
Ludum Dare #41compo
Puzzle Golf

PuzzleGolf combines a puzzle game with a mini golf! Puzzle games seem to be incompatible with sports but give it a chance! You can play in a web browser but fullscreen desktop app is way more comfortable.
Controls
- drag ball to aim and stroke- z (or y) - level overview
- r - restart level
Used technologies
* Godot engine 3* Inkscape & Gimp for graphics
* Audacity & mobile phone for recording sounds
Have fun!

Comments65


vilix6423 Apr 2018, 04:44
Awesome! I liked the difficulty mechanics: meaning that if you want to chill, just ignore the number of strokes and enjoy casual puzzles, but if you want a more difficult version, there's plenty of space for that.

fashionbatman23 Apr 2018, 07:28
This is a great take on golf games! Good job!

caeonosphere23 Apr 2018, 07:30
It's exactly what it says on the tin! Puzzle... Golf! I like it! I wish there was another mechanic besides pressure plates in the first few levels, but I like what you do with it.
Oh, and the fullscreen's not working for me in HTML5.
Oh, and the fullscreen's not working for me in HTML5.
Jackson Frankland23 Apr 2018, 07:32
That was a great game. The sound effect were incredible

Jiri Hysek23 Apr 2018, 07:39
@jackson-frankland: thank you, it was recorded on a phone using a real golf ball :)
@caeonosphere: thank you for feedback - try a desktop version, html version has fixed size. Moving it to fulscreen is good only for better controls (when you drag out of the game screen, you can still shot the ball on fullscreen)
@caeonosphere @vilix64 @fashionbatman: Thanks, i'm glad you like it!
@caeonosphere: thank you for feedback - try a desktop version, html version has fixed size. Moving it to fulscreen is good only for better controls (when you drag out of the game screen, you can still shot the ball on fullscreen)
@caeonosphere @vilix64 @fashionbatman: Thanks, i'm glad you like it!

Krystof Klestil23 Apr 2018, 08:00
Love the idea, especially the mix has worked very well here! I was also surprised by how balanced the gameplay was, going from easy to hard, from learning to utilizing that which you've learnt.

Jiri Hysek23 Apr 2018, 08:16
@krystof-klestil: I'm glad you like it! The game was actually tested on two real people (not counting me;). At first it had steeper difficulty curve so I redesigned levels after getting feedback during a development.

GastricSparrow23 Apr 2018, 09:02
You created an awesome game! I'm always in awe of how well you can make so many elements work together aesthetically. As for the game design, as one of the tester I'm glad to see the game being expanded to accommodate a player's learning curve. Great job as always!
zoglu23 Apr 2018, 10:02
Really loved this, overall nice game.

Krystof Klestil23 Apr 2018, 10:14
@jiri-hysek smart move!

frostdragonliz23 Apr 2018, 10:15
Excellent! I agree with what other people said - I am not that bothered about stroke count, but enjoyed the puzzles, but those looking for a real challenge could try to get under par.
I did have an issue with the ball sometimes taking a long time to come to a complete stop and me not being able to hit it until it did. Perhaps allowing the ball to be hit at very low speeds would work.
Overall very nice and polished work!
I did have an issue with the ball sometimes taking a long time to come to a complete stop and me not being able to hit it until it did. Perhaps allowing the ball to be hit at very low speeds would work.
Overall very nice and polished work!

frostdragonliz23 Apr 2018, 10:15
Excellent! I agree with what other people said - I am not that bothered about stroke count, but enjoyed the puzzles, but those looking for a real challenge could try to get under par.
I did have an issue with the ball sometimes taking a long time to come to a complete stop and me not being able to hit it until it did. Perhaps allowing the ball to be hit at very low speeds would work.
Overall very nice and polished work!
I did have an issue with the ball sometimes taking a long time to come to a complete stop and me not being able to hit it until it did. Perhaps allowing the ball to be hit at very low speeds would work.
Overall very nice and polished work!

tayl1r23 Apr 2018, 10:19
I'm very bad at this game, but I love the idea and execution.

