Welcome one and all to the latest update! It took a bit longer than I hoped, but it’s finally here (and a little larger than I anticipated) 😅
If you’ve been keeping up with all things Super Video Golf then you probably know what to expect - but for those who haven’t, here’s the rundown:
Career Tournaments
Two new tournaments are now available when entering the Career mode. Each one follows a traditional tournament tree, pitting you 1v1 against a CPU player each round. Losing a round will eliminate you from the tournament, so you need to win all four rounds to get the coveted trophy. As tournaments are Career games they can be left mid-round and resumed again at any time. Each tournament has 3 difficulty settings, depending on which clubset you have currently unlocked in your Career, and can be completed as many times as you like. There are multiple trophies and achievements to get for completing the tournaments, as well as two new animated balls to unlock for your profile. To read more about how the tournaments work, you can read this in-depth breakdown here.
Quick Play
If you’re looking for a quick round on a random nine holes, then quick play is the new mode in the Free Play menu for you. The idea of quick play is to dive straight into a game which qualifies on the leaderboards, perhaps when you’re out and about on the Steam Deck, or trying to squeeze in a swift hole or two on your lunch break. The course, holes and weather are all selected at random, though you can still choose your opponent’s difficulty (based on your selected clubset) and whether or not you play in night mode. Quick play rounds will pit you against 3 virtual CPU players (i.e. those you see in Career mode, rather than bots). While only your final score really matters when it comes to the online leaderboards, coming first in the round is always a bonus!
New Arcade Game
There’s also a new arcade game in the clubhouse, named Scrub! - assuming you’ve figured out how to unlock the arcade (it’s not that tough if you know your old-school cheat codes 😉). Scrub! is a QWOP-like / stick-waggler where you have a timed challenge to wash as many balls, and as efficiently, as you can. There are online leaderboards for Scrub! too… so you can see just who is the current ball washing champion 😅 For more details on Scrub! check out this post which goes into more detail.
Tweaks and Fixes
Besides the big new additions there are many smaller changes designed to improve the quality of the game, based on feedback from the community. Thanks to everyone who made suggestions and spotted mistakes (and if you suggested something which hasn’t been added, don’t worry, it may still yet come in a future update) - incorporating your ideas really helps make Super Video Golf what it is.
Notable additions include:
A new elevation meter at the top of the UI. The meter displays the elevation of the cup relative to your ball’s current position, displayed in whichever units you currently have selected in the Options.
A new Free Play mode named Nearest The Pin+. This mode takes Nearest The Pin, but awards points based on whoever is closest to each hole. Whoever has the most points at the end wins - with total distance (smaller is better) used to decide tie-breaks.
The scoreboard is now multi-coloured. Previously over-par scores were marked in red. Now under-par scores are also marked in green.
Variable wind speed options. In Free Play it’s now possible to select the maximum wind speed when choosing the weather, for some possibly extreme conditions! You can also decide if the wind changes speed and direction randomly, even mid-shot, which adds some extra tension to the round!
Playing hot-seat only games automatically unlocks all the clubsets. For those of you who play hot-seat local play almost exclusively, it seemed a little unfair to keep the clubsets locked because you weren’t levelling up your profile in single player, so now if a game is exclusively local multiplayer all club sets are available, unless clubset-limit is activated in the game rules.
There is also a selection of new options in the Options menu, such as opting out of downloading remote workshop content in multiplayer games, and turning off the dynamic range adjustment of the putter.
Here’s the full list of changes since 1.18.2:
- Fixed avatar animation stall on game start
- Fixed rendering depth of chat text in lobby
- Fixed graphical glitches on coarse putting grid
- Fixed audio device selection on Steam Deck
- Fixed inverting controller axis in the Options accidentally inverting spin controls
- Fixed mouse wheel scrolling achievements page up when achievements page not active
- Fixed virtual CPU scores not generating when reaching stroke limit on a hole
- Fixed NTP game modes ending correctly if all players bar the host disconnect from a multiplayer game
- Fixed tutorial windows overriding the pause menu
- Fixed chat window getting stuck open when using the quick emote buttons
- Fixed UI scaling at 4k
- Updated tutorial with range indicator explanation
- Updated safe mode now also resets any window settings
- Updated menu background with time of day
- Updated vehicle motion with smoother paths
- Updated distance display to always show feet to match the putter range when on the green
- Added Scrub! to the clubhouse arcade
- Added Steam timeline markers for each new tee-off on the Driving Range
- Added scroll bars to the Stats and Achievement pages (finally!)
- Added right controller thumbstick now scrolls Stats and Achievement pages
- Added D-Pad aiming is now slower than analogue aiming to aid fine-tuning
- Added playing local hotseat unlocks all clubsets unless clubset limit is enabled
- Added pin elevation to UI
- Added scores under par are now marked in green
- Added option to switch to any available beta from the main menu (steam desktop only)
- Added option to fix the range of the putter at 10m/33ft
- Added option to disable downloading remote content in network games
- Added option to set max wind speed in Free Play games
- Added option to set randomly variable wind speed in Free Play games
- Added new game mode - Nearest the Pin+
- Added Quick Play mode to start a random 9 hole round in Free Play
- Added two new Career tournaments - The Dagle-Bunnage Cup and The Sammonfield Championship
- Added support for animated golf balls
- Added default avatar model when remote content is disabled
- Added new achievement - Clean as a Whistle, scrub 40 balls in one session
- Added new achievement - Plus Fours, win a round of NTP+ with at least 4 players
- Added new achievement - Dive Right In, play a random 9 holes in Quick Play
- Added new achievement - Quick Start, win a Quick Play round with Novice clubs
- Added new achievement - Quick Step, win a Quick Play round with Expert clubs
- Added new achievement - Into The Quick Of It, win a Quick Play round with Pro clubs
- Added new achievement - Unreal, Come first in the Dagle-Bunnage Cup
- Added new achievement - Beachamp, Come first in the Sammonfields Championship
- Added new achievement - Beginner’s Luck, Win a tournament using only Novice clubs
- Added new achievement - Not My First Rodeo, Win a tournament using only Expert clubs
- Added new achievement - Gonna Need A Bigger Shelf, Win a tournament using only Pro clubs
- Added new achievement - Ahead Of The Game, complete the tutorial with a chip-in
Thanks as always goes to the wonderful community which has sprung up around Super Video Golf, to everyone who has made suggestions or shared bugs via the Discussions or the Chat, and even to the negative reviews - if they’re constructive they give me something to work on improving! 😁
I hope you enjoy this update, and please leave any comments and feedback you may have. Work on 1.20 is already under way, and I can’t wait to share with you what’s coming up - but for now though, as always,
Happy Golfing! 🏌️♂️⛳