• hbdeveloper
• On April 16, 2014

Development Diary: Anthony Kyne – Producer

It’s been a few weeks since we did an update of what we’ve been up to on a day to day, week to week basis just so you can keep up with what we’ve been up to.
 

GDC – Week Starting 17^th March

Unity invited us to show the game on the PS4 at their stand at GDC over the course of the week. We put in a lot of late nights over the week building up to it but the build we took was solid. Meanwhile, the guys on the team that didn’t make the trip kept working through the week to update the build for us. It’s always a lot of fun trying to download 2GB of a PS4 game over a hotel wifi connection. Whilst this was going on we also pushed a new Beta build live.

The reception for the game at GDC was great. Unity had put us in a prominent position, right by the entrance and right next to Sony’s Morpheus stand so we got plenty of foot traffic passing through. The reception we got from people that hadn’t heard about the game was amazing, particularly regarding the Course Creator. To hear so many people say “wow” really filled me with confidence about the game.

It wasn’t all work though and Unity and Sony were very kind to invite us to some great parties while we were there. Not wanting to be rude we had to take them up on their offers! Seeing the game on a disco ball at the Unity party has to be a career highlight for me!

Post GDC – Week starting 24^th March

Getting back in the office after GDC was just as hectic. There were plenty of emails and meetings set up with people that we’d met the previous week and who were interested in what we were doing with The Golf Club. We also started receiving all the data from the telemetry that we’d added to the build from the week before.

Looking at the stats, but also through communicating with the various Beta players, we realised that the changes we’d made were heading in the right direction but still needed some fine tuning. We always wanted to make a challenging, thought provoking golf game but we just weren’t sure how challenging we could get away with. Very challenging is what we were seeing! We wanted to make some quick changes and get a new build back out.
 
 

April Fools Week – Week starting 31^st March

It all started as an offhand comment by Adam and it ended with us working late on the night before the 1^st of April to get an April Fools build ready for the community. We sifted through the forums and took all the things that people didn’t want in the game and added them. Playing aids, fireworks, over the top audio, major back spin addition mid-flight and snazzy motion graphics. Arcady was the theme. We fooled a few people and it was great fun, not only for the community but also for the team. It was nice to do something a bit different for a change and let off a bit of steam.

The Last Week – Week starting 7^th April

We’re in the last stages of development now, everyone is in the office for 12 or more hours a day at the moment as we prepare the Early Access build. Each member of the team wants their work to be of the highest quality. Watching The Masters over the weekend inspired the team. Analyzing ball bounces and shot types with a more critical eye than they ever have before. Looking at bushes and bunker layouts. Everyone’s to do lists grew a little with every shot Bubba took! As we push towards Early Access and towards the Sony and Microsoft submissions we’ll be eating a lot of pizza and missing a lot of time on the real course, but when you’re enjoying making the game as much as we are it’s a small price to pay.