Jiri Hysek23 Apr 2018, 11:41
@frostdragonliz hmm, that's weird, the game shouldn't depend on balls movement. You should be able to hit the ball even when it's moving, at least it works for me. Anyway I'm glad you like it despite of that :)
@tayl1r Practice makes the master :) I'm glad you like it though :)
@tayl1r Practice makes the master :) I'm glad you like it though :)
bcvery123 Apr 2018, 12:19
Really nice game, graphics looked great. Couldn't get the web build to work (Chrome), but the Linux binary ran just fine
Onnion23 Apr 2018, 12:54
Really love the game, it's so stressfull arghh i hate balls, i hate puzles so love the game

jf198923 Apr 2018, 14:33
This is a nice concept well made. Perhaps it should be pushed somewhat to combine the mechanics. For instance - some of the buttons seem to open a door for a short time period - it could be nice to have puzzles where the player needs to go over the button and land on top of the door in order to be on top of it when it goes up in order to get to a higher level. So, the buttons where you had to press the button and go through the door on the same shot were much better than the ones which just open/close a door indefinitely, as they combine the mechanics.
Anyway - just a thought - mainly because I'd be interested if you decide to pursue this further.
Anyway - just a thought - mainly because I'd be interested if you decide to pursue this further.
OmnipotentIndie23 Apr 2018, 14:39
Well made. Puzzles were a bit too easy, either that or the difficutly curve wasn't good. I liked the concept though.

Pheonise23 Apr 2018, 15:54
Nice genre combo, and very well executed! Lots of fun playing this!

Alexander Danilovsky23 Apr 2018, 19:02
cool! and the idea and the game I liked!
Aaron Nemoyten23 Apr 2018, 22:00
Apparently I'm just as bad at virtual minigolf as I am at real-life minigolf.
Great execution. I just wish I had the patience to get better at it!
Great execution. I just wish I had the patience to get better at it!

Yohoho Games 224 Apr 2018, 08:59
Very good game! Combination of puzzle and golf is creative and easy to play

stevenjmiller24 Apr 2018, 20:04
Great game and combination! I ended up with a score of 33.

Troll Tamer Games25 Apr 2018, 04:12
Excellent execution of the golf+puzzle combination! I was doing okay till i started struggling with some of the puzzles and went +15 on one hole LOL. Had a fun time playing it, intuitive controls, nice lighting effect.

arzi25 Apr 2018, 11:28
Nice work overall, but some levels felt a bit too much like a chore.

louis-denizet25 Apr 2018, 11:42
Nice level design, had fun playing this, well done!

Team Luminous25 Apr 2018, 13:03
Ooh, nice game. Well polished; it feels like an actual game that one could buy! I approve wholeheartedly. I only wish that there was a way to see the whole level.
-Rao
-Rao

Jiri Hysek25 Apr 2018, 13:21
@team-luminous: Thanks, I'm glad you like it! Actually there is zoomout by z/y/RMB. It cannot always show whole level though.. it depends on your resolution (if you are playing a desktop build - web build has static size)
To all I haven't managed to reply: thank you all for your comments and feedback. I really appreciate it! I'll play and rate all your games (if there is a mac or web build).
To all I haven't managed to reply: thank you all for your comments and feedback. I really appreciate it! I'll play and rate all your games (if there is a mac or web build).

Persijn25 Apr 2018, 14:02
cool, game :smile: Even if I'm not a big fan of puzzles or golf games.
I would like the buttons to not be times. Seems like more of a frustration since it adds a cooldown to a game where you have to use precision on aim and power.
:fox:
I would like the buttons to not be times. Seems like more of a frustration since it adds a cooldown to a game where you have to use precision on aim and power.
:fox:
Detobel3625 Apr 2018, 20:46
Generaly I don't like Puzzle games. But the game is well done and is fun to play. It is necessary to make great movement for in the end a little move of the ball. It's a little disturbing :laughing:
Good game, though!
Good game, though!

