MiniGolf Mania
MiniGolf Mania is being removed from Steam
I just wanted to post a short heads-up that MiniGolf Mania will soon be removed from Steam, as it has been effectively replaced by MiniGolf Maker which has much more content and many more features.
- Kevin
MiniGolf Mania now Free to Play
As of today, March 12th 2019, MiniGolf Mania is now free-to-play, and the Beta branch has been discontinued (along with the Steam Workshop). For those of you who have been playing in the Beta, this unfortunately means you will have wait until MiniGolf Maker's release to be able to edit and play your custom courses.
As we promised in the last announcement, all existing MiniGolf Mania customers will receive MiniGolf Maker for free when it releases. However, those who download MiniGolf Mania now that it is free will not receive MiniGolf Maker free.
This also effectively marks the end of our support of MiniGolf Mania; we do not plan to do any future updates for it.
As this will probably be our last post for this game, we want to give one final thank you to those who gave our little game a try, gave us kind and encouraging words, and ultimately got us this far.
See you over on MiniGolf Maker!
The Future of MiniGolf
In hindsight, the game was not at all fit to be released, especially as a non-early-access title. However, had we not released it, we probably would not have spent 3 more years working on it, and it probably would have been abandoned without ever seeing the light of day.
The past 3 years have been a tough journey, both for us and our players. We attempted to keep communication consistent, but we ultimately failed. Life has slowed down development much more than we would have liked. However, our journey has been leading up to this moment.
MiniGolf Maker
In the last news post I mentioned that we might be going in a new direction. Now, I can say that this new direction is MiniGolf Maker, the new title we will be releasing in Early Access. We want to re-brand and have a fresh start, learning from our mistakes to build a much stronger community and deliver a much better game.
Firstly, I want to reassure existing customers that you will receive a free copy of MiniGolf Maker. We will try our best to make this automatic, but if we are unable to do so we will do it manually via email. Also, your custom courses created in the Beta will be able to be imported into MiniGolf Maker, albeit with some missing elements.
MiniGolf Mania
As for the future of MiniGolf Mania, we will be ceasing development. The beta branch will be discontinued, the workshop will remain disabled, and it will become free to play, if not removed from the Steam store entirely.
Lastly, we want to give a huge thank you to all of you who have provided us with encouragement to keep working. We would not have made it this far without you. The future of MiniGolf is bright with MiniGolf Maker, and we can't wait to see what it holds.
Update on MiniGolf Mania 2.0
Unfortunately I am bringing some not-so-good news.
This past week during testing we discovered that our Workshop integration was not working properly in our release builds (it was working in our development environments only). We made attempts to fix it, but were unsuccessful. So, we decided that we were going to have to rewrite our Workshop integration mostly from scratch. One of the previous devs has volunteered to work on this to help me out.
Additionally, we have been considering going a different direction with this update than I originally planned. I will give details on this once our decision is more final.
With all that said, the 2.0 release will have to be postponed again. I cannot confidently give a release date at this time. I deeply apologize and very much appreciate your patience.
If you have any questions or comments, please don't hesitate to leave a comment or make a post in the forums. I will continue to give updates as I am able.
MiniGolf Mania 2.0 update delayed to February 8th
As you can see from the headline, I have grudgingly decided to postpone the 2.0 update to next Friday, February 8th.
There are a few reasons I have decided to do this:
- Medieval Content - The Medieval content is not quite ready for release. There are some remaining issues with it that, if I were to put in a fix later, would cause problems in any levels that used it. I want to make sure these kinds of issues are resolved before release.
- Promotional Materials - I have not had much time to prepare new screenshots and a new trailer for the update. This is especially important because the current trailer and screenshots will no longer represent the game accurately in any way.
- Workshop - I have also not had much time to build courses to be available on the workshop the day of the release. As an aside, instead of doing a single 9-hole course, I will be doing several shorter (3 - 4 hole) courses that each showcase a single environment.
