1.0 Release!

After 18 weeks of development with HomeTeam GameDev Paper Golf has officially reached the 1.0 milestone!  This was a project 30 years in the making starting with a real world paper game I created as a kid, then starting its digital life as a prototype version I worked on for a couple months in August and September of 2023.  I wanted to get better at Unreal multiplayer and felt a turn-based game would be the easiest way to work on that skill.  I came back to this prototype in June of this year and began revamping it and getting it ready in pre-production for a production schedule with HomeTeam starting the end of the following month.  

I decided to go back to baked lighting for this game as although Unreal 5's Lumen looks amazing, it is still quite taxing performance-wise, and I've struggle to hit 60 fps on even a Nvidia GeForce 3080. There are probably additional optimizations that could be done there on my side, but overall baked lighting is going to give you greater performance on lower-end devices. I wanted this game to be more accessible to players, with a simpler art style, so that it would be the solid gameplay that would attract players.   This was the first game where I've additionally published both a Mac (Silicon) and Linux (AMD) build. Previously builds were only made for Windows.

There were plenty of technical hurdles along the way and some strange bugs that needed squashing but overall I am very pleased with how the development went.  I know now not to leave the lighting bake to the last day and to leave an entire week to iterate on that process.  I am primarily a programmer but really enjoyed the design, tech art, and modeling aspects of this project developing additional skills in those areas.  Special thanks to everyone who contributed at HomeTeam GameDev and for all others that assisted in playtesting and providing feedback for this game.  You all made this a much better experience overall!  There will be some follow-on releases to come with additional bugfixes, content, and minor gameplay features.

1.0 Version Features

- Practice mode with turn-based play with up to 3 AI opponents

- Two game modes: Stroke and match play

- Two game maps: House and School, each with 3 holes of gameplay

- Online play both through Steam SDK and direct connect over the LAN for up to 4 total players with an option to add bots.

- Online play includes join in progress capabilities once a game is kicked off but the first hole is not complete.