Jaime Paz Lopes25 Apr 2018, 21:43
cool game, but i only was able to finish it by doing a lot of strokes

Togis26 Apr 2018, 02:37
I played this game on stream last night, here is the VOD:
Thanks for making this game!
Thanks for making this game!

Jiri Hysek26 Apr 2018, 07:23
@togis Cool, thank you again for playing, sharing and your feedback! Too bad the stream was a bit laggy, but since others know it's not game's fault it's fine :)


Jiri Hysek26 Apr 2018, 13:42
@togis No problem :)
Yanni26 Apr 2018, 14:26
I got a score of 34+! This was a really great concept, and the execution was stellar. The mechanics and the pacing felt very fair, and the progression wasn't brutal. I felt accomplished with each hole, and enjoyed each stage's challenge. The only thing I wish happened was seeing the ball fall into the hole rather than it just dissapearing. There is just something weirdly satisfying seeing a ball drop into a gold hole. Really great submission!

Jiri Hysek26 Apr 2018, 14:54
@yanni: Well played! :) Thank your for feedback, I guess you're right with that falling ball.. this small touch is really missing.
@jf1989: it's quite an interesting idea... this can be good "aha!" moment in later levels. I'm actually thinking about make a mobile game from this some day.. It depends how will people like this LD version.
@jf1989: it's quite an interesting idea... this can be good "aha!" moment in later levels. I'm actually thinking about make a mobile game from this some day.. It depends how will people like this LD version.
saintheiser26 Apr 2018, 17:28
Rules are blowing my mind. Can't figure out how these hell buttons work... And laggy phiysics make me screams.
Yeah, I love golf. And I like puzzles. But this game looks very strange. Maybe if game was more polished I'll love it with all of my heart! Nice concept and nice try!
Yeah, I love golf. And I like puzzles. But this game looks very strange. Maybe if game was more polished I'll love it with all of my heart! Nice concept and nice try!

Jiri Hysek26 Apr 2018, 18:10
@saintheiser I'm sorry to hear that. Can you please tell me, which version did you play - if you played web build which browser did you used? If desktop build, which platform? I have quite old macbook and it works fluently. No one else reported problems with lagging.
Ballance difficulty is always hard - some people say it's too easy, for some it's too hard. It cannot fit to everyone, i guess it's normal.
There are only two types of buttons, I tried to introduce them one at the time. The first one in the first level, it's a pressure plate - when the ball is above this button, doors are opened. When ball leaves, doors are closed after a little delay. The second one - toggle switch - is introduced in second level. When balls enter this switch, it switch the state of doors. And the third level shows that there can be different colors of triggers and doors.
Unfortunately in two days there is nearly no time to do more testing and balancing or polishing it even better.
Anyway, thank you for your feedback!
Ballance difficulty is always hard - some people say it's too easy, for some it's too hard. It cannot fit to everyone, i guess it's normal.
There are only two types of buttons, I tried to introduce them one at the time. The first one in the first level, it's a pressure plate - when the ball is above this button, doors are opened. When ball leaves, doors are closed after a little delay. The second one - toggle switch - is introduced in second level. When balls enter this switch, it switch the state of doors. And the third level shows that there can be different colors of triggers and doors.
Unfortunately in two days there is nearly no time to do more testing and balancing or polishing it even better.
Anyway, thank you for your feedback!
saintheiser26 Apr 2018, 18:21
Thanks for explanation! I played web version on Win7.
About lags I mean that ball sometimes bounces unpredictable. For example I see part of level with diagonal walls and thinking: "If I hit the ball with all my force there is PHYSICS reflection rules and ball will be bounces along this tunnel with single shot". But on practice it stucks on second diagonal wall.
I can't "read" these rules from my expirience because rules for buttons looks too tricky and complex to understand.
About lags I mean that ball sometimes bounces unpredictable. For example I see part of level with diagonal walls and thinking: "If I hit the ball with all my force there is PHYSICS reflection rules and ball will be bounces along this tunnel with single shot". But on practice it stucks on second diagonal wall.
I can't "read" these rules from my expirience because rules for buttons looks too tricky and complex to understand.

