The Most Normal Golf Game Ever Made

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1:00I have played a lot of sports games in my time, but there really isn't anything quite like normal golf game. As you can probably imagine, that name is a little bit cheeky. It is a game that is really not normal at all. Starting with the fact that you have been kidnapped, put on a golf course, are in debt. And you'd pay off that debt by doing a series of escalating challenges on a golf course. But what makes normal golf game truly unique? It's not just its sense of humor. It is the fact that it has probably the most unique interface for playing a golf game since, honestly Nintendo's Wii Sports. This is a game where if I try and explain it as quickly as possible, you use your mouse to control the arc of your swing.

2:03Gives you to do actual quarter circle, half circles, parts in between. Imagine drawing a line outward from the character and then finishing drawing that line to collide with a golf ball. At the same time, you're altering the angle of the clubface by messing with your keyboard and adjusting that all in real time. It's very finicky and weird and strange. It attempts to, I think, truly simulate the relationship between a golfer and their golf swing. It doesn't try to simulate the entirety of what it means to play golf. It is not trying to be a PGA tour 2K25. It's not even trying to be indie PGA tour 2K25. It is trying to rethink what is so satisfying about a golf swing. And I think normal golf game captures that. And to find out more about how all that worked, I had a opportunity recently to talk to the designer of normal golf game, Luke Muscat, who has a wonderful YouTube channel that I highly recommend you check out.

3:04It's like a whole in-depth dev diary of all the work that they do. Luke was also the designer of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, which are like really monumental, important milestone hits in the mobile space and sort of the early days of the App Store. Since then, Luke has gone on to do his own thing and his latest game is normal golf game, which I know it feels like every couple of weeks we're saying this new amazing game is out and it's shuffling my top 10. I would be genuinely shocked if normal golf game wasn't extremely high on my list near the end of the year. And it was a joy to talk with Luke about the process of making this game. Some thoughts on AI as it relates to making a game that looks simple and why wouldn't you just reach for tools that might make things that were hard simpler. There's just a lot to get into over the course of our conversation and I'm excited for you to hear it right now. So I wanted to start this off with a story, which is that on Sunday morning, I woke up slightly hungover after a neighborhood party that I was help setting up and taking down.

4:14Stretch a little past midnight and I wake up the next morning and I've got some coffee and I have one goal. It is to smack the shit out of a virtual golf ball in your video game, normal golf game. Specifically, I was standing on top of a mountain in front of a sign that said nightmare and the little description you have for that is, I mean, the TLDR, you're not going to do it. Like good luck. Like you can hit it, but like that's pretty far to get to that green, but you can try. And for 30 minutes a day before you were, you were 100% correct. I was just sitting there and hitting it and we were, we were felt like spinning distance, but spinning distance still 100 yards out. And I kid you not, I sit down, I stare at that hole, I load up the game right at the same spot I was before. First swing, perfect. The wind hits it just right. It takes it all the way there with a nice little bounce. The game, the extra couple of yards of the countertives though was on the green. I stood up, I knocked my coffee over.

5:14My family was wondering what the fuck was going on. And I got to tell that I couldn't really explain to them why I was so excited. But I knew that I was going to be talking to you and I could explain to you why I was so excited for hitting that shot. So thank you. That is, I can't express how much joy that brings me to hear that. That's so, you know, like you're making something and you kind of have this like moment that you hope people will feel. You know, this experience that you hope they will have. It's that. Yes, that's it. And the, like the satisfaction of it, everything just goes just right. And it feels hard earned and like you did it and not like it just happened. Amazing. That makes me so happy except for the fact that it sounds like you had to clean up all this spilled coffee. It was, it was worth it. That, you know, that's what the cleaning robot is for, um, is to help me in that regard.

6:17And we can get into this in terms of the, uh, how golf is mechanically sort of works. But there was something beautiful in that where the actual actual playing of golf often feels very much the same way where it is a, um, it's a combination of not trying or like trying to be effortless and letting intuition take over, but also everything you've practiced and tried before. And I want to get to that when we talk about this is because of the game itself, but that was definitely a moment that felt like it encapsulated a lot of the golf experience. But for people who are listening to this, if they are familiar with the game, how do you, how do you describe normal golf game? It's a good question because it is something I have struggled with the entire time through production. To the point that, you know, I, I had to fully rebrand the game just to try and help with what the elevator pitch basically. So because the game used to be called loop muskets ultimate golf challenge. And I was kind of promoting it early on and getting absolutely no traction.

7:20And, you know, I, I sort of eventually feel like I figured out that it had a major positioning problem, which is why the, name ended up becoming normal golf game because it quite simply explains actually nothing is going to be normal. This is a golf game where nothing is normal. And to me, the primary way it isn't normal is the input and control system. So normally in a golf game, it's usually like you're tapping a button to fill up a meter and you, you just kind of like aim at what you want to do. And in this one, you actually have to swing your hands with physics. And at the same time, you're trying to like manage the angle and the spin that the ball will take. And it feels a little bit like rubbing your stomach and patting your head at the same time. Where it's like two quite simple things, but having to do a few things at once makes it really complicated. So yeah, I say like a very interesting like novel input mechanic for golf game that also happens to have kind of a strange meta narrative.

