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Club House on Haunted Hill Devlog 1: The Beginning

Club House on Haunted Hill
A downloadable game for Windows

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2657010/Club_House_on_Haunted_Hill/

We started this project because, in between game dev jobs and studies, we’d play old golf games and watch 1960s Vincent Price and Hammer films. One day, Olof pitched me (Jonathan) a horror golf game. Usually, I’m skeptical, but this idea "a golf game with Hammer-style story segments" just clicked.

So, we dove in. We applied to the Sweden Game Arena incubator, not sure what to expect. When I pitched the idea, they said, “Have you eaten shrooms? I don’t get it, but you’re in!”

With that, we had an office. It felt like the right place to build this game. We brought in Oskar to help us program the prototype, and after many late nights, we had something—just a rough feel of how the final game might play.

First things first: we had to get the basics right, like simulating golf balls and setting up a score system.

We knew we wanted a swing bar like in the old golf games, and we added a way to control the curve of the ball.

Multiplayer was a core element from day one. The whole idea started from us playing golf games with friends, so we needed it even for the prototype. 

Fine-tuning the golf physics was a whole process. We wanted it to feel realistic but not frustrating. It took a lot of back and forth to find the right balance.

Even though this was just a prototype, we wanted to bring in some horror elements, so we threw in a bit of a spooky theme to the level design, just to set the mood.

We wrapped up the prototype and brought it to a small event for game devs and students. People played it a lot, even though it was hard, buggy, and nowhere near ready for real playtesting. But seeing people engage with it, even in that early, rough stage was a pretty cool moment and gave us energy to continue with the project. 

Download Club House on Haunted Hill
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