Category: Quickie

0.63 Update is out!

0.63 Update is out!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

As promised, update 0.63 for Boss Golf closed alpha is out!

heightooler

Focus of this update was updating the terrain tools! For the list of changes:

  • Merged hole builder into the hole panel for better accessibility
  • Terrain height tool has been expanded into a proper panel
  • Added a tool for flattening the terrain
  • Reworked the height tool functionality for performance improvements
  • Fixed snapping of the trees when adjusting the terrain height

Unless something majorly breaks, I’m gonna begin focusing on the features for 0.7!

For this release, I wanna release:

  • Building Editor
  • Water Tools
  • AI Improvements

This 0.63 won’t break your current save game, so go ahead and update it! Stay tuned for more!

0.62 update is out!

0.62 update is out!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Another day, another quick update!

062update

Changelist is as follows:

  • AI now only plays a round if all holes are open
  • AI will now no longer ignore closed state for holes after it begins playing
  • Fixed guest panel not being scrollable
  • Added name display to golfers when the guest panel is open
  • Added button to remove decorations
  • Added button to remove path

Next up, I’m gonna rework the terrain height panel to give you a better idea of how it works, add an option to close the resort while you’re doing testing, and consolidating the Hole Edit and the Course Holes panel into one!

This update doesn’t make changes to the save game, so you won’t lost anything you’ve built so far!

Enjoy!

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!

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!

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!

Boss Golf updated to 0.541!

Boss Golf updated to 0.541!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks,

Have just released the 0.541 update, which fixes a couple of issues found on 0.54, and gives a better version of the path builder mesh.

nicepaths

Here’s the main points of change:

  • Tweaked time system and removed the day-night cycle. Terrain always looks nicer now on current lighting. Lighting will change later on depending on the season/weather.
  • Fixed path mesh. Generation is better and the intersection is also better.
  • Removed triangle alternation from terrain mesh so that it matches the terrain collider. This was causing the path to go underground, and the AI/ball to also disappear underground on occasion.
  • Fixed display of player shots. Now it obeys the arcs and power properly.
  • Tweaked the values of the AI arcs.
  • Increased movement speed for AI to balance the larger map

That’s all for now.

The Path tool will stay the way it is now, while I get to work on the new hole builder. You’ll plan out the hole all at once creating a kind of “yardage book” representation of it, placing the terrain tiles and whatnot, and then giving the order for it to be built. Any alteration you wish to do to the hole, will be done through its yardage book. This way you’ll also be able to save/load previously created yardage books!

yardager
A real life Yardage Book page. Boss Golf will feature something slightly similar!

And since in golf you can have multiple teeing locations, so will be the case in Boss Golf! No longer will you be constrained about simply placing the tee tile; you’ll be placing the tee object instead. Coming in 5 different colors, that mark the level of difficulty of a tee.

The same will be doable with the hole! You’ll now lay down the green are as you wish, and then place the hole object in the location you desire, giving you more options for customizing your hole.

All of these changes will come in 0.55!

Oh and as a bonus, next week is the famous Golden Week here in Japan. Meaning I’ll be crunching down to get the game to a great state to show off in May’s BitSummit! If you’re in Japan during that time, be sure to drop by and say hello! And play the exclusive resort featured at the event!

That’s all folks!

Path Builder Preview!

Path Builder Preview!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Aw yeah!

Got the placement to stick, including the blending between different path types. Now tomorrow all that’s left will be saving and loading, which should be simple.

I’ve also taken the decision to leave the pathbuilding as instantaneous, instead of having the landscaper dude going around placing them. Makes more sense this way, since it’ll be something the player will be able to lay and relay quickly. Going to study more from now on what should be dealt by the landscaper/builders, and what should be instantaneous.

Anyway, check out how it’s looking like!

path_preview_awwyeah

So nice, specially being able to move it in 8 directions! Breaks away from the usual grid style of building things.

Get ready for 0.54!

Going Clubbing!

Going Clubbing!

by Gus Martin ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Hello folks!

For today’s update to Boss Golf, I wanna talk about clubs!

So I’ve implemented a system that now makes use of proper golf clubs when playing the game. Until now, the AI had access to “infinite” clubs; it would decide how to shoot based on the maximum distance it could achieve, and how close it was to the hole. Based on this, and information regarding maximum/minimum angles/distances for each club type, a trajectory would be generated and that would be that.

This meant that even if the AI was in a bunker, it could still use an Iron to drive out of it in massive distances.

That’s not very likely in real life!

So I finally went ahead and implemented clubs. Now we have clubs divided into basic categories, representing the main club types (wood, iron, hybrid, putter, wedge), all further categorized into their respective numbers and/or types (1 Iron, 2 Wood, Sand Wedge etc).

Each club also has a difficulty rating (cause lord knows not even god himself can hit a 1 Iron!), which will be factored into the decision making process.

Further, each AI will have a limited number of clubs in their little AI golf bag. No more infinity clubs; they’ll have their 14 clubs and that’s that. Makers will be implemented later, giving slight deviation to angles and maximum ranges, adding even more variation to an AI’s arsenal (and other income avenues for your club with a pro shop!).

For now, these are being generated semi-randomly at the start of the game. Later on, when the AI generation becomes based on the database, these will be recorded and AI will routinely change their arsenal.

Now I’m onto implementing these new clubs into the shooting decision making. I’ve created a new “GolferBrain” class, which will be used by the AI to determine their “best” option for their current shot. Basically, it’ll generate a handful of potential shots, grade their likelihood of success, difficulty, payoff, and use the golfer’s confidence to decide on which one to take. And then shoot it! And hope for the best! And watch as their perfectly thought out strike lands in the bunker, or the fire hazard!

After this is implemented for the AI, I’ll roll it out to the Player as well. You’ll also start with a right now randomized bag of clubs, and later on you’ll be able to change your collection to better suit your playstyle.

That’s all for now folks! Stay tuned for more AI updates!