8:26And like I said, the easiest way for me to explain it is always that it's, it's just a golf game where nothing is normal. Because otherwise it would be a lot easier if it was just you played 18 holes. And it was like, oh, the one point of differentiation is the input mechanic or it had like regular controls, but it had like a weird story because then you'd be like, it's a golf game, but the Stanley Power will. But it's kind of like everything is a bit different. So yeah, I again, I still don't have a good answer for it. Luckily, I feel like I've written down a good answer on the steam page. I do think it is one of those things that when I've tried to pitch it to other people, it is one where the playing is going to do a lot of the instruction like in conveying what is unique about it because when you try to explain, okay, so you are going to imagine your hands on the mouse and keyboard. And this is not exactly right, but sort of was D is going to be how you are controlling the angle of the club face.

9:33And then your, your, your other hands going to be on the mouse and you're going to kind of do like quarter circle or a half circle in order to try and it, that all sounds completely insane when you explain it that way. But the moment you sit with it and even watching it visually, I think must be a difficult cell because it really is until not until your hands are interacting with it. And I should say for the record, you can also play this game with a controller. And I do want to get into that later because, okay, despite your warning, I found myself preferring the controller input over the mouse and keyboard. Interesting. Yeah, wait, that'll be a fun conversation. It was to get there. I feel like you're war about that too. I feel like you're war, there's a start of a warning in the game about it. I at least a note of caution, which I thought was interesting, but it's sort of a game that in the playing, you really understand, oh, this is what it's trying to convey. This is trying to go for it. And so, yeah, where does this start? Does it start from a fascination with golf? Does it start with I want to tell a weird story?

10:33Like where does the, I guess the story of normal golf game begin? I wonder where that initial kernel starts. Sure. Yeah, it's had a very convoluted and strange development cycle. This isn't one of the games where you sit down and you imagine this is the game that I'm going to try and bring to life. And then you make it. It's not that at all. It has changed, changed forms many, many times throughout its development. The initial initial kernel was kind of two, two distinct thoughts. So I had actually already done, I had already started feed the deep when I made normal golf game, the beginning of normal golf game. And basically what happened was I guess for people who aren't familiar, I have a YouTube channel and one of the, and I do dev logs of what I'm making and one of the big purposes of having the YouTube channel for me is kind of validating ideas, like putting out this is what I'm working on and seeing if anyone cares.

11:37It's, it's, you know, as a completely solo indie developer, it's sort of good for me to get that feedback on like is this interesting? Is this just a prototype? So anyway, I did feed the deep, which is my first solo indie game. I did the dev log for that and nobody cared. And so I was like, okay, at this point, this was like the third thing I had done that I felt like hadn't gotten any traction. And I was like, what, what can I do to make this more interesting? Like, and part of that was thinking what will make for a good YouTube video? And so that was where the idea for the FMV graphics came from. I was like, I think like, you know, I have a very, I'm not great on the visual side. I think I'm, you know, I mean, I've been doing it being a designer for 20 years. Hopefully I'm an okay designer. And I can, I can code well enough that I can get away with it, but art is definitely my weak point. I was like, well, this is a small, a small aside. I, I cackled when I don't know why I was fucing around in the options menu, but I, you know, there's a graphics section, like just like anything else.

12:46And the graphics section is, well, there's no options. It's just resolution or I think full screen. Like that, that's it. You're not, you're not talking lighting or shadows or. I'm not that kind of game where you would be all that granular, but I, I laughed to that. You, I feel like it reflected your own approach to even building out the game was like, look, man, there's, what you see is what you get. And there's not a lot to customize here. It's, it's already, there's actually a couple more options since you played it that I have pushed up to the build yet. But it's really not much because it's like, what are you going to low spec down? You're going to make the trees even simpler. That would, they just wouldn't exist. It would literally cost more to render the word tree than it would be to have those trees there. So anyway, yeah, the, I sort of had this idea that FMV graphics would be good because it, it would solve a couple of problems. It would be a way for me to kind of avoid having to draw something. It would, you know, I would kind of like lean away from my weakness.

13:48And also, I was like, I imagine how good the video will be where you're like, you know, you're setting up like a green screen and it would just make for like an engaging piece. So that, so there was that thought. And then I was like, okay, what would be a good use of that. And I was thinking, thinking about things that where I could have a static camera where like the camera wouldn't have to move around because obviously if it's a full motion video. And then I thought, eventually, like I thought of golf and having, you know, essentially like the camera is pretty static. You're just looking behind the golfer and the ball goes and I was like, oh, shit, golf could be like a good fit there for that. And then I started thinking about the mechanics and, you know, I think if there's one thing that I care about a lot and has been like a through line through my whole career, it's novel input mechanics. So, you know, and I think like at least of the one the games people will know fruit ninja was definitely that at the time, you know, it was a very novel input mechanic and it was very,

14:52what's the word for is it's like a very expressive way of playing a game where there's not a correct way to slice fruit. Everyone kind of has their own, their own style or their own way that they do it. And, you know, I was always fascinated by input mechanics and, you know, before I did the game, I did before fruit ninja was also like a physics racing game that just used the shoulder buttons on a Xbox controller. And, you know, I always find that really interesting. So then I was like, okay, what would be a interesting input that I could do with golf. And then my final thing was like, and so typically I haven't played very much golf at all, but I have, you know, you know, smacked a ball at decent amount of times, like, you know, gone, gone to like driving ranges and stuff like that. But in terms of playing 18, not really. But have you ever done a full 18? I have now, but I hadn't before I played. Okay.

