Golf-Like

Golf-Like keeps one idea from golf and drops the rest: aim, commit, live with it. What is left is a twelve kilometre road over the sea, a ball, and a hole at the far end. The road sinks into the water behind you, so standing still is not an option either.

Drag to aim, release to launch. From that moment the ball is yours to steer: push it through the air, jump, double jump, spend a boost, slow time for a heartbeat. The only questions are whether you reach the hole and how fast.

Shoot, then steer

• Aim and shoot: click and drag on the ground. The longer the drag, the harder the hit.

• Steer after the shot: movement is camera relative: where you look is where you push.

• Jump and double jump: the road has gaps, springs and things you would rather go over than through.

• Boost and slow motion: two bars, both spent fast and refilled from pickups on the road.

• Parry: hold to raise a shield in front of the ball. It only covers the front, but a spike it catches flies back the way it came, and one caught at the last moment homes in on whoever threw it.

The sea is coming

Behind the ball the road is sinking. The wave starts slow and keeps accelerating for the first two minutes, and it never stops. The road itself narrows from fifty-six metres wide at the start to twenty at the end. Fall in the water and the run is over; everything else costs a heart. You start with three, spikes take one each, and red orbs on the road give them back.

You are not out there alone

Red spiked escorts fly with you the whole way. One on each side to begin with, a new pair every 1500 metres, holding formation off your shoulders. They do not aim at where you are: they aim at where you are about to be, so changing speed is what breaks their lead.

You are armed too. You carry a pouch of spikes and throw them back: a hit blows an escort out of the sky and pays twenty coins, and the wing needs a few seconds to replace it: ten early on, three by the end of the road.

The road

• Seven regions, in order. Golf course, meadow, desert, autumn, evening, night, snow. Each has its own ground, its own scenery and its own light.

• Each region has its own nuisance. Rakes that stop the ball dead, sprinklers that hold it in the air, golf carts crossing the road, beehives that fill your screen with bees, cacti that poison, dry trees that shatter, icicles that fall from the sky. None of them kill you. They cost you time, which is worse.

• Things break. Hay bales, scarecrows, fences, benches, pumpkins, snowmen, crates and tents come apart when you hit them hard enough. Trees too, with the right card.

• The sea has its own life. Boats, lighthouses, whales, sharks and shoals of fish pass on either side while the day turns to night and storms roll over the run.

Chests, cards, upgrades

• Fifteen chests stand along the road, one every 800 metres. Each one opens a choice of cards. Every third chest brings a heavier escort with it.

• Eighteen cards in five rarities, up to three slots per run. A bigger, heavier ball that smashes through trees or a smaller, lighter one that slips through gaps; an extra jump; a magnet that widens coin pickup fivefold; coins worth double; a glow that lights the road; night vision; a shield that grows from one spike to three; a full pouch from the start; spikes that throw themselves; slower and rarer enemy fire; a heart back every minute; a hockey puck that, once, turns a fall into the sea into a launch; a tilt-shift view; and both bars full from the first metre.

• Six permanent upgrades paid for in coins: speed, jump height, boost capacity, time capacity, health and spike capacity, fifteen levels each.

• Coins lie along the road and fall out of escorts. They are the only currency there is.

Modes

• Run: the main mode. Twelve kilometres, cards, chests, escorts, and a time on the leaderboard if you reach the hole. Every run gets its own nine digit map seed, rolled just before you start.

• Maze: a labyrinth generated fresh every time. No cards, every upgrade fixed at half so nobody can jump straight over the puzzle, one attempt.

• Sandbox: flat ground that never ends and nothing that can kill you, with every card switchable on and off while you play.

Options and accessibility

• 15 interface languages.

• Colourblind modes: protanopia, deuteranopia, tritanopia, achromatopsia and black and white.

• Rebindable keyboard and gamepad controls, adjustable mouse sensitivity, field of view, and a HUD that can be hidden completely.

• Render scale, FSR upscaling, V-Sync, an FPS cap and a low quality tile option for older machines.

• Photo mode: time stops, the interface disappears and the camera flies free.

• Steam achievements and leaderboards. Windows, macOS and Linux.

Look

Flat colour, soft shadows and a tilt-shift camera that keeps the whole road looking like a model on a table. The ball presses a track into the turf behind it, and in the snow it clears a line you can turn round and read.

State of the game

Golf-Like is still in development. Content, balance and details will change before release, and some of what is described here will change with them. A ten minute demo is available; the leaderboard is switched off in it.