Many fans requested the ability to swing with the gamepad thumbstick. In this update, we make this dream come true.

Here is how it works:

Step 1: Press A to pull up your swing meter.

Step 2: Pull down on the left thumbstick to set which direction the ball will curve.

The further away from center you pull back your thumbstick, the more the ball flight will curve. The red marker gives visual guidance on where to pull the thumbstick to hit a straight shot.

Step 3: Push forward on the left thumbstick to set power and initial ball flight direction.

Try to time the push forward with the desired power. The little flag icon will give a hint on how hard to hit the ball. It doesn't take into consideration wind and other course conditions, you have to figure those parts out. ;-)

If you push the thumbstick directly forward into the red marker, the ball flight will start directly to where the golfer is aimed. The further from center you push the thumbstick forward, the further the initial ball flight will be from the target.

Step 4: Enjoy your hole-in-one!

Tips

Hitting a Draw: Pull back the thumbstick to the left and push forward.

Hitting a Fade: Pull back the thumbstick to the right and push forward.

The thumbstick swing meter is now the default if you have a gamepad. If you have preference for the traditional 3-click swing meter, you can always change back in the gameplay settings.





We have a few things in this update I'm sure VR players will enjoy.


Previously, to play VR in one hand mode you had to turn off one of the controllers. This worked well for the most part, however, this proved challenging for the Oculus headset players. In this update, there is now a setting where you can specify which hand you would like to use without needing to turn off a controller.




Previously, the option to switch between left and right hand swings was buried in menus. In the pic above, you can now see how quick and easy it is to switch between left and right hand swings.


Previously, each time you play the game you had to reset your club length preferences. This proved extremely frustrating for our taller players. Now, the game will save these settings between play sessions.

• Existing challenges unlock more gear. If you have already beat some of these challenges, you will get will already be available for you in the store.
  
• Camera now locks onto the player when completing a challenge (with fireworks if you win).
  
• UI Improvements
  
• A cool new Barkers Crest blimp.

Play with your friends in the new game mode Last Golfer Standing. Each hole the player(s) with the highest score are eliminated, play until only 1 golfer is left standing!

Players can now select “Game Mode” when they are in a lobby. From there they’ll be able to play a Last Golfer Standing match.





Once the match begins, player will have to finish the hole within the allotted time. The player(s) with the highest score at the end of the hole are eliminated.



The players with the worst score at the end of each hole are eliminated.





Golfers can now play in the rain or snow! Both rain and snow have unique physics so golfers will have to adjust to their environment.







Use the new “Flop” shot type to get out of those sticky situations where you must get the ball up quick! (Such as out of green side bunkers.)

• Bot limit increased from 7 to 15.
  
• Up to 16 total golfers in a match.
  
• (1 to 8 humans) + bots for a total of 16 golfers.

New structures, trees and designers will also be able to choose up to 9 different tee block themes



New Water Color: Purple
Concrete and Wood Fringes



Tall Grass settings with white and yellow flowers





Cart paths can now be used as base terrain items



Enhanced Tall Grass Draw Distance
Tall Grass renders much faster

• Fixed wind not having any affect on chip shots
  
• Tall Grass render artifacts near water
  
• Lake sort layers now save correctly
  
• Tree Transparency fix
  
• Rate course no longer shows up in practice mode

• Game Mode tab added in lobby so players can now switch between: Stroke Play, Last Golfers Standing and Practice (Local match)
  
• UI icons now match Oculus Buttons correctly.
  
• Improved Golfer transparency (you can see your putts better now, including after you hit the ball.)
  
• Practice mode moved to the new gameplay mode selection screen
  
• Smaller golfer cards in lobby & gameplay when there are more than 8 golfers in a match.

I'm excited with how the game is coming along and couldn't be more pleased to get this update out to you all. We are continuing our focus on getting ready for a console release, which will be a neat thing for PC players as well, and will continue to put out new features to PC along the way where it makes sense.

Have a great time with the new update!

Hello All!

We are back and we have a nice update for you all. Let's jump right into it!

Whenever you are playing a bot and they complete a hole, land in the water, or launch a ball out of bounds, they will now share a fun or comedic comment on how they feel about their accomplishment (or lack of). We are very excited about these new speech bubbles as they add a lot more life and entertainment when playing with bots.



Speaking of playing with bots...


When you beat a bot, you can play against them in online or local gameplay modes. With a little bit of programming magic, we have made it where you can play with up to 7 bots at a time.



You can even configure which types of bots you want to play with, such as random, easy, medium, hard, or competitive. You can even turn them off if you prefer.



I have to admit, playing a match with bots everywhere can be a ton of fun, if that is your kinda thing.