15:52And it's incredible. I've only played 18 twice, which was literally too film stuff for the game, for the dev logs and for the game and all of that. But I did, I grew up right near a near golf course on a sugar cane farm and me and my brother used to go out and like we would get a bucket of balls because I had to smash them into the cane. So, you know, I hit a bunch of balls before, but not actually played 18. But the thing that always stuck with me was like, when you hit a good shot in golf, it just feels incredible. Like, nothing else like it. Ah, it feels effortless and you feel powerful and you feel in control. And I think, and you know, I think there's a lot of reasons for that. And you know, one of the big reasons is obviously kind of the tactile sensation of it, like the feedback through your hands and the sound and everything.

16:53But one of the other big reasons, I think, is because it is juxtaposed against failure. If every shot felt great, the feeling of a great shot would wear off really fast. And I think the fact that great shots are rare is part of why it is such like a phenomenal feeling when you hit a great shot. So, those, so weirdly, it started like FMV and then kind of golf and then input and then difficulty. And that became like kind of the core, the core kind of nucleus that the game formed around, I suppose. And originally, the game was way more outrageous than it is now. So the original kind of concepts, I took it way, way, way further. There's a really good, there's a really good, I think it's a Nike ad and it's got Tiger Woods in it. It's from the, I mean, I guess like early 2000s or like 90s or whatever.

17:53And this ad is he basically goes like, you know, hitting a great shot is easy. You just, you know, like sink down on your knees and swing back and then bring the club through like slow and confident. And then he hits this perfect shot. And then it kind of holds that and he's like, and you got to calculate the angle of your elbows and you know, it just overloads you with information. And that's what this game was. And so they're really, really early on I had named it overly realistic golf. And so you know, there's the different panels of information. At one point you were also having to control your breathing. Oh, and you had to control kind of the weight in your feet, like kind of forward or back. And it was, it was layers and layers and it was, you know, no eyes on the ball. That's a big one. Like you're supposed to keep your eyes on the ball. It was the way it down, staring at the ball. If you stare at the back of the ball is like sort of what they tell you. Yes.

18:53Because the moment you want to track the ball, but you want to track it after you're done swinging. Yeah. Because you're tracking it as you're swinging. That's how a lot of accidental slices and exactly. There was eyes on the ball mechanic. And so the way it worked, there was the ball and there was a little target and it would wander. And all you had to do was like you would press at the time it was like you press Q and it would snap back to the ball. And then like an additional chaos modifier would be added to all of the inputs. The further away it got from the ball. So what you would have to do is you start to line it up and then and you kind of periodically hitting Q. And then you would want to hit Q like a quarter second before impact. Anyway, there was it got ridiculous. And with the breathing, like if you forgot to breathe, you would literally like pass out and fall for example. Like it was ultra ultra outrageous. And then you know, but it turned out that there is a limit to a limit to how much of that is actually interesting and fun before it strays into.

20:01Before it strays into a rage game. And although this game is very difficult and you know it has the difficult tag on it on steam and everything. I didn't specifically want to make a rage game. Like I didn't want to go down that route of like it is. Like you know golf, you could argue that golf is the original and ultimate rage game. But it's also not like, oh you didn't like get your power on the 17th. Go back to hole one. It's still like a regular game was kind of like regular sensible rules. So you know there was a lot of kind of evolution on that side to get it right. But yeah, that was kind of where it started. And then the whole first person and like a meta narrative thing came much later. You know the original prototype that I put up where people could play test it. It was just it was just the golf and you were kind of banging out these challenges just straight from the T on hole one.

21:06And that was it. And I kind of when I was setting up the steam page, I had this feeling like every single screenshot looks exactly the same. Because it ostensibly is you know it's just the there's just a bit of different text or maybe there's like a different visual in the top left corner where you can see the golfer. And I was like how could I make this more visually interesting. And at some point I was like well, you know, I feel like I need to do something where not UI fills the screen. And so then eventually I was like well I could zoom the camera in. I was like I could zoom all the way into the head. Oh, maybe you could move around in first person. And so you know it was very organic development. It was never I never had this grand plan of what this game would be. It just kind of grew and evolved step by step, which you know so I've I don't always make games that way. I actually fairly rarely do, but you know it's every game is different. What's really interesting about normal golf game is that you know sort of uniquely at remap like we play a lot of sports games.

22:15But a little trended against like the the the madden's or the hyper simulations of a sport and something that we were lamenting about recently. I'm not sure if you're familiar with or have played Super Mega Baseball. It's a series worth checking out if you haven't heard it or tried it. And part part of a Super Mega Baseball does is let me set up the broader framework, which is that there are usually two types of sports games. There are hyper simulations of of a sport and really trying to capture the aesthetic and what's happening. And then there's arcadey stuff, right? Like your NBA jams Mario carts that are the sport in sort of basic systems alone. But if you were to play a lot, you might understand the rhythms of like golf by playing Mario golf. But you're not going to learn very much about why is it good to like what feels good about swinging. And what's interesting about Super Mega Baseball is it's a game that zero is in on one particular dynamic which is that in baseball.

23:16So much of baseball is the pitcher and the catcher and the relationship those two have with one another and it drills into the systems there. So it's still very arcadey, but it tries to find like one key relationship in the sport and then says what's interesting about that. And in your game, I think what you zero in on is like what's interesting about golf is like it's it's it's the swing like it's the swing and we're going to dial in on that. And yes, it's a goofy and humorous and and and strange. It's all those things, but it's still very much in the spirit of capturing what is satisfying and interesting about swinging a golf club. And I've played a lot more actual golf than it sounds like you have. And I would say like I've played a decent number. Let's see, I'm like a you know a PGA tour like you know these one of these hyper simulations like madden. Normal golf game does like I think a better job of capturing the complexities of swinging a golf club. More so than like PGA tour does now has different aims is trying to do more of a holistic sort of capture in the sport play.

