Locking-In:
So in all honesty I've been resisting this feature for a while. When I first designed the game, I had the idea that rather than put the golfing skill test into some novel swing mechanic (tiger woods-esque analogue stick/mouse movement creating a line, the consistency of that line determining how good a strike it is), I would create a simple mechanic where if the player is stood too close to the ball it flies off to the left. if the player is too far from the ball it flies off to the right. Only standing within the goldilocks zone would result in a pure strike.
More widely I wanted the game to feel more like a real round of golf. When you go to a golf course for the first time, you can get a bit lost. You might only have a scrappy piece of card with a rough map on it. You lose your ball. Unless you've got expensive range finders or GPS, you don't know how far away the hole is or how far you'll have to hit it. ect ect ect.
Fast forward to my first playtests: BY FAR the hardest thing players found difficult to get their head around was getting the character in the right position to take a shot. When a mechanic is too difficult, it stops being fun. I wasn't too wedded to the idea of no visual indication of where you need to stand. To me, the fun came in the running up to the ball and taking a wild swing before the zombies got to you.
So first of all I made an in-depth tutorial. A sentence written on a wall wasn't enough. I had to give players a bit more.
I also added assists. Currently, there are 3 levels in the settings menu. In Easy, the target of the shot (where the shot intends to land before randomisation) appears as a tall green tower extending to the ground that moves away from you as you power up your shot. In Easy and Medium, a powerup graphic showing the direction and loft of your shot (as well as indicating where the pure hitbox is), gradually fills up as you power up your shot. Hard mode removes these assists and you have to play from your own judgement.
Fast forward to my current playtests: Players are still struggling. It's BETTER, but not enough. After a while, players get used to the mechanic, but I've got to consider the initial impression that the players have. If they need to spend an hour getting good at a certain aspect of the game before it is fun they'll just bounce off it.
So I'm ditching one of my guiding principles and adding an extra assist. Now, when you swing the club, the player will auto-move to the right position over the ball. You have to be standing close enough, but it makes it a hell of a lot more forgiving. At the end of the day, fun over realism. It's a golf game with zombies.
I've packaged this in with Easy-mode for now. I may make it it's own setting. I killed my darling. I added auto-snapping. May the golfing gods forgive me.