Yes, this achievement is finally fixed. If you have already beat all 50 bot challenges, just go play and beat Joe Duffy again and the achievement will unlock for you. For those that haven't beat all 50, keep trying.
I know you can do it!




If you are anything like me, you have found it pretty annoying when other golfers blocked the view of your putt. There is good news for you. In this update whenever another golfer is blocking the view of your putt the game will fade the golfer to transparent. We also made a couple of adjustments to the golfer transparency shader so the quality will be improved there as well. The golfer transparency works in VR as well.



Can you even see the golfers blocking the putt view above? Nope. Okay maybe a little bit.


If you are anything like me, you were very frustrated when you built courses and just wanted to test the 17th hole during gameplay. Previously, that meant you had play through holes 1 through 16 just to get to the hole you want to test...and you only had 1 chance to test it. In addition to that, you probably had some times where you wanted to play around or experiment on a couple of holes but not keep score or have it affect your statistics (hello double bogey).

There is good news for you. In this update we introduce to you Practice Mode.



Practice mode allows you to pick any course, especially the ones your are designing, and select whichever hole you want to play over and over and over again. The one thing you need to know, you can only select practice mode when you play a local match. The great news is you can have up to 7 bots practice your course with you. I hear bots are great for testing courses. :)




We have updated to the latest version of Unity engine and swapped out the Steam integration module. This has allowed us to pass on to you the following bug fixes and performance benefits:

• The game is now built with Unity's IL2CPP technology. To make a long story short, the game runs much more stable and faster.
  
• We enabled a new Unity feature called Incremental Garbage Collection. I'm sure many of you all have played many games that are built on Unity engine that suffer from occasional stutters or what feels like slight freezes in framerate. With Incremental Garbage Collection, those moments should now be a thing of the past.
  
• Framerate slowly dropping in VR is fixed. This issue is referenced here: https://steamcommunity.com/app/537630/discussions/0/2590022385670619613/
  
• Clouds rotating strange in VR when looking a certain direction.
  
• We have tuned the course loading code so it is much faster and smoother.

There are many minor bug fixes, performance fixes, and quality of life enhancements. These are not listed here but do add to the quality of the game experience.


Folks, I'm going to be very upfront with you all. Last year around this time we put out a huge update. Shortly after that both Shake and I suffered very serious personal losses. We were both pretty down for a long time. A very long time, actually. It wasn't until November 2019 that we even had the energy and motivation to seriously get back on the game and move it forward.

I want to personally thank you all for your patience, kind words, and good reviews of the game. It really does affect us and keep us committed to getting this game to a full release for you. We are almost there.

Moving forward, we are going to spend a majority of our time focused on getting the game out on the consoles. The good news there, whatever features we add for console release will come over to the PC versions at the same time or earlier.

Again, we thank you all for your support and appreciation for this game.

Thanks again and have fun with the update!

Thanks for all your great feedback on the latest patch. Here are a couple more things we added in with this patch specifically because you requested it.


You told us putting was hard and you needed a better way to read the greens. In this patch we introduce putt preview. It works the same whether you are in VR or Non-VR mode.

Simply push the putt preview button and watch as preview golf balls simulate the break of the green.

Keep in mind, the putt preview is not there to show you exactly where to aim. You still have to account for power and speed which can change how much a putt breaks.




You told us it is not always easy to calculate power percentage for less than 100% shots. For less than 100% shots, we added a flag stick to the swing meter that does the calculation for you.

Keep in mind, you are still responsible for judging other factors that affect power such as wind, uphill/downhill, or lie (in the deep rough). However, with the new flag stick it is pretty easy to add or take away just a little to account for these factors.




You requested the ability to click the topspin or backspin arrows with a mouse. We added that in with this patch.




The UI was a little wonky if you played in ultra widescreen. In this patch we improved support for ultra widescreen resolutions. While we went through the UI with a fine-toothed comb, if you find any additional UI elements that we missed, please let us know.

• Split Screen is turned off by default.
  
• Bots are turned off when min-putt courses are selected.

We know this update took much longer than the previous updates… Well, that is for good reason. To say this update is “massive” might be an understatement. The update has a ton of quality of life improvements, but it also adds in a lot of new content!