- Bug Fixes and Polish - There are several places that need some attention that I think I can address over the next week that will make this update even better.
Apologies for winding you all up only to have to delay, but I want to make sure this update is solid before I release it, and I very much appreciate your patience.
MiniGolf Mania 2.0 Preview - January 26th, 2019
It's just one more week before the version 2.0 release of MiniGolf Mania! In this final preview I will wrap up the environment showcase and talk about a few other things that are happening before release.
Environment Showcase (Part 3)
The final environment showcase is of the Medieval environment. While these screenshots only showcase some castle building, the full Medieval content will contain much more.
Along the castle wall.
Another shot from inside the castle.
All castle building pieces are modular!
Behaviors System
In the first preview post this month, I teased a "Behaviors" system I was working on for adding dynamic elements to holes. Unfortunately, due to time constraints, this feature will not be available on release next week. However, I do feel this feature is very important, and adding it in an update in the very near future will be a high priority.
Other Info
Since this is the final post before the 2.0 release, I want to give some other miscellaneous info about what's going to be happening this next week.
- To start with somewhat of a clean slate, I have removed the Beta Discussion forum and removed all old threads in the General Discussion forum (most of these did not have any posts since 2017). I have also added a new Bug Reports forum which, as the name says, can be used to report bugs.
- The Workshop has temporarily been made private so that I can prepare it for the update. I will be hiding all current workshop items due to them being incompatible with the current Course Creator.
- There will be a price increase to match the new content and plans for more consistent updates. I have not decided on the exact new price yet, but I can promise that it will not be more than $10.
I will see you all next week when the update drops!
MiniGolf Mania 2.0 Preview - January 19th, 2019
This is the second preview of the upcoming 2.0 update to MiniGolf Mania, coming February 1st, 2019!
Environment Showcase (Part 2)
This week's environment showcase focuses on the Winter environment.
A simple hole on an overcast and foggy day.
Combining with a couple of Pirate and Dreamscape elements, as well as showing of a bridge.
A little snowy cave.
Greens System Showcase
I wanted to briefly give the spotlight to one of the most important parts of the Course Creator: the greens. All of the level editors that I know of provide a list of pre-made green pieces that you can fit together like a puzzle to create your holes. Our Course Creator offers something different and much more versatile.
Of course, there are many pre-made green pieces that you can choose from:
But you'll notice how each green piece has a set of Red, Blue, and Green handles. One of the most unique features of MniGolf Mania's Course Creator is the ability to use these to stretch, squeeze, and twist the pieces into almost any shape you want:
In addition, previously walls could only be placed on the edges of green pieces, but new to MiniGolf Mania 2.0 will be the ability to add walls that are not attached to the edges of green pieces:
That concludes the second week of previews. Next week I hope to showcase the Medieval environment, as well as some massive changes that have been made to the Behaviors I showed last week.
MiniGolf Mania 2.0 Preview - January 12th, 2019
It's time for the first preview of the upcoming 2.0 update to MiniGolf Mania, coming February 1st, 2019!
Environment Showcase (Part 1)
First, I would like to give a peek at some of the content available in 2 of the upcoming content packs for the Course Creator: Dreamscape and Pirate.
A mystical enchanted forest (you also may notice the Random power-up here)
A crystal oasis in the desert (Look, a loop! Also showcasing our water and the Rocket power-up)
A seaside cliff overlook
You can also mix-and-match content from any pack for some interesting combinations (A Dreamscape sky with Pirate objects):
Extra Note: These screenshots were taken using the new Screenshot mode available in the Course Creator.
Behaviors Early Look
Being able to create rich and detailed environments for your course is great, but I also want to give creators the ability to spice up their hole designs with dynamic elements. That's why I have been working on adding a Behaviors system to the Course Creator. These Behaviors are simple actions that can be added to the objects of a hole.
