial Analysis

Financial Analysis

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

I’ve decided to briefly explain to you guys the usage of the new financial panel before the release of 0.6 for Boss Golf!

The graphical setup is mostly done, now adding the “wires” in the back so that the correct data is being displayed. But basically, breaking down the detailed panels, we have the Income:

incomeGraph

In here, you can at a glance see how much money you’ve received this month, last month, this year, and last year, complete with a graph that breaks it further down based on type. And at the bottom, a nice little table breaking it down by type further. With this, you can see how well your resort is doing in terms of its revenue streams, areas you can potential focus on and whatnot.

Then, we have this panel’s sister panel, the Expenditure:

expenditureGraph

This panel show exactly the same information type as the Income panel, but it does so for the expenditures of your resort. Here you can glance where most your money is going to, be it in salaries, in construction, landscaping and whatnot. Will be handy in deciding which areas need some cutting back, which areas could use some expansions etc.

Next up, we have the Salary:

salaryGraph

Right off the bat at the top, you see one of the new features for 0.6: Salary Budget! Every resort will be headed by a board of directors who will set things such as budgets. You can only hire people as long as there’s some budget left to be spent. Depending on how well the resort is doing, you can always try and get the budget adjusted for some sweet extra cash!

Salary control will be important. You are free to spend up to your budget, but if you can keep under it, the board will be a lot happier with you.

Right below it you have a graph showing the changes to the salary over the months/years. Followed by a pie chart showing the salary expenses by type of employee, together with a table to make this visualization even clearer.

And lastly, a nice little reminder of who is your current highest earner!

Finally, we reach the Prices:

pricesGraph

Here we also have some new features! To start off, you are allowed to choose the prices for the golf play. Golfers will have the options to pay Per Hole fees, or Per Round fees. (You can also choose to enable/disable either of them as you wish). The AI will choose one or the other depending on how much time the AI has for golfing on that “trip”, as well as how good of a deal either one is.

Then you’ll have a graph showing the revenue based on the two types, as well as a nice pie chart giving it more oomph.

And lastly the Membership section, where you can see how many members your resort currently possesses, as well as set the costs for membership. Later you’ll be able to set the membership perks too!

This follows a graph showing the revenue from memberships on a monthly basis, as well as the membership history so that you can see the number of members grow overtime on your resort!

Oh and one more thing!

pickupChar

If you see on the character panel, you’ll notice a new icon: The famous claw! Now you’ll also be able to pick up golfers/employees and drop them wherever you wish around your course! Fun times!

That’s all for now, folks! If you haven’t already, be sure to wishlist Boss Golf on Steam!

Of Graphs and Charts!

Of Graphs and Charts!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Work has been progressing awesomely for Boss Golf 0.6! I’ve finished implementing the firing feature, as well as saving the people you hire. Optimized the system again so that it only instantiates the workers when necessary, and keeps a list of StaffData objects that contains the descriptors for each worker. So now the game starts with 100 Landscapers in the pool, and a handful of them being available for hiring every month!

I could release the current state of the game as is, but… I’ve taken a step forward, and began overhauling the Financial features too!

Starting in 0.6, this is what your financial panel will look like:

ofChartsAndGraphs

Look at all those graphs and charts!

At a glance, from the summary, you’ll be able to see right away the overall picture of the financial health of your resort. You have the Overall Balance at the top, followed by the Profit/Loss on a monthly basis, then snapshots of your biggest sources of Income and of Expenditure, as well as your Approval Rate (a new feature that will be fully implemented later! Together with special requests to the owners of the resort you are managing!).

Then you also have sections for Income and Expenses and Salary, which will give you more detailed information about these aspects of your golf resort, breaking down the financials to more fine grained chunks.

And lastly a Prices panel, where you’ll be able to set the various prices of things on your resort, as well as information on purchase rates and whatnot.

This is still not the final version of the Financial System for Boss Golf, but it is a massive leap forward compared to what we have now!

Once I finish this implementation, 0.6 will be ready for testing!

Stay tuned!

You’re Hired!

You’re Hired!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Howdy folks!

Today I’m gonna talk about a major addition for 0.6: Hiring and Firing employees!

Until now, in Boss Golf, you pretty much had your starting landscapers and that was that. From now, however, you’ll have more control over the people who work in your resort!

You’ll be able to hire new employees, fire old ones, and manage the finances of your resort up close! Check out the UI for it!

you_are_hired

Not only that, I’ve also implemented the experience system for employees! They will now come with a specific rank, and this rank will be improved as they do their jobs efficiently.

Of course, higher ranks not only means better job performance: it also means a desire for a larger salary! When an employee is promoted, his salary ambitions will raise to match the new rank. So you better keep an eye out, and increase the salary of the employee, or risk angering him which could disrupt your operations!

Down the line, I’m going to implement a perk systems in the form of “training”. Whenever a worker gains a promotion, he’ll receive a training point. This point can then be spent (together with money) to train the employee, by selecting a perk you wish for him to earn. Things ranging from faster movement, discounts on actions, better morale etc. The employee then will be sent to a training camp, for a specific amount of time (the duration of it means he won’t be able to work at the resort).

He’ll then come back with the perk, and a desire for more money! So pay attention to when you decide to train them!

Not only that, the pool of available employees for hiring is generated at the start of the game. Every month the recruitable pool is updated, and a fraction of the total pool becomes available for hiring!

This pool will be saved throughout your character’s career, meaning that the workers available in the game will improve in skill as you play the game. Any employee you fire will also return to that pool, and will be available for hiring again later down the line.