Bot Golfers: The A.I. golfers all have unique playing styles, personalities, and difficulties!
50 Bot Challenges: Beat the bot challenges to unlock their gear, new ball trails, clothes, and more!
2 New Achievements: Beat Joe Duffy and Beat all Bot Challenges.
Cross Platform Private Matches: Match Code now makes it easy to get friends into your private matches. You can now do private matches with your friends who bought the game on the Oculus store.
New Ball Flight Camera System: There are now a variety of camera angles to see after you’ve hit the ball.
Split Screen Spectator Mode: Watch other players side by side as you complete the hole.
Designer Fairway Templates: Fairway templates have been overhauled. There are a lot more templates now and existing templates work a lot better.
Gameplay Settings: Smart Putter, Split Screen settings, Vive swing controls.
Match Settings: Bot difficulty and how many holes you want to play. (Front 9, Back 9 or all 18.)
Quality of Life: Give Up button, club selection improvements, control improvements, UI improvements, Lobby Improvements, etc.
Bug Fixes: Yeah, there were a few of these too!


Next time you play Tee Time Golf you might notice the “Challenges” option from the play menu. Challenges let you play against a Bot golfer in a 9 or 18 hole challenge. If you beat the bot you unlock them for use in Local Play and when Hosting a Match Online. You also unlock new gear, ball trails, clothes, and equipment available to purchase.

You asked for a better single player experience, and this is it. Over 10+ hours of entertaining and challenging single player experience.

Over 50 challenges in all.



Meet Chips McGee



Challenges are a new way to play




“Variety is the spice of life” right? Before the update you’d get the same camera after every shot you’d take. Now there is a lot more variety which gives a lot of nice-looking views during your golf round.




When you are creating a new hole, you’ll notice the fairway templates have been improved. There is now a great selection and they connect to the green by default.




If you open you pause menu during gameplay, you’ll notice a Gameplay Settings screen.



Note: This screen varies depending on your setup: VR, platform or active controls.

Here is a quick summary of the options:

Putter Type: The Smart Putter will switch from the small to medium putter around 5 feet. The Classic Putter does this around 20 feet.

The reason we gave this option is because we’ve seen that most new players under hit their short putts too often. We notice when people use the medium putter around the 5-20 foot range, they had better success than using the classic putter approach.
However, we know everyone plays a little differently, so the classic putter selection is still an option.

Split Screen Spectator Mode: On/Off/Local Only/Online Only. This is used for if you want to see the other golfer in your view the entire time. For those of you who want to have a turn-by-turn experience, this is our solution.



Vive Swing Control Type: Choose whether you want to activate the swing by holding the trigger or holding the grip button.

Power Swing Assist (VR-Only): Shows you a visual indicator of how much power you are going to swing with. Note: The default swing still relies on swing speed for distance control.



Swing Hit Assist (VR Only): Makes contact with the ball more forgiving if you were going to miss the ball.


Match Settings screen is available from the lobby when you play a local match or host an online match. There are the following options:



Holes: Front 9, Back 9 or All 18. This means players have more control over the type of match they want to play. This will also help course designers when testing their course.

Bot: There are a few different options in the Bot settings.

• Off: No Bot will join the match.
  
• Random: A Random bot they you have previously beat in challenge mode will join you.
  
• Easy/Medium/Hard: A bot at this difficulty level will join the player. (If the bot has been previously beaten, if not it will default to the hardest available at the difficulty you selected.)
  
• Competitive: The Bot that joins will be as competitive as possible compared to the players current level.

A lot of little things have been added in the game to give it a bit more polish. Here is a list of what’s been improved:

- Face Animations: Golfers now give more appropriate face animations on post hole reactions.

- Give Up Button: If golfers feel they can’t continue they can decide to give up on the hole from the pause menu. They will automatically be given a score of 10 and receive no XP or Coins.

- Zoom on Mouse Wheel (Keyboard/ Mouse Setup): Zoom has been added for mouse wheels.

- Scorecard Text: Albatross, Eagle and Hole in One all have unique colors on the scorecard.

- Rendering performance speed improvements. Should get better FPS more often.

- Improved Asynchronous loading of courses and screens.

- More comfort when teleporting or changing position. A quick black fade in and out when moving to another position.

- Cross Platform Private Matches: Match Code now makes it easy to get friends into your private matches.





- Transparent Fullsized Golfers if they get too close to you.



- Shoes Display in VR: Show off your shoes even if you are in VR!



- New Planes and Blimps! More variety, higher quality and different flight pattern!



- New lobby area is now outdoors and more energizing! The Lobby area is now different for both VR and Non-Vr golfers. Lobby now shows all the fullsized golfers as well.



- More in-game controller button hints.

- Improved club suggestions near green.

- VR Cloud Orientation: Mostly fixed strange rotation when you turn your head. Still happens but only in narrow circumstances.

- 2 New Achievements: Beat Joe Duffy and Beat all Bot Challenges.

- Motion Controller Hints in gameplay lobby.

• Main Menu Mouse Hover over buttons sometimes wouldn't highlight button.
  
• Fix for published courses sometimes not giving XP/Coins.
  