Jiri Hysek26 Apr 2018, 18:38
@saintheiser ah, you meant physics. Yeah, you are right, there are some glitches. Colliders on tiles are unfortunately not perfect, the ball can hit place where it bounces in unexpected way. I was tweaking it a little but time was too precious so I get it to "good enough" state and moved to another aspects of the game. So it is what it is, compo games are not always perfect :)

Ashtrail27 Apr 2018, 07:52
The game is really neat. It looks good, plays good and the sfx is satisfying as hell. Too bad there isn't any music. The level design is pretty well done and even if sometimes the puzzle is a bit confusing you can always reset it which was a good idea.
Don't really have much too say apart from that since the game is good as is, not really anything to cut or add (except for a chill OST :P).
Don't really have much too say apart from that since the game is good as is, not really anything to cut or add (except for a chill OST :P).

Toulou27 Apr 2018, 11:39
Great game, quite hard too ! The concept is super interesting and you use the mechanics to build interesting levels ( even if I couldn't beat level 5...). The controls are a bit weird but you get used to it after a while. Also, it's just a detail but the light effects around the ball add a nice touch to the game. Good job !

Tim Ruswick28 Apr 2018, 03:49
I really like this!!! Its a cool intersection of genres.

Nutriz28 Apr 2018, 17:21
I liked it a lot! Your game is so polished, like a game developed for months. For me the difficulty come fast in the game, I would have liked 5 or10 first mini tutorials levels, only enjoying the relaxing sound of the ball :).
Feel free to look and vote for our entry also made with Godot Engine: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/way-out
Feel free to look and vote for our entry also made with Godot Engine: https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/way-out

Nutriz28 Apr 2018, 17:23
I liked it a lot! Your game is so polished, like a game developed for months. For me the difficulty come fast in the game, I would have liked 5 or10 first mini tutorials levels, only enjoying the relaxing sound of the ball :).
Feel free to look and vote for our entry also made with Godot Engine: Way Out.
Feel free to look and vote for our entry also made with Godot Engine: Way Out.

Jiri Hysek28 Apr 2018, 18:00
@nutriz Thanks for feedback, I'd love to play your game but I don't have Windows. Can you please publish a Mac build? Should be piece of cake in Godot.
@tim-ruswick Thanks for streaming my game, too bad I couldn't watch it live (you know.. european timezone)
@toulou @ashtrail Thanks for feedback, I'm glad you like it!
@tim-ruswick Thanks for streaming my game, too bad I couldn't watch it live (you know.. european timezone)
@toulou @ashtrail Thanks for feedback, I'm glad you like it!

Nutriz28 Apr 2018, 18:48
@Jiri-Hysek On the itch.io page we have an OSX build (someone said me it's laggy, but you can try). Also Windows build work well on linux with Wine (Thanks Godot !!!), I don't know if OSX has a function like that.

Indie Gaming29 Apr 2018, 03:06
Check out my play through of this awesome game, and make sure to hit that subscribe button to see more playthroughs of LD41 entries! : D

Jiri Hysek29 Apr 2018, 07:30
@indie-gaming Nice! Thanks a lot for playing and sharing, I'm glad you liked it. Watching you playing gave me valuable feedback. I identified a few new things I could do better :) During Ludum Dare we have other programmers' feedback mostly. So I really appreciate you are making these playthroughs (uhm.. you are not a programmer, are you? ;-)

Indie Gaming29 Apr 2018, 16:51
Haha, no problem, it was my pleasure. I'm only a fledgling programmer, I fear not too much help just yet ;)
vfqd30 Apr 2018, 12:44
Enjoyed the game a lot (when not raging) I really appreciate the amount of polish. I think the colliders on the angled areas are sometimes a bit off, or maybe that's just the perspective because my shots were going weird.

dob1 May 2018, 06:46
Froze in Chrome and MS Edge, worked in Firefox. I ended up with +16 on my first run - not too great, but I was figuring it out. Will have to try again. Nice work; clear puzzles with a cool non-verbal interface that made sense. Cool graphics and nice lighting effects, which gave it a neat and slick animation. Nice work.

