Welcome to another update summary! There's no release this month - however I will be taking this opportunity to share what's been going on the last few weeks, and talk about what you can expect to see when the next update is released.
As revealed in last month's post, update 1.13 is focused on stats and progression. As such, much of the work has been oriented around updates to the menu system and the clubhouse.
Firstly the lobby menu has been reorganised. This splits the existing one into 3 sections, for courses, rules and info about the current session. Although this is partly due to a future update which will be increasing the number of game modes, it also provides a place for more information about a given course or round.
From the third page, which contains information about each connected client, it's now also possible to open the new leaderboard browser and the scorecard from the previous round (if there was indeed a previous round).
The leaderboard browser is a significant improvement over having to browse the Steam community pages to see player positions across the courses - as well as giving direct access to other leaderboards such as the most Holes In One, current rank and current streak. Leaderboards for the driving range remain accessible from the Driving Range mode of the game. The leaderboard browser is also now available from the Hall Of Fame in the Clubhouse, which will also eventually feature the Stats pages.
The eagle eyed of you may also notice a couple of new options on the first two pages of the lobby menu. On the second page it's now possible to switch which club set you play with, ranging from Novice through Expert to Pro. Club sets, introduced a few updates ago, are unlocked at player level 15 and 30. Each club set extends the maximum range of clubs, so now (once the sets are unlocked) it's possible to adapt your club set to the course at hand.
On the first page there is a new option to Auto-Skip CPU players. This enhances the existing turn skip function (where the in-flight ball can be skipped ahead to its destination by holding the action button) by automatically skipping CPU shots ahead, thus speeding up the game.
And while we're on the topic of CPU players, the AI behaviour has been updated to give a better range of challenge as players rank up. There's still some work to be done, particularly when playing the putting course, however a special mention should go to yourjaguarlover who has been providing an insane amount of testing and feedback over the last few weeks!
To embellish the profile system a little more I've also updated the profile editor with two new features.
Currently it is possible to add custom avatar images which show up in game using this modding guide. I've simplified this a bit for players who'd like an icon but are happy to base it on their current avatar. When clicking the Update Icon button a snapshot will be taken and automatically applied to the 'mugshot' portion of the profile editor. Profiles now also have a short biography, which can be customised via the modding interface used for custom avatar images. There are a few default profiles included, which are added at random when a new profile is created. Once the 1.13 update is released the guide will be updated to reflect the new biography possibilities.
Finally, the overall number of clients which can connect to a network game has been increased to 8. The total number of players is still limited to 16, however it's now possible to more evenly distribute those players over multiple computers.
So looking forward to the coming month I'll be concentrating on adding the stats browser to the clubhouse, updating the driving range with some small QoL tweaks, as well as addressing any other improvements and refinements from community feedback. I also have some new content being prepared for the workshop, so keep an eye on that if customisation is your thing 😁
As always the new features are available via the Beta branch of the game which you can find under the Beta tab of the game's properties on Steam. If you're curious, or would like to give some feedback, please do! You can either post on the discussions board, or join the official chat where you're welcome to say Hello, or just lurk in the background 😄
Thanks as always to everyone who has supported the game and taken the time to read this update - see you soon!