Golfo (Jam Version)

About

A little driving game where you have to pick up golf balls from the driving range without getting hit. Originally made for the University of Alberta Games Den’s Wild Card Jam, this has since grown into my current long term project. Firstly, I made it functional, then I tried to make it fun, and now I’ve been adding little things here and there as they come up along the way to something vaguely “complete”. Spiritual and technical (driving model) successor to Surreal Taxi.

What I Learned

Around the time I started this project was when I solidified my development philosophy. I like to make games about one thing. They can have a hundred things going on, but in the best games I’ve played or made, everything complements one focal point that the entire experience is built around. That pillar can be a mechanic, feeling, relationship, or even just an image you can describe. The plan for this jam was to build the game around the music. Unfortunately, the music didn’t turn out due to circumstance. It happens.

And so, I’m left with a game about tangents, a genuine conundrum. I’ve done my best to embrace it, encouraging what farfetched design riffs can be made feasible, letting design come to a more unconscious natural conclusion of factors rather than intentional design. Several very cool ideas have come of this but I do still need to cut my self off and finish the game at some point. With music still in progress, I am excited to see how things change as the score takes shape.

Some specific technical things I’ve messed around with include terrain generation, rendering and handling collision with a very large amount of points, chunking and running both of the previous asynchronously, advanced shaders, making custom gizmos, learning 3D rotation (mostly) properly, 3D navigation UI, and diegetic UI.

_{Roles: programming, modelling, design, coordination, technical art}

_{Tools: Godot, Blender}

Ancestry:

⮣ Golfo (Jam Version)
⮣ Slug Rider
⮣ Surreal Taxi
▪ Skatboard Rat