In this way, the gameworld will continue evolving and improving together with your character. The better you are at managing your employees, the higher the challenge will be at higher levels, since they’ll all be leveling up with you, gaining more skills, increasing their costs and whatnot.

There’ll also be employees who will decide to retire for whatever reason. Age, injury, boredom, whatever it may be. Whenever an employee retires, a new one will be created and added to the pool, ensuring that there’s always a constant “supply” of workers for your resorts.

So get ready for more depth in the management department! 0.6 should be out next week! Perhaps even this weekend if I can get in the flow!

-Gus

Feedback, Insights, and more!

Feedback, Insights, and more!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Last weekend was great! Demoed Boss Golf at BitSummit and received an awesome reception! It was excellent seeing people playing the game and their enjoyment! More importantly, I was also able to extract several insights by watching the way they play the game, and notice a handful of issues that needs fixing!

So I’ve begun work on getting to 0.6! Which will bring several quality of life improvements as well as a feature for hiring/firing employees! No more will you be stuck with the landscapers you start off with: you’ll be able to bring more!

And also a UI overhaul! Here’s a sneak peek of it!

superUI

Now the price for the tiles you’re laying will be displayed directly on the area you’re laying. And there’ll be no more need for “approving” it: The AI will begin work as soon as it’s laid (providing part of its job is landscaping!)

Clicking on the Tee when you haven’t placed it yet will shift to placement mode so you can go ahead and place it right away. Then the button for “Move” will appear to allow you to move it anywhere else. Oh and if you right click to cancel the move, it’ll snap back to the original position!

Also will be including more visual aids, specially regarding which hole you are currently playing. A brand new Guests panel that allows you to have an overview of who’s on your course at the moment, and what they are doing!

Some fixes in the AI department as well, specially regarding their shooting decisions, and expanding their behavior to have them skip ahead to the next hole if the current one is taking too long! Oh and add the tile angle to the calculations of pathfinding, to avoid the situations where the AI gets stuck at the foot of a massive hill!

And, of course, a panel for management of your staff! There you’ll be able to hire and fire employees, as well as find them in a quicker manner. Too many times people didn’t know where their landscapers were while building stuff around. Now you’ll have your own little big brother system!

So yeah, stay tuned for 0.6!

OH and I’m also super stoked that Destructoid has covered Boss Golf! Woo!

0.55 update has been released!

0.55 update has been released!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

The 0.55 update to Boss Golf is finally here! Bringing improvements to the hole building and the tile laying, as well as a handful of other small fixes. So let’s get to them!

To start off, the new Hole Editor.

so_many_tees

To the left, you have the Course panel. This is brought up by clicking on the Holes button in the top menu. From here, you’ll have access to all the holes currently on your course, as well as the ability to create new holes. After creating a hole, you can select it, and click on the Edit button, which will bring the Hole Editor as seen on the right.

In this panel, you are able to set the pin position, as well as add/remove Tee boxes for your hole, and place them wherever you wish on the course. There’s no limits. Well save for putting the pin/tee inside the course that is!

Once you’ve added at least one Tee, and place the Pin, the hole is ready to be opened and played!

And this brings us to the next update: The Tile Planner

tilePlannerBefore

It looks a lot like the old Tile panel. And it certainly is an iteration of it. Previously, you’d select a tile type, and drag it around the course, and it would generate the orders that would then be approved for the landscaper to build.

But this was too slow. Now, when you begin placing the tiles, it will create one single order object, and attach all the tiles you placed to it. And to help you with shaping things, you have a handy little yellow bulldozer button to the bottom left that allows you to erase the tiles you’ve placed if you messed up! (Mistakes happen!)

Then once you’re satisfied, you can simply click on the  Create button, and then the order will be created and approved, and the landscaper will get to work. Much more streamlined!

Then you’ll begin creating a brand new order from the start! (closing this panel will cancel the order you’ve created if you haven’t approved it)

Later on I’ll add a way to track the existing orders and modify them etc. And here you can see the landscaper hard at work:

tilePlannerResult

Also as you can see, I’ve improved the resolution of the terrain textures. Looking much nicer and less jagged. The tilemap is still only looking at the 4 main directions, so there’s still some bad corners in certain… corners. This will go away in a future update!

That’s all for now, folks! As an addendum, I’ll be demoing Boss Golf at BitSummit 6 this coming weekend! If you’re in the area, drop by to say hello and have a chat!

As such, I’ll be focusing on ironing out some issues so that the demo runs as smoothly as possible. If you find anything broken, don’t hesitate to contact!

Enjoy 0.55!

Sneak Peek at the Hole Builder!

Sneak Peek at the Hole Builder!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

Work on the new Hole Builder has been progressing excellently over this Golden Week! Implemented the systems for placing the hole pin and the tee boxes, both with complete freedom. (And you can add multiple tee boxes to your hole too!)

Here’s a screenshot showing you the builder windows:

teeMagic

Also going to add more visual elements to guide you in the placement and whatnot, as you can see from the tags for the Pin and the Tees, giving you an immediate look at how your course looks like. Going to be adding the distance displays as well!

Once you have created/edited the hole, you’ll press Approve and the landscaper will get to work! You can edit the holes whenever you wish too.

Left to do is reconnect the landscaping to this new feature, change the AI logic to use the pin location instead of a “hole tile”, and add saving/loading capabilities. Then 0.55 will be out!

That’s all for now, folks!