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Design Notes
Here are some notes from Patrick from this forum thread
Off the top of my head:
- There will be zero issue with you guys (the wonderful DF community) making Bad Golf as long as it’s distributed freely. The legal issues could only ever come up if there’s money attached somehow.
- Just to be sure about my last comment, I’ll talk with Justin (our COO) tomorrow.
- I’d recommend using Unity if for nothing more than the ease of the networking code. Unless someone has a freeware engine with solid online multiplayer functionality, Unity is probably your best bet.
- As for the scope of the project, I’d recommend starting small and growing up to things like power-ups and backstories. If Bad Golf 2 would have been picked, here’s a rough asset list of what we would have done in 2 weeks:
- 3 golf holes, connected as one terrain mesh (so you could drive to other fairways while playing a hole)
- 1 golfer model, with different damaged states
- 1 golf cart model
- golf ball (duh.)
- golfer swinging, putting, driving a cart, emoting for whatever reason
- golf cart moving
- title music, lobby music, in-game music
- UI sounds
- golf cart movement (engine, braking, horn)
- golf cart collision
- player swing, hit, “fore”, enter cart, exit cart, hit reactions
- mini-map for current hole
- standard golf UI with swing power, aim, ball trajectory, etc.
- score
- 4-player multiplayer LAN
- basic ball physics for golf portion
- solid golf cart vehicle mechanics
- UI implementation
The most important part of Bad Golf is the cart driving. It should be a blast to just drive around. Spinning carts, sliding on wet grass, instant acceleration, all that needs to be solid before anything else can be good. Initially, I’d avoid complicated situations like water. Absolutely should you be able to jump rivers in a final version, but the first pass shouldn’t have water on the course.
The second most important part of Bad Golf is the golf. However, because Bad Golf is a fast-paced game, it doesn’t need to be a heavy simulation. In fact, if we would have made the 2-week prototype, I think we could have short-sighted this portion and still made it fun. I think the final version of Bad Golf would have mechanics on the level of Mario Golf for N64. Solid, predictable, and not overly complicated.
I had always imagined there wouldn’t be any ability to move outside your cart. You drive the cart up to your ball, press the ‘exit’ button, and your character would hop [Brutal Legend style] directly to the spot of the ball, ready to hit. After hitting, you’d immediately jump back into your cart and be ready to go. There’s no time to watch that ball fly, you’ve got to go! Also, if someone destroyed your cart while you were hitting, it’d reset back to where you were, so as to not screw you too badly. This should explain why the asset list is lacking a full animation suite for the golfer.
Unless you guys want, I hesitate to go too deep into exactly what I thought the final game would be like, mostly because I don’t want to stop you from coming up with awesome ideas I hadn’t thought of. Maybe I can make a huge spoiler post in another thread or something…
I’ve had the idea for Bad Golf for ~7 years. I regularly pitch games to Tim (formally and otherwise), but I never mentioned Bad Golf because it didn’t seem like a game DF would do. When Tim announced we’d be doing AF with the public a few years ago, I thought it’d be the perfect fit. Bad Golf didn’t get picked up but I couldn’t let the idea go, so I re-pitched this year. The concept of the game is so dear to me that I don’t care who makes the game, I just want to play it. The fact that you guys are going to combine forces and put something together in the spirit of Bad Golf is incredible. You have my full support and I cannot wait to play what you come up with. :)
Each player tees off, one at a time, while the other players shout taunts or mess with the player hitting. Other players shouldn’t be able to affect the shot, just distract. Kinda like this scene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OophxEckcu0#t=8
After each player has teed off, all players are positioned in their carts, and a quick countdown plays. 3, 2, 1, or something. At “Go!”, each player races toward their ball, or toward other carts. If you reach your ball, you can jump out and hit it. If you reach an opponent ball, you can run it over to give them a worse lie. This continues until all players have holed out, at which point all players move to the next hole together.
To keep the focus on finishing the hole [and not a demolition derby], points are awarded for finishing first and getting a good score on the hole. Players can augment this score by doing damage to other carts while keeping their cart from being destroyed. Balancing this score will take some playtesting but shouldn’t be difficult.