24:22You want to understand like what's interesting about swinging a club like I'd point you towards normal golf game and it's goofiness more than anything else. I think the systems you developed have tried to get at that to some degree of the different things you're calculating physically and mentally when you're taking a swing back. Yeah, I mean that's like thank you, first of all, that's you know that's amazing to hear and yeah, it's like I think that it's it's funny by like actually simulating the swing. You just get a lot of that like actually you know actually having the swing there and happen like in in physics does a lot of that work for me like immediately. You know it's changing your stance and everything matters a lot and. You know the i have like a discord where I have like quite a lot of playtesters who have been playing the game a lot and it's been very interesting everyone has developed their own styles there isn't a this is the way to swing the club which I love because that's just like real life as well you know every there's so many different kinds of swings and.

25:29Sometimes people will you know there's thoughts around like what is the correct way to swing for example but ultimately everyone finds a style that works for them my brother doesn't i think he's since move past this but for a long time his drive was always he was taught he just couldn't drive off the t the first swing the most important swing for setting up anything close to par he just couldn't. He was just hitting all over the place and so a friend of his was like just swing it half only go half he's like the way you lose the angle is thinking much like baseball it's more about contacts than it is about. Swinging it like far and the further back you go in your arc the more variability you have and yeah like being off angle on when you actually swing it through so he's like alright so he started for several years just only going back halfway coming through and so is he getting the full distance no but it was going. It was going basically straight and that was like what's that's better than having to take a mulligan or you know how to go out go out out of the green it's funny the the clubs that are in the game which I like.

26:37There behind me not my clubs my my friend jace's clubs he was he was the producer on fruit and during jetpack with me anyway I borrowed his old clubs and during this he he ended up having to get like some next surgery and he's say he's very abit golfer okay so during the recovery of the surgery he's like. He's like he's like you know out playing again but he's only allowed to take a half swing and so I got a message him and I'm like how'd you go and he's like he's like mate probably the lowest score of the last three years. Like what have I been doing just like just taking half swings and clubbing up is is the way to go so. Yeah I'd like to dial in the accuracy more like you say if I sing power for accuracy and it's a it's a weird trick but yes there is there's definitely something to it it's funny like in lieu of wealth like because of my overall lack of golf knowledge you know through like first hand golf knowledge I have very much immersed myself in the world of golf like anything I open I only get like ads for golf and golf right.

27:50My YouTube algorithm is like totally fried but I've been I was listening a lot to a podcast called chasing scratch which is which is really good it's you know I'm still getting caught up because they've got like eight or nine seasons but it's basically these two guys who are like how if we spend a whole year can we get down to scratch handicap and you know what would that take kind of thing and you know they're they're just. And entertaining funny guys and they get very they go through phases with their getting extremely technical with their swings and you know kind of the all kind of ups and downs that you would expect through you know some kind of pursuit of excellence and that has become one of my my kind of touch stones for like really getting inside the head of the golfer has been through this podcast and yeah so it's been it's been really fun actually and like I said I've only played 18. Twice which was during this but I get it you know I get it it's it's pretty fun swing that's why I knew you got fairly a new hook when you got further regularly like you'll people say that's the swing that's what gets me coming back you can have an otherwise awful day where you're just trying to keep pace with the other people you're playing with yeah and then you'll have one swing that connects and it's like oh I see the vision I see I like that was worth that was worth all of it for four years.

29:18For just that and it's hard to really explain how that feels until you've experienced some version of it yourself yeah yeah yeah definitely. Hi I'm back Bennett I thought I was back. No no no no it's okay. I'm not exactly all good all good thanks buddy yeah and we host the show what's our podcast here on head gum. This podcast is brought to you by square space is the all-one website platform designed to help you stand out and make you look like a kick ass person online like your skateboard or the internet or you like your surfing through the web square space gives you everything you need to claim your demand showcase your offerings with a professional website grow your brand and get paid all in one place I like that it's all in one place I know I like that I don't have to go around you know like different stores or something is just all my work. Oh do I need to go to like do I need another type of website to like find the right pictures or like another type of website to upload the no it's all in one place video or audio or like no I want it makes it easy make it easy on me please.

30:27Yes and you can do all those things photos videos changing fonts you know being the designs are amazing they're catering to all your different needs they're SEO tools which I know what those are and their custom domains. Oh what's come up with a domain right now it's a wonderful exist. www.friends meeting friends meeting friends meeting friends dot com checkout square space dot com slash head gum for a free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code head gum to say 50% off your first purchase of a website or domain. There are moments that define who you are and who you're becoming and when those moments arrive what you drive should rise to meet them the range over sport commands attention from the very first glance every line every detail engineered for impact inside refinement takes over with sculpted 22 way heated seating with available massage and a 13.1 inch touch screen that puts everything within easy reach but the range over sport isn't just about luxury it's about uncompromised.

31:28Performance to delivering a powerful agile drive that feels as confident as it looks and with nearly endless ways to personalize from interior finishes to wheels to unique colors and accessories your range over sport becomes unmistakably yours for those who expect more from every moment there's a vehicle designed to meet it the range over sport exclusive offers available now explore further at range over dot com. The F and V stuff is funny because I originally clocked that as like because F and V has a long history in golf game specifically like I guess these days most people would probably associate it with golden tea like the machines you'll see out at bars and things like that which still to this day use F and V and then some of the earliest golf games ever played with these 90s. Golf games made by access they went to go on to make a bunch of adventure games like under killing moon and the text Murphy games I love does a kid and those used F and V so I originally looked at all look and this guy clearly plays a lot of golf games doing it we're doing a tribute to 90s F and V golf games like this is delightful but so interesting about it is that it sounds like part of your approach here was.

