This is a hotfix for a rare but significant bug: · Fixed memory leaks which could lead to major graphical glitches. After playing for some amount of time, UI and game elements would disappear or start showing garbage. (The amount of time was dependent on in-game activity and framerate; faster computers experienced this sooner.) And a few other bugfixes: · Fixed: Tutorial skips two screens when…
This is a quick hotfix for the following issue which was introduced in the 0.8 release: · Fixed inability to click the Reset Camera button with the mouse.
The Celestial Golf demo has a major new update today. This update introduces a new optional challenge system, putting your orbital skills to the test to try and minimize the amount of time or power it takes to complete each hole. In addition to the usual golf "par" (for the number of strokes you took), each hole now has a "time par" and a "power par". "Time" refers to the in-game time. "Power"…
A minor update to the demo, but it contains major performance improvements, particularly on low-end hardware. (My old laptop is much happier after this update!) Performance update · Trajectory computation: impact with distant bodies (any body other than the current sphere of influence) is now estimated based on a circular radius, rather than calculated precisely. This should speed up all trajec…
A quick patch fixing a crash when clicking Free Play on the main menu. (This only affects the unreleased retail version, not the publicly available demo.)
Grab your controller or Steam Deck because Celestial Golf just got updated with full (experimental) controller support! Controller support I have just done a complete overhaul of the control scheme when using a game controller. The game is now fully playable and tutorialized for controller (just touch any button to switch input prompts and tutorials over to controller mode). I would love to hea…
Today's update is light on any gameplay changes, but brings a massive glow-up to our alien character, now full of life and excited to take you on your solar tour! Headline changes: · Replaced the alien character with a new more detailed model, created by my 3D artist and brother David. The character is now animated and changes facial expressions depending on context. · The character dialogue pa…
The public demo of Celestial Golf is now available on Steam. To try it, head to the Demo page and click Install Demo . (Also, do enjoy the shiny new trailer.) If you have been participating in the playtest, that will still be around for awhile but eventually will go away, so to keep playing, please switch over to the Demo. The demo features the first nine levels of the game, in which you will j…
Celestial Golf needs a detailed tutorial to teach you how to manipulate orbital trajectories, but the first attempt was too verbose and filled up too much of the screen. In this video, I walk through how I redesigned the tutorial system in response to player feedback. I originally designed a single combined system to teach controls, concepts and add a bit of flavour. It was too much, filling up…
In November, I posted the Making Planets devlog which was part one of an intended two-part series. I finally put the second part together. This video goes over how I render the highly detailed terrain for the planets in Celestial Golf from NASA source data, and bring it into Godot, providing a bumpy collision surface for the ball to bounce on. By the way, I have received feedback about the surf…
Thanks to everyone who playtested the game (which, as a reminder, is available to anyone by clicking "Join the Playtest"). In this devlog update, I go over some of the difficulties of getting playtesting feedback, and how I plan to improve the game's UI, especially with regards to the "time preview" feature which is frustrating to use.
If you have been following the development of the game, now is your chance to play it! I've set this up as a "playtest" (rather than a demo) to reflect that it is still in development and not polished. But it is now in a presentable state and I wanted to let as many people as possible play the game and give feedback. Here is a brand new trailer: To play the game, go to the store page and click…
In today's Celestial Golf developer update, I show how I created the realistic planet surfaces in the game using Blender. The game is 2D, so we aren't importing the full 3D mesh into the game, but rendering it into a colour and normal map, so we can get realistic dynamic lighting provided by Godot's 2D renderer. I show how I go from getting the NASA terrain data, through construction and render…
I just published a new video devlog about how I make the planets appear to rotate in Godot: I'm trying a bit of a shorter format (6 minutes) so hopefully it's a bit tighter than the previous ones. My early experiments with the ball bouncing on spinning planets didn't go so well, so instead, I make the planets stationary and pretend they are rotating, by applying the centrifugal and coriolis for…
I just posted the first in-depth gameplay video showing me playing the current build of Celestial Golf: A detailed playthrough of a couple of missions, going from the Moon to Earth, and then from Earth to Mars. Check it out, and subscribe to the YouTube channel for more devlogs.
I just posted a devlog going into how I designed the trajectory UI and the physics of orbits. It shows some old prototypes and the changes that have been made to trajectories over time. Check it out, and subscribe to the YouTube channel for more devlogs.
—
Announcements are the developer’s own posts to the game’s Steam news feed: updates and their patch notes, in-game events, releases and sales. The important ones are marked on the players chart.