Today I want to share some screenshots of the upcoming free expansion coming this December which you can find listed below as coming soon.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2168441/Golfing_In_Aether__Winter/
Please note that this is work in progress and not due to release till sometime in December so some visual elements could well change in between now and then.
Winter Season
Like the previously released autumn expansion, the seasonal theme is a reskin of levels to match the seasonal appearence. This includes not just new textures, but also several new or significantly changed models.
Every existing level in the game will work with this theme chosen, and you'll see in the pictures above that the levels are visually quite different during winter. For starters all ponds are covered in ice and water wheels no longer function. For levels that revolve around a water wheel you'll still be able to play these but will find the wheels covered in snow and essentially roll over that.
All the walls, tree's, fences, windmills and all other elements have received variants covered in snow. This is actually a custom mesh rather than just a texture change, and took quite a bit of time to make.
Playing in this theme has new in-game music that fits the season and you'll also find falling snow particles while playing on higher graphics settings to add to the ambience. There is even little details like particales where snow has been kicked up from initially hitting your ball.
Unlike previous themes this one is set at night and is illuminated by a combination of moonlight and glow from aurora. Specifically for gameplay purposes I didn't want to make these levels overly dark, so they should be as navigatable as you'd find in regular themes, just with lighting to fit the theme.
Level 'Sinkhole'
There will be 9 new levels as part of this expansion, and the first which I'll be showing off today is one of the late game ones. This as name suggests features a large downward area which leads to different directions depending on how you enter it,
One of the exits leads to the hole in one while the other leads to this lower section near the goal via a section involving rails.
This level like all added levels will also work across all seasonal themes and game modes so you can play them as you want to. With the 9 new levels from this expansion, this will bring the total in-game levels playable across all modes and themes to 50.
The rough date for this expansion being released is the week of December 5th, but that could change if I feel it needs more time. I'll update the DLC page nearer the time with an exact release date, but if you add it to your wishlist you'll get a notification when its available.