32:52And you can crack my wrong a little bit rooted in the attention economy of like modern and publishing is a good idea or a good game is it was never just enough but it was it got you further you know a long time ago and these days the amount of really really good video games that come and go. Without any attention these days is astronomical and often like really upsetting and it's interesting that you. You know a lot of it's taken over like how those games are marketed is hey can we get you know big youtubers and streamers to see our games play our games drive wishless and like that sort of like how that economy sort of ends up working out as someone that is on YouTube yourself and understands a bit of how that world works. It's really interesting that the where you started with this game in many ways was how do I make a game that both I want to make and also people will pay attention to which is maybe maybe more common that people think for a place to start on on how you're going to design a game.

33:57Yeah it is interesting and you know it's the the role of the YouTube for me I guess like you know for context like when I started my my business as a solo dev I start like the plan was from day zero like it was going to be like a YouTube plus making games like that was going to be the strategy because I really wanted to have. You know a big part of my plan was to have a direct relationship with the player and the audience and to have absolutely kind of no barriers as much as possible between myself and the players which interestingly has manifested in kind of the meta narrative of the actual game itself. But you know it's like I don't even have like a I mean you know I obviously have a company in a company name but it's just this is like a game by Luke Muscat it's not like dead pixel games or whatever it's just straight up like it's everything is about trying to kind of narrow that gap between the player and the developer.

35:01And so you know that YouTube was always a really important part of that for me because what I didn't want to be is. Hafting to like really rely on like third parties and external sources for you know for for absolutely everything in terms of generating interest and having people want to buy the game I was really hoping I could develop a kind of multi game relationship with an audience and bring them along on that ride. And so YouTube has always been a really big part of it but one of the interesting tensions through to the last four years has been and I guess as well like to be clear YouTube is probably 5% of my effort like I am 95% a game developer and then 5% I do YouTube as well. But you do get a little bit of this thing where it's like you got to be careful that the tail doesn't lag the dog because you start to do things like. You know what would make a good YouTube video is not the same as what would make this game great and there is that little bit of tension between it where you like well I want to keep making videos because I want to keep kind of promoting the game and kind of keeping the interest up and everything.

36:14But you know what I really need to do is just sit down and fix a bunch of boring bugs for example like there's just you know there's. At the end of the day that's not going to be and you could maybe make like a funny video about fixing bugs but then while you're doing that you're not actually fixing the real. You know I had a video kind of early on on feed the deep which was like let's implement like 10. Features that were in the comments of the last video and some of those were really good but you know some of them you would implement knowing that they weren't going to work out but because you knew that they would be a good bit in the video. And that was kind of it felt very much like the tail lagging the dog like the the YouTube is supposed to be there to support the game not the game to support YouTube and you see. Plenty of game dev streamers or game dev youtubers who have never actually released anything right because it's really like the game is kind of a vessel for creating video content instead of kind of the other way around and you know is it is that kind of interesting.

37:19But but it is still like you know if if no one is going to watch me make a you know a 2d platformer because it's been done a million times that's not that's both going to not make a good video I don't think and probably not going to be an interesting enough game to get interest on the platforms like on the actual gaming platforms so yeah it is interesting kind of trying to think about that and balance at all. But like I said the other thing with F.M.V. was just like I I was really trying to avoid having to draw or model and animate a character. I just really didn't want the very early versions in the dev log there was no 3d course it was entirely F.M.V. and it was using this this kind of like dual camera perspective trick where it would you it would track the ball and it would look like it's moving through the frame. But it was all actually like video there was no 3d models at all. But then that that was the version where you were just teeing off like the first the first whole day and then I did this stuff with like a 360 degree photo so you could like cut to another camera and it could do a tracking shot of the ball and everything and I was really trying to avoid having to do any kind of any kind of visual art.

38:39I had a lot. At all but that ended up being just way way too limiting. I had taken it too far at that point. Well in one little bit I love about the F.M.V. is you like leave a little bit of the green screen. Yes. I have to imagine that was something you you fine tuned over time is like how much is a fun fun part of the first time I noticed it I'm like I was certainly he could have gotten rid of all of this F.E. wanted to but each each each holds to keep some of this green screen in and that's I think it was the correct decision. I really did want to keep some of it in and you know like it there's parts where it's also surprisingly difficult green screening problem because the biggest problem is that clubs are reflective. So you get a lot of like green reflecting off the face of the clubs and specifically when we were filming the third person golfer.

39:39So the third the the hands and everything of me because I had to do a lot of iteration on that's literally the green screen was set up behind me it was like right here. And so I could go between the green screen and then into DaVinci and then into unity and then back to the green screen over and over but the the third person golfer isn't me because my swing is really bad like it would literally be painful to play you don't want to watch someone who actually can't swing a club. So that was my friend Simon Jocelyn who's also indeed developer who's extremely talented but we had to go to a full green screen studio for that because then you've got like you know when you're when you're shooting driver you have this thin reflective shaft moving through space at like this insane speed. So it's like a really difficult green screening problem and so we went with studio so we could have the lights like it was like the surface of the sun in there it was cranked so we could have a really as short as possible exposure time per frame so we could try and get that I see.

