BTW, I had a second crash on startup.
http://www.sethwillits.com/temp/NovaGolfCrash2.txt

It happened when the "do you want to rate this game" dialog popped up. I said no and it crashed after that. I think it was a timing thing because doing the same steps again didn't crash it.

The gray background of the last mockup is simply the putting green texture desaturated. It looks nicer. Also, I boosted the saturation of the logo (and brightness of the left half) a bunch because it was too muted. I think for the club selection checkboxes I was going to put little green checkmarks on the ones that were selected.

All of the clickable buttons would need a really obvious hover appearance. The morphing is good, but it also needs something more instant and obvious (like a color change).

Updated the beta with todays progress, same URL and this one won't crash under 10.6.8 anymore. Didn't get to everything yet but the progress is worth uploading for anyone who hasn't dug into it yet. I'll keep plugging away at the other stuff this week

---

(Apr 17, 2012 12:29 PM)SethWillits Wrote:  BTW, I had a second crash on startup.
http://www.sethwillits.com/temp/NovaGolfCrash2.txt

It happened when the "do you want to rate this game" dialog popped up. I said no and it crashed after that. I think it was a timing thing because doing the same steps again didn't crash it.

The gray background of the last mockup is simply the putting green texture desaturated. It looks nicer. Also, I boosted the saturation of the logo (and brightness of the left half) a bunch because it was too muted. I think for the club selection checkboxes I was going to put little green checkmarks on the ones that were selected.

All of the clickable buttons would need a really obvious hover appearance. The morphing is good, but it also needs something more instant and obvious (like a color change).

Odd, not sure what's going on with that crash. I think I fixed your other crash though

Logo is an old file, new one is more vibrant, nice catch.

Good idea for checkboxes, in our pinball games we have red/green checks.

Hum, I'll experiment with a color change on hover

When I take a mulligan on the tee shot on a par 3, it says "Eagle Attempt!"
Will want to change that.

Also, I noticed holding shift slows down the aiming reticule. Also I'm guessing not desired.

The arc that's shown of the ball is still throwing me WAY off. Why are you showing an arc if that's not what the player will hit? I understand maybe you want to try to sell the player on the notion of "eventually you will be THAT GOOD," but it is very hard to gauge where the ball will go. Especially since I'm not hitting it that far off center and it's wildly shanking.

So a little more forgiveness on windage could help.

Good catch on the for eagle bug.

Shift slows the game down and command speeds it up, working as desired.

The arc is the best guess of what the shot will look like, so its still best to use it to aim. Bad shots are something you have to deal with even if you hit the accuracy bar just right, just like golfing in real life. Did you put any points into your player or buy any new clubs yet? This game is definitely more difficult to score well than other golf games, especially before leveling up, but that's by design. I could tone the inaccuracy down a little more if everyone agrees it's too hard to start out with.

Perhaps instead of showing the end of the arc, you should only show the beginning 15%. Also, maybe instead of an arc, you could show a conical tube. (Or, in that vein but simpler, a widening flat line in the arc.

You say it works on 32 bit Macs, but the binary is 64 bit only. (Maybe that's just this latest build?)

32/64 bit version up now with a bunch of updated textures, last build was accidentally a 64-bit version with no optimization enabled and the developer keys enabled.

Working on the fonts the rest of the day.

(Apr 19, 2012 11:16 AM)Jake Wrote:  32/64 bit version up now with a bunch of updated textures

The new sky looks cool!


Ok, so maybe it is time I buy a new machine... (specs on previous page)

I didn't even get that far. It took down my whole machine during launch. Had to force the machine to restart. It was freaking out the entire screen, mouse locked up, couldn't force quit or switch apps or anything.

Seems to be working fine after the restart.

Soooo, I hit the ball right into the flowers next to the green, and i'm trying to pick it up and drop it outside of them, but it keeps rejecting where I drop it because it's "too close to the hole."

It's a valid play. What else can I do?

You can finish the entire first hole of practice and it won't continue until you finish pressing all of the tutorial keys. And then it seems bug out. If it's waiting on ZXCVBN and I press one, it goes to the next hole and tip, bu then it doesn't advance through the tips like it should. Something weird.

Ouch PowerMacX, I guess I gotta get my hands on a GMA 950 and see if it's even possible to run on. Thanks for the heads up!

Seth, no idea why it crashed your system the first time!

Did you use the Unplayable Lie option? The rules are you can't get closer to the hole, change the angle to the hole ( I think I give ±5 or 10 degrees), and can't change surfaces. I better display this information to the user, maybe highlight the possible areas that could be dropped on.

Good catch on the tutorial bug, I now have it automatically advance a tip at the end of each hole because my one friend was stuck on the same tip for an entire round, I see where the bug is and will fix it.

Thanks for the continued help!

Why don't you restrict ball movement to that valid wedge? Showing it too would be good.

(Apr 20, 2012 08:44 AM)SethWillits Wrote:  Why don't you restrict ball movement to that valid wedge? Showing it too would be good.

Yeah, good thinking