• Various structures have had collision fixes/ improvements. (The Oil Drill for example previously was missing some collisions and now works as intended.)
  
• Game stoped responding when ball stops very close to the hole.
  
• Yards to Pin: This now shows correctly in all circumstances. (Your distances will display in Yards or Feet, not sometimes get mixed up between the two.)
  
• Round Complete UI showing too high in VR.
  
• Left handed golfer lighting issue.
  
• Many other small bug fixes.

Thanks for sticking with us! We are grateful to all who purchased the game and want to give you the things you have been asking for.

This update improves on how players earn XP/Coins throughout their round. The update also includes changes to how XP earnings are calculated. Additionally, there are new XP Bonuses such as “Great” and “Excellent” performance holes. At the end of the round, golfers can now earn “Good” and “Excellent” round bonuses as well.


While you are playing you might notice a few changes. After a hole you now might see “Excellent” or “Great” performance:



Golfers will now earn Good, Great or Excellent performance based on how well they perform. The players performance will be measured by comparing them to the rest of the world! If the golfer is shooting better compared to the average golfer. They will receive an XP and Coin bonus for that hole!
The bonus XP is based off your performance:

Good Scores: +1 XP, +1 Coins
Great Scores: +2 XP, +2 Coins
Excellent Scores: +3 XP, +3 Coins

There have also been changes to the base XP earnings.


The XP players earn after completing a hole is now determined by that holes difficulty. For example, a difficult par 4 will give the player more XP than completing an easy par 4. So now when you Birdie the most difficult hole on the course, you will get a bigger reward than in previous versions of Tee Time Golf!


There are now various potential rewards players will earn when a round is completed. The user can earn the following bonuses:

Finish Bonus: This is earned by playing a complete round. (Regardless of score.)
Good Finish: If you score greater than the average round you will earn a Good Finish!
Excellent Finish: If you score much greater than the average round you will earn an Excellent Finish!
Early Bird Bonus: If this is the first round on the course from the players tee block, they will earn the “Early Bird Bonus.”



Well, that’s what update 0.7.5 has to offer! These changes should make progression feel much more balanced between difficult and easy courses. Skilled players will notice more XP earnings, especially on those difficult holes!

Other Notes:

-Fixed a bug where Oculus were showing the wrong helps menus for their controls.

In this latest update, during game play we now show the Top Round, Your Best, and Score to Beat.

Shows who has the best round for the tee box you are currently playing on (Red, White, Blue or Black Tees).



Shows your best round on the tee box you are currently playing on.



Shows shows the score you need to tie or beat in order to move up in ranking for the best score on the tee box you are currently playing on.



This works for both courses that come with the game and user-created courses.

We are excited to watch you all compete for the best rounds on all of the courses.

See you on the course!

As of today (October 3, 2018), Tee Time Golf is now available on the Oculus Store.

This means you will be able to play online multiplayer matches with people who buy the game there.

We even support cross-platform voice chat, so you will be able to chat with Oculus platform players too.

When in an online match, if you notice a gamer with a white icon/avatar/pic with the Tee Time logo, it is very likely they are a cross-platform player.

As an additional bonus, player created courses are cross-platform as well. Any course an Oculus Platform player creates and publishes will be playable by Steam players. The same goes in reverse, where courses created by Steam players will be available for Oculus players to play. This is cool because it means more people will be playing and rating your courses.

Leaderboards, however, will still be unique to each platform.

We put quite a bit of effort into making this work because we want you to have the biggest community possible for multiplayer and custom courses.

Enjoy and see you on the course!

Version 0.7.3 is now available! Here is what we’ve addressed and improved:

Networking:

• You can now turn on/off voice chat through the Audio menu.

Gameplay:

• You can now use left mouse click to swing once your swing meter is active.
  
• Mouse will now hide if the mouse is inactive for more than 3 seconds in gameplay.

User Interface:

• Player's Tee Block indicator is now displayed on Scorecard.

Designer:

• Fixed a bug where you were unable to publish the first time you created a course.

Misc:

• Fixed a few trees that were having collision issues.
  
• Fixed bug where water border showed land at the edges.

Version 0.7.2 is now available! Here is what we’ve addressed and improved:

Networking:

• Private Match Steam invites should now work better for players in cross region play.
  
• Improvements to Voice Chat stability and quality!

Gameplay:

• Added: In VR you’ll now be able to see your Swing Power % after your shot.
  
• You will no longer default to the Fairway wood in certain bunker situations.

User Interface:

• Various User Interface improvements. More button help indicators.

Misc:

• Ability to choose between keyboard or gamepad in non-vr at start if a gamepad is plugged in.
  
• Various stability improvements and other minor bug fixes.