40:47And there's parts so it is a difficult green screening problem but then there's been parts where like I literally unmasked parts of the green screen to bring it back in and I guess like the reason is is like I want I want the game to kind of betray how it is made and I think that the you know the game shows like a lot of different technologies I guess like you know the trees which are just the old you know you know not quite billboards but there like you know eight slice billboards I want people to see how the game is made and how it is constructed and also kind of see the imperfections of the person who made it with the is I think it's something really interesting about this like a technology but there is a person interacting with that technology and then showing you it and so you know in the case of the video it's like there's oh I see it's a little bit more interesting. And I think it's a little bit more interesting to me to see the video but a person has green screen you know done the the key but they haven't gotten it quite right and the game kind of has kind of betrays how it is made and you know I literally just did that because I that's interesting to me.

42:03Like I really like that and you know there's a few other things that it does like there you know you see some like Lord popping because and to be clear the models are so simple I wouldn't need to load them like I would literally it I just think that it's it's interesting because again it shows it shows that there is like a a basic technology operating that is trying to do something and that's that's really interesting to me and you know I am very cognizant of the fact that I can't I'm not going to make a game that wins an award for like excellence in art is just it literally wouldn't matter how hard I tried I'm not going to make a game that looks like silk song or you know it looks like any kind of like Marvel of artistic talent so I'm like well what what is something interesting at least I can do with what I have and for me it was that intent of kind of you know mixing all of these different technologies and sort of doing this thing where it is imperfect in an obvious way that makes people think about oh like you know it's interesting that it isn't quite right it does mean the offset off of the game.

43:13The other side of that is I get like 10 comments every day that is like hey why aren't you using the corridor crew like green screening technology that they developed you it's you know or like hey have you noticed that and you know that's just and that it to be clear it's not engagement bait like I'm not doing it for the reason but I like that people people can see like these kind of like deficits in my artistic ability as like an artistic decision I guess. I don't know I just find it interesting I know I I fully agree and I guess building off of that you know one of the trends of your channel is you know like that it's kind of a dev blog like here's my process there's a lot of videos on I really recommend people check it out it's a lot of I didn't know how to do this here's how I figured it out or did my version of it or you know it was either you know things like green screening or like I had to cut a trailer here's how I learned how to cut a trailer and so given all that and how a lot of normal golf game is you know and your process sounds like reflecting here is what I am and I'm not capable of in here's how I design around that with my what I have the resources I have the scale I'm going after you know these days obviously a lot of people are taking creative shortcuts with using things like AI where like okay well I don't have the ability to do this so I will use a tool that lets me sort of short circuit short

44:41shortcut shortcut like how I get from point A to point B I wonder as somebody that's like hey I made a piece of art that's really reflective of like the scope of what I am personally capable of I don't do any thoughts on like where some of that is going or what role it might play in the future based on a game that is seems very much rooted in your own creative process and your own strengths and weaknesses. Yeah I mean it's it is a fascinating time that's for sure and I guess like you know when I started making this like I guess to be clear like none there was no intention behind any of the decisions I made to be like a kind of a commentary or reflection on like the use of generative AI or anything like it was right kind of because that that has happened so fast that like you know there was. I guess there was stuff happening when I started making this game but like I guess it just even two years ago it's almost like it's so radically different so I don't need to I don't mean to to frame the game is some sort of like no no no no

45:50Act against generative AI it's mostly just it's so interesting to hear you talk about like I chose to show the imperfections of my work when I think a lot of these tools are about yeah stepping things like that that's right and I guess like I have to. To comments related to that which is like I think a lot of the most interesting stuff. The you know speaking from my personal experience I think one of the most interesting things creatively is when you're given restrictions like I have I always remember going like you know in high school. Doing like a creative writing thing and it's like you know this week you have to write a third person story about a farmer you know I don't know whatever something like that you know as a as a 15 year old I'm like oh. I wish I could just write about whatever I want right. But I would find that pretty easy and I would like be I would be pretty happy with what I wrote in you know whatever crappy like I'm 15 and this is deep.

46:53You know story I would write and then you but the whole time I'd be thinking can I just write whatever I want and then the week finally comes around where it's like you can write whatever you want. And then like I have literally no idea what I want to do and I find and I end up with something that I'm not happy with I find that like having restrictions. Creatively one of the most interesting things to engage with and you know I guess like. Fruit Ninja the restriction was it has to be a this was like mandated through the company when I was working at half break it was like we it has to be a game where there's the camera doesn't move and we and then my restriction was we have to be able to make it in six weeks. And so those were the two restrictions and for Ninja and so I just think like having. Having like fences around what you can do creates for me the most like interesting creative challenges and usually the work I'm most happy with so I I like that there's there's there is frankly a never ending list of things that I am bad at or I can't do.

47:59And as a you know like as a creative person I love that. Even though my first instinct is like God I wish I could God I wish I was better at art I think that every single day. But then the other part of me that is the designer and the creator goes like okay well what can we do that's interesting with that. I will say that as I've been working on normal golf game and just kind of like observing the world and like the games industry change around me during this space. I have like reflected on I wonder if this is the last time I will make a game this way the that we didn't what I would call the old fashioned way. Like I have no idea no plans around what I might do next or how I might make it. But I get the you know the world and the industry is changing so fast around me that I'm like all right well this you know this kind of like marks like a.

