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The Golf Club 2 - TBA
It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to write one of these with any news about development and what we’ve been up to. When we released The Golf Club, we never thought it would succeed as it has done. Once we realized we had something special we wanted to keep working on it, way past release, to make the ultimate golf game. The reason for the retrospectives over the last few months have to give you an insight into our thinking at the start of the project and how things progressed way beyond what we imagined and timed so they’d lead nicely into the announcement today. I hope that from what you read in those you understood where we wanted to take TGC and that we were getting limited with the confines of the engine and the released version, which when people pay for a product you can’t change too much.
We saw that people have wanted more difficulty, but like the level playing field. That multiple pins and Tees are things greatly requested. The ability of dialing of distances needs to be taken out of the game. The player and his animations aren’t as good as we’d like. Playing with each other online needed to be easier and people wanted ways to compete with strangers and make new friends within the community. Our top designers wanted better tools, the ability to create more real life courses. That’s a lot of stuff and something that will take a lot of time and money implement.
After the successful release of the Collectors Edition with Maximum Games, we’ve struck up a great relationship and after proposing to them our vision, they’ve offered us the chance to partner with them to realize that vision in the shape of……. drum roll…. The Golf Club 2!!!
The team and myself are very excited about the game, we’ve actually been working on it since September of last year, and still have a good way to go in terms of development – We’re aiming for a release in the first quarter of next year.
So, I hear you ask, what is TGC2 and why would you want it. Well…
1) We’ve moved the game to Unity 5, this although not a Wow back of box feature, it means lots of great things for all areas of the game.
2) We’ve got a huge player creator, where Player Features, Clothing, Clubs and Gear will all be customisable. It’s almost limitless with millions upon millions of combinations to get your avatar looking just as you want him to.
3) We’ve now got Golf Societies, not only places where you and your friends can hang out and play against each other in tournaments but huge public clubs. (All currency referred to is GAME CURRENCY, not real money)
a) Societies will have club captains that will design out seasons with entry restrictions, prize money and Major Tournaments
b) Tournament and Society entry can be restricted by entrance fees and handicap ratings.
c) Societies will have their own bank balance so they can choose their own clubhouse. The richer the clubs the grander the clubhouse. The luxury of a plush club the status that comes with that needs to be earned to get there
d) Major Tournaments – Using club size and popularity crowds will turn up for the clubs Majors. The bigger the club, the bigger the crowds. The HUD will become more TV like and the commentary will also add to the occasion
4) Career Mode – Players will also be able to play away a more singular game against AI. Using offline societies and AI players to earn money and work your way through the challenges of increasing difficulty. All money earned here can be transferred to your online career, so it’s well worth taking part.
5) You’ll be able to now design courses with Multi-level water, crowd placement, lots of new stuff to place as well as lots of new tools to make life easier for the designers out there.
6) Game play – This is the big one
a) Swing – we’re currently looking at a 3 level swing mechanic. The easy level will very much be based off of what we have now, but with tempo added and a distance reduction, Hard will be very punishing if in any way off centre and the tempo isn’t correct but when it’s good you will get a considerably further distance. Doing this gives us the variation we want, the difficulty some want and brings in the actual point of multiple tees.
b) Practice Swing – You’ll now be able to take practice swings
HUD Numbering and Shot Shaper – These will be rounded giving you less ability to dial a distance while working on the Shot Shaper to make it much harder when trying to dial in distances
7) Practice Range
We have a full driving range, putting green and Chipping green. This is a full sandbox mode, giving you the ability to go out there and improve any part of your game
8) Graphics
a) We’ve invested heavily in the character this time out, getting full photogrammetry scans of people and clothing to make your player look as realistic as possible.
b) We’ve also invested in a huge array of motion capture from two brand new golf pros. Well not only have a lot of great new shot animations but lots of post and pre shot stuff as well.
c) Full specular effects on everything on your course, this makes it look even more realistic than it did before.
9) Multiplayer
a) We won’t be adding a traditional lobby, but we will be improving live multiplayer extensively. We’ll be adding more game modes and the ability to play non friends.
Over the next few months we’ll be giving you more information about what’s coming up and I’ll be doing a twitch stream next week showing off the build I have taken to E3.
We’re looking forward to your reaction and I hope you’re as excited as we are.
Anthony
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I am excited but really wish they would move away from Unity. Unity might work okay on the PC but it causes way too much jank. Flickering screens as you go between shots are the worst I tell you. The worst.
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