Radius minigolf by NicoSaraintaris

made by NicoSaraintaris for LD26 (JAM)

Radius minigolf is a minimalistic take on minigolf!
(game created by Damian Troncoso & Nico Saraintaris)

How to play?
1. Drag a line (radius) near the ball.
2. Release to make the radius rotate anticlockwise and hit the ball.
3. The longer the rotation, the harder the hit.
4. Try to win as many holes as you can before the time is up!)

--

Why minigolf?
We love alliteration (you know, the occurrence of the same letter or sound at the beginning of adjacent or closely connected words)... so why not to try to take a minimalistic shot at minigolf?

Minigolf and minimalism
So, we think about minigolf and minimalism. A ball, a hole, some obstacles and a swing. And how to perform a minimalistic swing?

Minimalistic swing
We thought about the radius of a circle and we make it rotate anticlockwise in order to hit the ball. The more it rotates, the harder the hit! So, draw a radius and hit the ball!

Play Radius minigolf!
Draw a radius. Hit the ball. And let us know what you think about the game!

Web	http://radiusminigolf.com
Facebook	http://www.facebook.com/pages/Radius-Minigolf/483526475049389
Original URL	https://ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-26/?action=preview&uid=22659

Ratings

Coolness	69%	3
Overall(Jam)	3.10	285

Audio(Jam)	2.98	251
Fun(Jam)	3.08	199
Graphics(Jam)	2.63	426
Humor(Jam)	1.65	389
Innovation(Jam)	3.54	91
Mood(Jam)	2.57	390
Theme(Jam)	3.66	137

Feedback

RARoadkill

30. Apr 2013 · 04:03 UTC

Cool game. I enjoyed it. Would have liked the ability to swing the line either clockwise or counter clockwise. but that is just me being bad at mini golf.

tinytouchtales

30. Apr 2013 · 08:41 UTC

nice take on minigolf, but i think the shooting mechanic could need some more work.

peggiosoft

30. Apr 2013 · 11:36 UTC

Ok, I spent the first minute thinking that the ball was the black one. Then I realized it was the hole. Cool.
I actually liked it.
Mostly becaues it's not real golf and you easily end up drawing lines even if the ball s still moving.
Good job.

SmilingCat

30. Apr 2013 · 11:40 UTC

Pretty cool little minigolf game. Took a minute to figure out the shooting mechanic but after that I had fun.

geepit

30. Apr 2013 · 15:18 UTC

Cool mechanic, really nice

jayemjee

01. May 2013 · 02:05 UTC

Very unique take on a golf game! Never played one that worked quite like this, and I think this setup actually makes more sense than most minigolf games. Unfortunately, I did run into some bugs: sometimes, I would drag the mouse, and the paddle wouldn't appear. Then, when I let go, the ball would go flying in some odd direction.

Otherwise, I liked it!

cadin

01. May 2013 · 02:09 UTC

Cool game. The control scheme took some getting used to, but I think that's what makes interesting. Nice work!

zatyka

01. May 2013 · 02:42 UTC

Pretty neat. I found it very difficult to accurately aim my hit. A nice use of the theme.

Teejay5

01. May 2013 · 02:44 UTC

very addicting game!

Potentialing

01. May 2013 · 02:48 UTC

Fun game to play, it took me a while to get the controls down (except I didn't really, it was still pretty difficult to control). On my first playthrough, I got 3 holes. The concept is very cool, and was very fun to play, but the game was difficult because of the concept, so it was more or less a double-edged sword...

Meep

01. May 2013 · 04:19 UTC

Very interesting mechanic. :) Felt a little unintuitive, but it could probably be tweaked. Great work!

Nolojen

01. May 2013 · 04:20 UTC

nice, clever and deceptively difficult

ilovepixel

01. May 2013 · 04:20 UTC

A bit hard to aim on this game, but after you get used to it it's all a bit more easy. Great Game!

Jarcas Studios

01. May 2013 · 13:57 UTC

Neat. I kept wanting to think that the length of the line I drew would affect the hit somehow, but it's effectively meaningless... that was a little odd for me. And since that part of the line drawing doesn't make a difference, it's effectively just a pull-back-to-shoot style game where the further you pull back, the harder you hit.