Jupiter_Hadley1 May 2018, 20:22
Neat game! I included it in my Ludum Dare 41 compilation video series, if you’d like to take a look. :) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCS-SbQWjlE
Hisfantor2 May 2018, 14:49
I use Chromium under Ubuntu and the ball is stuck in the wall right at the beginning, can't play

Jiri Hysek2 May 2018, 15:04
@hisfantor thanks for feedback, unfortunately the html export in godot is not entirely bugfree. I guess there is nothing I can do with it. You can download a linux build which should work fine though. If you for any reason cannot download app, try using firefox. It should work better.

JackLeHamster3 May 2018, 15:09
Interesting concept. I included your game in my Let's Play. Thanks for suggesting it!

Jiri Hysek3 May 2018, 15:52
@jacklehamster: Thanks for playing and sharing! I noticed you had some issues with mouse clicking.. It's the most probably because of web build. Desktop version should be fine.
It's known that godot's web export is not still entirely bugfree (it should be OK in firefox though) but I didn't notice any issues when I was testing it before deadline so I published web build as well.
It's known that godot's web export is not still entirely bugfree (it should be OK in firefox though) but I didn't notice any issues when I was testing it before deadline so I published web build as well.

Psychedelia7 May 2018, 00:31
The puzzles were lovely. I like the level design - the two different tiles and effects and the learning curve... You don't hold the players hand. I like that as well.
Tiny detail: If those tiles with two colors had the inner color square a bit "bigger", it might be easier for the player to assess both colors more efficiently. At my first playthrough I actually did not notice that the tile in the second level has two colors and then wondered what I missed. But maybe that's just me and my eyes, or you not holding hands...
And it looks so good as well! Great work!
Tiny detail: If those tiles with two colors had the inner color square a bit "bigger", it might be easier for the player to assess both colors more efficiently. At my first playthrough I actually did not notice that the tile in the second level has two colors and then wondered what I missed. But maybe that's just me and my eyes, or you not holding hands...
And it looks so good as well! Great work!

cristiano.m.garcia7 May 2018, 00:38
Good job! Cool game!
I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape
I left my rating of your game, if you can leave your feedback in our game, Witch's Escape.
I hope you continue with the project.
https://ldjam.com/events/ludum-dare/41/witchs-escape

PhilStrahl8 May 2018, 17:03
This time it also worked with my screen recorder! Had a great time with it, very good concept and polished execution!

Jiri Hysek8 May 2018, 17:38
@philstrahl Awesome! Thanks for playing and sharing video. I'm glad you like it and also you didn't give it up after the issues with recording for the first time. You're the best! :)

csanyk12 May 2018, 21:40
This is really difficult. I liked the concept, but the switch puzzles are a little too hard for me to find enjoyable. It'd be one thing if I could hit a switch and the obstacle it triggers would deactivate permanently, but to require split second timing such that the ball must leave the switch plate and then cross over the obstacle before it has time to rise again is pretty advanced. That could work well for later holes, but for the early holes the difficulty is a bit too much. The controls/physics worked pretty good, although there were some rough spots. I enjoyed playing and getting to see a little of what the Godot engine is capable of.

Jiri Hysek14 May 2018, 10:34
@csanyk Thanks for your feedback! My previous jam games was hard so I tried to do an easy game for once :) I learnt it's nearly impossible to please everyone (at least within two days of Compo). According feedback the game is too easy for some people, too hard for others or nicely balanced for another ones :)
But yeah, more tutorial levels would be useful for sure.
But yeah, more tutorial levels would be useful for sure.





Excellent! Very innovative. I love how intuitive the mechanics are, and the first level is perfect for training those mechanics. Also, great job gracefully handling those moments when the ball gets trapped - I never felt like I needed to restart the game (except when I had too many strokes ;)