• hbdeveloper
• On May 23, 2014

We are moving ever closer to the full release of The Golf Club as this evening’s Early Access build will show. Everything is now in the game, although not all of it is released with this build, and we are hard at work fixing bugs on all three platforms. In a couple of weeks we will be submitting the console builds to first party so this Early Access release is key in helping us to find any issues – bugs, flow and useability – in the Tournaments and Tours section and the Desert Theme.

Tournaments and Tours

This build contains the first public viewing of this feature. As in keeping with the fact that this is an Early Access stage of development, IT IS NOT BUG FREE OR FULLY POLISHED. We are releasing it now so that we can get volume testing and feedback from all of the Early Access participants. Most of you understand the Early Access process and provide valuable comments and information about your experience so please continue to do this.

Having said that, it should be a pretty good experience. There are both timed and endless competitions. We have supplied a selection built with the official courses and some of the more popular player created courses. However, you can build your own tournaments and tours and also bake in the settings that you would like. If you want to turn the green grid off as an entry requirement then you can so all players entering will not have the green grid available. The settings screen is also where you set the duration for your tournament or tour and make it Private (automatically allows only your friends to enter) or Public.

What is the difference between a Tour and Tournament?

When you create your own competition (Create Competition button on Main Menu) you can either create a tour or a tournament. This is done on the same screen. If you just add one event and publish it then that is filtered as a tournament. If you add multiple events then it is filtered as a tour. To play either you would go to ‘Play‘ on the Main Menu and then choose the desired option.

Known issues:

In the details for a published competition it still states ‘unpublished’ even though it has been published.

If, when creating a competition, you scroll the cursor too quickly on the event line-up (course thumbnails at bottom of screen) you will lose the cursor. It can be retrieved by saving, selecting add new event and then going back again.

When you change the name of an event within a tour it displays correctly in the event details to the left but displays as the course name in the event line-up thumbnails.

Gameplay Tweaks

Club Distances and The Short Game

We have changed club distances on Normal shots for the 8 iron through to Lob Wedge so that they hit further and closed the gap between the wedges. Flop shots have, thus, also changed to be longer bringing Pitch shots more into prominence. This should be more realistic and involve more thought regarding shot selection around the green. We are looking forward to feedback on this. Hopefully everyone won’t scream that they are deleting the game from their machine as soon as they try it.

Loft Resolution Tweaks

There were a few bugs in last week’s update here making it hard to rely on the adjustments. If you reduced loft, the increase in distance was, basically, all over the place. These were minor fixes so overall the experience here will be the same but a little more reliable.

Desert Theme

A brand new Theme has been included. You can read the post about it here. There are still some assets to come for all the themes but the vast majority are there. We have created two new courses with this Theme for your enjoyment – the Easy level Yuma Desert Golf Club and the medium difficulty Sonoran Golf and Country Club.

New Course Creator Assets

We have added some new wildlife, buildings and other assets plus there are a few new brushes for sculpting terrain.

Early Access Build v0.6 Notes

• Tours and Tournaments mode added
• Users can create their own tournaments (single location events) or tours (multi-location events) and share them
• Settings/rules can be customized per competition
• Private (friends only) competitions are supported
• Club distance tweaks
• Loft resolution tuning
• Short game shot tweaks (Pitch+Flop)
• Desert course theme
• New official courses: “Yuma Desert Golf Club” and “Sonoran Golf and Country Club”
• New Course Creator Items and Features
• New wildlife (ducks, swans, fox, wolf, chicken, cow, goat, pig, sheep, crocodile)
• New terrain sculpting brushes