49:02A place in time where you know things were one way before the game and things are another way after it so yeah I mean it is fascinating and yeah none of it was kind of you know in response to AI it was very much around like my own abilities and you know what I can and can't do and you know I think when people play the game they'll they'll see that I'm. I'm making a lot of comments about myself in a lot of different added a lot of different levels through the game. And you know it's been really interesting to to kind of like push some of those things towards the surface of the game I suppose and have them there for people to to see and to into into in some ways to judge so yeah I know it's been a fun game to work on in that regard it's been very creatively fulfilling for me to make this one. The other thing I wanted to touch on before we wind this conversation down was something we talked about early on was the you know I well you can maybe you disagree with frame it differently but that the sort of primary intended input on this game is sort of mouse and mouse and keyboard right hand you know one hand on a mouse in order to control sort of the arc of a swing in a you know I sort of half circle.

50:21I'm semi circle or quarter circle sort of fashion your fingers on the keys sort of a was the sort of area in order to move the angle of the club and then I played the majority of this game on a steam machine occasionally on a steam back but that was and that's when I realized sort of by accident that oh you actually can play this with the controller and then spent my time swapping between trying both the like the thumb pads on the steam machine and the analog sticks on the the more modern steam controller and I have to admit now I am more of a controller person just by nature I will play games with the mouse and keyboard if it is required but if there is any chance I can use a controller I just feel more comfortable analog sticks and so when I saw the war like the message to be in the game like hey you know mouse and keyboard but like you can't do controller but some people have I forget with the phrasing yeah it is something like some people may find I believe the way it's for just some people find it more may find it more difficult but right I sorry kids to continue because no I just did the end of this is I found it easier yeah yeah yeah and I actually like discovered like I am just I tried sitting on mouse and keyboard I was going to I literally this game was going to be an excuse to I guess I'll find some tray and get a wireless mouse and keyboard it'll be accessible in my family room setup if I want to use that with the steam machine or the steam deck doctor

51:50whatever and instead what I didn't buy that yet because I found myself was able to get by just fine with the analog sticks but I wanted to throw it to you on how you arrived at how players interface with the game and because it feels like to me you started with mouse and keyboard and then maybe figured out controller later but like maybe I'm wrong on analyzing how exactly you you thought through that part of it no you you're bang on like it was always intended to be mouse and keyboard and I hadn't even really considered like so really early on there was no official gamepad support at all and then a playtester joined my discord and was like hey I I did you know you can do like the custom like control by thing and everything on steam they're like I I rigged it up to a gamepad and I thought it was pretty good and I was like huh okay that's interesting and I ended up doing quite so I have like I do quite a lot of testing on like plenty of game pads so it should be hopefully pretty good on the game pads as well I think that the thing that was one of the

53:00interesting things while I was doing the game pad is like I think given the graphic and the understanding of how the hands move around the body the most obvious at least most obvious to me thing to do with the hands would be to have the hand position is however the right thumbstick is set at so if it's in a new true position the hands would be like in a neutral spot that was instantly like really weird I guess like it becomes very you know the that's like very like kind of like direct mapping like absolute mapping rather than relative mapping but it was actually like this playtester on discord I wish I could remember their name like kind of figured out like it was more like actually controlling the hands and you were like kind of pulling the arrow out from the hands for the right thumbstick and when that happened I was like oh this actually works pretty good because the rest of it is just buttons you know like there's nothing on nothing on the keyboard that won't map basically perfectly to the game pad so it definitely came after and then the reason so it's really interesting I think that there are some some shots

54:07that are easier on the game pad and like specifically I would say like a three quarter or a full swing you get like more consistent results on the game had I think where it gets more difficult is any kind of feathered shot so anything like a quarter swing or anything that is more difficult on the game pad now I think the thing that is interesting is when you switch to the game pad late game it becomes less of a problem because you have you have like a full bag of clubs right like you have more clubs that you can switch between which means you don't really have to switch you don't have to employ a feathered shot nearly as often but early on in the game where you only have an iron it's actually pretty important that you do feathered shots and so it's really like in terms of that warning I've really like wrestled with like removing it like having it or not having or the exact wording early on like where you have to where you have to knock down like the no parking signs yeah which is really about teaching you that they they're a feathered shots and everything that specifically on a game pad I think is fairly

55:19appreciably more difficult but then as you get late game and you you end up with kind of you know you can modify your range a lot through club selection right it actually becomes easier on the game pad so yeah it's really interesting and I don't have a specifically like really good solution for other than to try and like inform people but there that is both options and you know I guess to be clear like I've put quite a lot of work into trying to make the game pad work as well as possible but at the other side of hours it's almost exclusively I played the demo with not some keyboard the you know the the the you know so the finish game I had released I played almost exclusively with analog sticks and wow you're not you're not wrong that uh it feels different or like some shots are harder than others but I don't know I I've just adapted and I find yeah especially especially as you you're right like the shorter like I'm trying to hit the iron short like

56:21that is definitely much harder I'm like topping it or missing it more often than I probably with the mouse and keyboard but well then once I had the wedge that became less of an issue because by default if I wanted to do a short iron I can sort of just do a quarter a full quarter swing with the wedge and we're good to go so like that yeah oh you just find it to be too much of a yeah I didn't mind it to me to an issue and because of my comfortability with analog sticks whatever I was giving up in terms of accuracy and the shorter shots I was gaining in like just better reliability yeah yeah it's super interesting like um the other thing that's always been interesting with that is there was this tension uh of so a big thing during the demo was people figuring out that they could cheese uh the mouse input and so by that I mean like so basically like when you click down your hands move towards towards wherever the mouse cursor is right and so people figured out like oh instead of actually swing the club what if I just pick like an arbitrary point and click and then the hands kind of will go towards and then that's like a highly repeatable shot so I can just adjust the position and I can kind of like cheese some of these shots and