To start, here is a demonstration of the simplest behavior, Spin:
I hope to add more behaviors, such as Follow Path, Tilt, Popup, and more. I also hope that I can add the ability to add these behaviors to the greens themselves.
That's all for the first preview. Next week we will continue the environment showcase and give more previews of what MiniGolf Mania 2.0 will have to offer!
A New Year, a New MiniGolf Mania
Kevin here. So, we have been teasing our version 2.0 update for a very long time now, and I am thrilled to finally announce that Version 2.0 of MiniGolf Mania will be released on February 1st, 2019.
Here's the run-down of some of the things you can expect from this update
The Arcade course will be removed, and the previously teased Pirate course will not be added. Creating these kinds of courses takes a lot of time, and I feel that this time would be better spent making the Course Creator into something truly awesome and innovative. However, I will be providing at least one Course Creator course made by me, and it will be available on the workshop by the time of the release.
IMPORTANT NOTE ABOUT COURSES CURRENTLY ON THE WORKSHOP: Unfortunately, due to the magnitude of the changes that have been made to the Course Creator, courses currently on the Workshop will no longer work, and the Workshop will be completely cleared by the time of release.
The intial release will contain 5 Content Packs for the Course Creator, with more to come in the future: Pirate, Dreamscape, Medieval, Winter, Arcade
The Low Poly content will no longer be available, but it may be added back in a future release if there is a demand for it.
Ability to easily create bridges and loops using the greens and walls systems.
Ability to have walls that are not attached to a green piece.
Ability to add water to your course.
Automatic grass vegetation on certain ground textures (which can be disabled if desired).
Ability to add ambient sound effects.
Completely rewritten and vastly improved multiplayer, now with the ability to have up to 8 players total (up to 4 local players).
Two new power-ups, the Rocket power-up and the Random power-up, with more to come in the future.
Many bug fixes and general improvements on all fronts.
What to expect over the next month
Consistent communication has been one of our biggest problems so far. To rectify this, I will be posting at least 1 update every week, showcasing the features of the upcoming release.
Thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your continued support, and I wish everyone a great 2019!
The State of MiniGolf Mania
My name is Kevin (aka Crazymonkay). I am currently the sole developer working on MiniGolf Mania, and have been the only developer working on the game for the past several months.
We have seen the few recent comments questioning whether or not this game is dead (which seems to happen every few months). I want to address this with the simple promise:
I will finish what we started.
What does this mean exactly? Here are the major points:
- Course Creator - At this point, the Course Creator is my #1 priority, adding new features and new environments to play with. I want MiniGolf Mania's Course Creator to be the best level editor of any mini-golf game, the thing that sets us apart from the others. Had I known the complexity I was going to end up wanting out of the Course Creator, MiniGolf Mania would probably have purely been focused around it (no pre-made courses like the "Arcade"; think Mario Maker).The idea of doing this even now, focusing on the Course Creator and outright removing any pre-made courses, is something I seriously consider.
- Pirate Course - I cannot say with 100% certainty that the Pirate course will make it into the game. (What I can say with 100% certainty is that Pirate-themed items and environments will be available in the Course Creator). Work has been done on it, but I don't want to say anything definitive at this point.
- Everything else - Unfortunately with the other 2 developers no longer actively working on this game, the extent of other additions to the game like new Power-Ups, Gamemodes, etc. as well as general improvements and bug fixes will be limited. 3 new Power-Ups have already been mostly completed.
Now, to prove work is still being done, here are a few pictures of one of the environments we are currently adding to the Course Creator, Dreamland:
Something also worth saying is that the environment system has recently been completely revamped. You will no longer have a fixed list of canned environments to choose from (with a little square in the middle where you can build your course). You now will have full control over the textures and sky of your environment, as well as the ability to edit the entire terrain area:
And to everyone who's stuck around this long, thank you. I can't believe it's been over 2 years since we first released this measly little game, and I feel it is my duty to give you guys the game you deserve, no matter how long it takes.