Ithildin

01. May 2013 · 16:57 UTC

Very original and fitting take on minigolf, I like it.

I had some trouble at first figuring out how to move despite the instructions, though. In the tutorial stage I also mistook the hole for the ball (since it's larger and placed much closer to the text, I imagine it's easier to see it as the interactive object rather than the ball).
Then for some reason I assumed that "near" involved starting to draw the radius from the ball itself -_-U

After a few minutes of trial and error I finally deducted the right way, and it instantly became funnier. Nice job!

Codexus

01. May 2013 · 18:16 UTC

Really harder than you would expect to aim like that. Neat idea.

3.14

01. May 2013 · 18:24 UTC

Nice take on abstract golfing. It quickly became totally unpredictable, but I liked the idea.

SomeNetworkGuy

01. May 2013 · 19:22 UTC

Very neat! It took me a little while on the instructions screen to figure out what to do. I kept drawing a line around the ball and letting go, but it wouldn't hit the ball! Turns out I was trying to hit the hole :( silly me...

Any ways, real fun and worth the play!

🎤 NicoSaraintaris

01. May 2013 · 20:16 UTC

Thank you all for the awesome feedback! We are adding all your comments to our workflow... Cheers!

ilo

01. May 2013 · 21:10 UTC

It's actually a nice control system (though I didn't figure it out immediately) and I enjoyed playing. I got to level 8 after a few tries. I wish I could keep going for longer, maybe with a more lenient time limit, or a way of adding time on the clock if you do a level below the par time.

patrickward

02. May 2013 · 00:54 UTC

I have to admit I did the same as @SomeNetworkGuy and tried to hit the hole at first. I would make it a little more apparent that it's a hole. Once I figured it out, the fun began. Control system worked great. I liked the little hints, especially when you were pointing in the wrong direction. Well done!

Andrew Shouldice

02. May 2013 · 00:56 UTC

This has a nice progression from "hmm?" to "oh neat" to "hrrmm" to "ah-ha!".

DustyStylus

02. May 2013 · 13:14 UTC

Easy to learn, hard to master! Nice sound as well.

netpro2k

02. May 2013 · 23:50 UTC

cool mechanic. Would be nice if you were able to hit both clockwise and anticlockwise. Also the starting position of the ball in many holes was a bit too close to walls

rujo

03. May 2013 · 08:11 UTC

wow, this is sure original! a little difficult to get practiced but i like this!

fermcg

07. May 2013 · 07:10 UTC

Very cool game man!

Geoege

07. May 2013 · 08:29 UTC

Really love that radius idea, it's pretty interesting.
But, that time based scoring mechanics is in my opinion some kind of wrong, in fact radius mechanics is pretty hard to master and that one minute timer doesn't bring the player to practice it and bring him to (in my case) random shoot and hope that it will fall in the hole.
Furthermore we miss a part of the game when we're bad.
Maybe a hit counter for each hole could have been a good idea.

🎤 NicoSaraintaris

07. May 2013 · 11:55 UTC

Thanks for all the feedback, people! Geoege, yeah, you are right. Time mode was not the best idea for our control scheme but it sure was the fastest to implement. As we stated in our post mortem, we are porting it to iOs & Android (replacing the dragging with a swipe gesture) and working on different game modes: free mode, 18 holes, 9 holes, par mode, time mode and more! We are also excited about a level editor for the players all around to design their own levels and share them with the community! Again, thank you all for your feedback! Cheers!

joe40001

08. May 2013 · 02:23 UTC

Takes a bit to get used to, also I found you can hit the ball over some of the walls. Interesting idea though.

brantkings

08. May 2013 · 14:13 UTC

Nice! Liked it.

I only have two problems: locking it to just hit the ball clockwise and the interface wasn't that clear.

Nice music and sound FX!

timtipgames

14. May 2013 · 07:47 UTC

Fun and challenging :) Brought here by the indie intermission :)