GolfZ

by smiley

co-authored: @mashas

Overall★★★★★★★★★★3.90

Fun★★★★★★★★★★3.92

Innovation★★★★★★★★★★3.81

Theme★★★★★★★★★★4.27

Graphics★★★★★★★★★★3.54

Humor★★★★★★★★★★3.48

Mood★★★★★★★★★★3.78

Let's play Survival Golf!

Our hero wants to play some golf in the evening.

What could possibly go wrong?

Instructions

* Aim with the mouse and watch the strength meter
* Click the mouse or spacebar to shoot the ball
* Get the ball to the flag (you know.. good old golf rules)
* Move around with ASDW or the arrow keys

And according to golf rules negative score is better!

oh.. also watch out for some zombies! Fight them with your club! (mouse button or space bar)

How do I run the game?

This time we ditched using HTML5 and have made executable files instead. The performance difference to HTML5 is huge.

* Download GolfZ for Mac or Windows
* Extract the zip-file
* Execute the golfz.exe file on Windows
* Execute the golfz.app file on Mac
(If Mac says Unidentified developer then hold down ctrl, right click and select Open to allow it to run)

If the .exe or .app-file fails and you have java 7 or later installed please download the jar-file instead

and start it with:

java -jar golfz.jar

Let us know in the comments if it doesn't work instead of negative voting!

Tools used

* The excellent LibGDX game engine
* IntelliJ IDE
* Aseprite
* Gimp
* Ableton live
* Audacity

We have opted out from Audio because:
Sound credits to BBC newly open sound archive available for non commercial, educational and personal use.
The intro tune was created during the jam but the winning tune is taken from our LD36 entry.

All other content (sprites and code) was done during the jam weekend.

Tools: Ableton Live, Aseprite, Audacity, GIMP, libGDX

Comments23

Rapter24 Apr 2018, 20:58

Nice game , nice idea and gameplay 5/5!!!

jsmars24 Apr 2018, 21:06

Nicely done, lovely graphics and music!

nander24 Apr 2018, 21:13

Nice idea, the idea works quite well, but you can easily lose the ball.

Kamranicus24 Apr 2018, 21:13

This was great! I loved the premise and it was creepy. Whenever I use WASD to move I hold the keys down but I think in this game it only supported 1 keypress or something vs. simultaneous keys. It wasn't that hard to move though. Good job!

justalocalhero24 Apr 2018, 22:24

This is a masterpiece in every sense. Can't find a thing to complain about. Going back to play some more!

FabianLC25 Apr 2018, 02:12

Great game, not having music adds to the survival feeling, the lighting helps this a lot too, sprite work is alright and most importantly the game is well made and fun. My only issue is the scoring system, I can't figure it out and at the beginning you lose points for getting a hole in one.

smileyauthor25 Apr 2018, 05:49

@fabianlc that’s the crazy scoring in golf. Negative score is better. :)

ProdigalSon25 Apr 2018, 19:54

Neat little concept. I really enjoyed the win animation coupled with the jingle and the sound effects for the zombies was a nice touch. Would've liked to have control over the strength of the swing by holding down the mouse as so that I can manage things better. It's easier to know how hard the swing will be based on muscle memory so I can focus on avoiding the zombies rather than having to look at the meeter and the zombie. Unless that was the whole goal, in which case, nicely done :P

hexagore25 Apr 2018, 22:10

Really liked this. Disappointed to find out I couldn't rate you in audio because I especially enjoyed the sounds and the little win music, but I understand why, still great job on that though! I just found this one especially fun, it's a cute mechanic, get it instantly, presented really well, love the balding protagonist - it's a nice touch. All in all this is fun.

GroverTheGrovekeeper25 Apr 2018, 22:18

Nice game, it crashed after the first few levels, but overall really good!

Lewis Quaife25 Apr 2018, 22:20

Wow, some really nice touches here. The audio was amazing and really got me in the mood for the rest of the game. The map seemed a bit buggy but overall fairly polished.

the_noffs25 Apr 2018, 22:29

Haha this was super fun and super creative! Lots of mood and atmosphere. You really combined the aspects of careful precision golfing with the panic of being chased after by zombies. Good clear art and sfx. Catching victory tune. My only balk was the collision boxes on the palm trees being larger than they seem. It evens ran without a hitch on Linux! Extremely well done.

HPMNK25 Apr 2018, 22:37

The idea is really funny ! The golf part is pretty well coded, and works well (especially the tree which has a weird hitbox), but the fighting part felt a little rigid.

Art and general mood works well, i like the little music when you succeed a hole.

Here's my game, would appreciate a rating :)
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/blocksnblaster-1

GexAlmighty25 Apr 2018, 22:39

Very satisfying when you get it in the hole, love the little jingle.

Criticisms are that the hit boxes for the obstacles seem a bit over the top, felt like there was a lot of times that the ball would fly off in the middle of nowhere after hitting air. Would have been nice if we could zoom in and out to get a better view of where we are trying to get to

Avon25 Apr 2018, 22:42

Great game, its a cool concept and it was fun to play.

You could maybe have lowered the respawn rate of the zombies a little, and I would have preferred if I didn't automatically start the swing when I get close to the ball as it makes it difficult to defend when the ball lands close to a lot of zombies and I won't have time to make a good shot.

Jeffrey Hwang26 Apr 2018, 04:56

Wooo survival golf! Awesome pick on the theme :) Nice art too. Catchy and cute.

Raoul26 Apr 2018, 08:56

Really fun game ! I like the sounds, the general atmosphere and especially the haircut of the hero ;-P
Good job !

hadesfury26 Apr 2018, 11:01

I really liked it .. congrats

Mr. Blue26 Apr 2018, 14:05

It was fun playing it! Good job. :D

ArturasD27 Apr 2018, 19:17

Great job! You really hit the theme and also it was really fun. Hitting these zombies and at the same time trying to score gave the sense of urgency which makes the gameplay really cool.

Utho27 Apr 2018, 19:35

Good stuff guys! Really enjoyed this one.
Also, the main character/golfer dude looks really funny to me xD And the music that plays when the guy puts the ball is a super neat touch with the little dance and all.
Keep it up!