57:37that was really interesting so you know I spent age is kind of like doing different things to you know to to both reduce the amount of like how well you can cheese some of those more difficult shots especially while also not compromising on the on you know the for how forgiving the controls and are and how fluid they are I really didn't like a lot of people were just like oh you should just have to click on the hands which does get introduced at like up for a couple of specific challenges but that actually like really sucks when you just trying to take a whole bunch of shots quickly to try it out because it turns out that you want to just be able to flow through something not be told you you clicked in the wrong spot go back and and the the game pad mercifully doesn't have any kind of those problems so in that way it would have been easier to make it just for the game pad but you know it's super fascinating there's a lot of things as well just like the layout of the panels were built around and it ended up

58:39mapping well to the game pad but it was kind of a second thought where for most players for right-handed players at least you've got the mouse in the right hand and then you've got WSD on the left hand so the panels are laid out so that the panel that you're doing with the swing is on the right so it will like kind of physically match like if you've got your hands under the screen the panels should be in roughly the same position as your hands and then there's there's an i line like with the sequencing that you flow through and everything and so you know it was really deeply built around you know the intention was really deeply built around mouse and keyboard so it's always been hard for me to just kind of like let go of that a little bit and be like use whatever you want even though you know I'm really happy that it does seem to work well for for everyone so why these last thing I'd ask is you know we're talking you know a week out from from launch how do you feel a week out from launch I don't know anymore

59:43I um I mean I will say I'm really I feel really tired for one I mean I think I've been I've been crunching pretty hard for for the last three months but uh and you know I guess for clarity like self-enforced crunch like no one is to make me a crunch right I am bringing this on myself there is no one to blame but me you know I'm making that choice but it's this game has been so weird like it at every point it has not performed in the way that I thought it would like you know I mentioned on my devlog but I every single thing I did with this game massively underperformed I was not able to get a single showcase to to show this game even like the the the tiniest smallest showcase that is as low-key as you would think that I would hope would be kind of like

1:00:44you know like that I would think that this game would be a no-brainer I couldn't get us most of the things I applied for no one would even click the trailer it's been an incredible outside of the YouTube channel like my own audience it's been impossible or had been impossible to get anyone to engage in the game at all and so when I did the demo I thought I was getting ready to put the game out to die um I genuinely thought like I am just I just need to get this finished and get it done so I stop spending time and stop spending money on this game because it's clear that this is going to bomb on launch and and not go well at all so I kind of had that expectation and I had had that feeling in next fast I even had in my trailer it's like coming this summer because I was like I'll just do the demo and then buddy like just push it out and move on with my life and stop letting this game kind of like vampire or my bank account um and so then I put out the demo and

1:01:47the demo did really good and I'm like what the hell like where was this interest a few months to go and then and so then you know my my expectations came up I'm like oh my god and so that's actually when I started crunching on this because I was like I really want to make sure that I that this lands and that I can you know like really live up to their expectations around it and put out the you know I always want to put out the best possible thing that I felt like I had license to spend a little bit extra time and money on it um and then during that period again I'm like applying for things and trying to get stuff teed up again like literally no interest so I don't know it like what's going to happen when this thing launches um I I feel very I I'm excited to see what happens but you know I have absolutely no expectations and um you know I I feel pretty happy about the game I feel I feel really proud of it and I think it's the most me game I've ever

1:02:49made like I mean I literally didn't have anyone to tell me no to any creative decisions so it feels like a really good reflection of me um the the thing I feel stressed about is just like bugs and technical things because I have to fix those too and that's not my not my super strength but uh yeah so I don't know I all of that to say short answer I have no idea I I feel very very very tired very confused I don't know what to expect it's it's really been um like one of the it's been the biggest like roller coaster I've been on of any game that I've developed I would say so yeah be be excited to have it out there and have people playing it anyway and see some of the crazy shots that people are able to do see how how insanely skilled people can get at this this very novel esoteric system well I can't guarantee you any sales success but I can tell you've made a

1:03:49excellent video game I've had a really good time with the the hours I spent with it that um it's just it's very it's not just novel I'm also a big novel input person I loved the we I love to the connect even if all a lot of stuff didn't work I just I uh I like it when developers play with the expectations that we have sort of like settled the debate on how we interface with video games and so I'm always excited when there's a developer that wants to try something new and as somebody that is no good at golf but likes playing it quite a bit um you've really captured something something special with normal golf games so uh thank you so much that means a lot thanks yeah I look like you know it's I I've asked you a lot of different videos that could be playing right now and like more often than not I'm like well I could just do like you know two challenges in normal golf game instead of doing that of some other big budget game that I've gotten access to early so it's got it's got its claws in be deep and I am I am very excited to to play more so at the very

1:04:51least you have you have more than one me over so far amazing thank you so much all right well Luke this has been a pleasure thanks so much for uh your time and uh thanks for chatting with me over here at remap amazing thank you thanks everyone for listening this episode is produced by chia contras and our thanks to to mellow for the remap radio theme you can follow more of to mellows work at to mellow.net you can sport everything we do by heading to remapradio.com please rate and review the podcast if you have a moment I'll see you next time until then fuck capitalism go home that's the sound of lego pica 2 training for battle that's the sound of lego pica 2 enjoying a post training snack and that's a reminder to not let lego poke him on in the recording studio lego smart brick brings lego poke him on play to life lego poke him on with smart play you're the trainer now