Golfin’ Slayer Introductory Post!
It’s the eighties. After a 14-hour shift at the gear factory, you come back home and turn on the television. But, what’s a good sport to watch? The unpredictable matches of soccer? The brutal games of football? Maybe the sophisticated game of golf that seemingly has a subliminal tie to status?
What about the wonders of tenn–
Wait.
Golf?
Golf.
Watching paint dry has more action than a game of golf. Courses guzzle gallons and gallons of water to maintain that tacky grass, only for some third-rate golfer to chunk a shot and send a divot flying into the neighboring county.
Who would want to watch golf?
That’s where we come in, seeking to make golf the premier sport of the world! How, you may ask? With just a touch here and converting-every-soul-into-a-golf-ball there, we introduce to you Golfin’ Slayer! And we’re here to show you why golf beats every other sport in being the most exciting sport in the world.
Before we go over the game itself, we’d like to formally introduce ourselves. Hi! We’re a small indie team of designers, programmers, artists who met in college during our video game capstone course. The initial capstone project was led by Branden, our now creative lead, and was made in about 15 weeks. To Branden, this project has been his baby for years, pieced together from countless little ideas gathered while working on other games and asking himself how to make golf more exciting. From various playtests and showcases, there was a lot of positive feedback on the game’s potential. Now that college is done, we’ve decided to expand the game beyond its original scope and develop it into a complete experience.
Now back to present, we’re about a year into development and prototyping. While we’re still chugging along slowly to make this game real, we decided to make a dev blog to talk about progress made in the game. We’re planning on covering a wide range of topics from the various disciplines in our team. Topics could include our worldbuilding, game design process, tech demos, development challenges, and many other noteworthy experiences that help bring our game to life. Right now, we plan to release a new blog during the first week of every other month. As a team that works on this passion project after work and life, we want to give enough time for significant progress to be made before we show anything.
While we do want these blogs to demonstrate progress, they’re also a chance to showcase the incredible work of our talented team and highlight their accomplishments. By sharing our development journey, these dev logs allow us to both document our growth as developers as well as provide us the opportunity to hear your feedback and insights, which will help shape and improve the game throughout development.
But without further ado, welcome to Golfin’ Slayer! Where the golf balls are alive, the courses change in weird and wild ways, and where the golf lich is out to prove to the television network that golf is the best sport of them all.
What is Golfin’ Slayer?
At its core, Golfin’ Slayer is a golf-themed roguelike. You play as Caddy, a washed-up golf champion reminiscing on his glory days. While channel surfing one evening, he stumbles upon a mysterious new game show claiming to usher in the next evolution of golf. However, only the bravest golfers will dare to try it.
Unable to resist proving he still has what it takes, Caddy accepts the challenge. In an instant, he’s sucked into a bizarre world overrun by horrible golf monsters and terrible puns.
Now as part-man, part-golf ball, Caddy must swing, drive, and putt his way through his fantastical world of golf to prove that golf is the best sport of them all. But it won’t be easy, as he will encounter anywhere from walking golf balls to Frankenpong to the fated Golf Gods. Perhaps one day, he will be able to challenge the Golf Lich himself.
As it turns out, all souls are spherical, meaning naturally they’re golf balls as well. So when Caddy defeats an enemy, they transform into a golf ball. He’ll then need to drive that newly-created golf ball into the scorehole using as few swings as possible. The less swings, the more points he’ll get to spend at the shop. But it won’t be easy, as each level is a different golf course with their own myriads of hazards and monsters to contend with.
With that, Caddy can’t do this alone. He’ll need the help of sponsors! They represent rival sports, so they’re not helping out of the kindness of their hearts. Instead, they’re chasing ratings, eager to support what could be the star of the television’s next biggest hit. Each sponsor grants powerful abilities that affect Caddy’s run in unique ways, which are given after completing an unique trial. One might supercharge Caddy’s speed, while another lets him ricochet golf balls into devastating headshots.
But what lies ahead for Caddy? Will he meet the love of his life, Puttnelope? Will he finally prove, once and for all, that golf is the single greatest achievement of golf civilization? Will be able to overcome the all-powerful golf lich and his thirst for ratings on golf? Only time will tell.
Closing Notes
And that’s Golfin’ Slayer! While we’d like the game to be successful, the ultimate goal is to ship a full game to Steam, if not other platforms like Nintendo Switch or Xbox.
There are so many ideas that we want to explore with and that we hope to share in future devlogs. From new wacky golf worlds to the fated Polodin, a polo themed boss concept, we can assure you that Golfin’ Slayer will be up to par with plenty of wacky golf puns and other shenanigans. If you’ve made it this far, then we just want to say: Thank you! We hope that you enjoyed this brief introduction and are just as excited about the future of Golfin’ Slayer as we are. We hope you’ll stick around for the journey and be there to experience the game when it reaches its full release. And for those who follow along from the start, there may be a few surprises down the road.
Until next time, see you on the green.
