In-Game Tutorial List

[Narlak]

Basic Controls

Selection: Left Mouse Button (Click)
Deselect: Right Mouse Button (Click)
Movement: Right Mouse Button (Hold)
Rotation: Middle Mouse Button (Hold)
Zoom: Mouse Wheel

Getting Started

The CLUBHOUSE is the heart of the golf course. Every golfer will start and end their visit here. You may only have one CLUBHOUSE, so make sure you place it close to where you plan to have you first golf tee. Golfers don't like to walk long distances.

Your First Hole

Every golf hole starts at a TEE and ends at a HOLE. You'll want to place them far enough apart that the hole has some length to it, but also not so far that your hole takes forever to complete (recommended 3 to 6 par).

It is essential to draw a path of FAIRWAY between the TEE and HOLE. Golfers will not enjoy themselves if they spend most of their time digging out of a hazard. Resist the urge to make your hole overly difficult or confusing. Keep your golfers happy. You get paid every time a golfer completes a hole based on their mood.

Note: Golfers will NEVER shoot to a spot that takes them further from the hole. Every shot taken MUST get them closer, even if only slightly. Spirals, switch backs, and hairpin will only confuse and frustrate your golfers. Keep your courses relativity straight forward with bends that don't exceed 90 degrees.

Golfer Needs

Golfers need to eat, drink, rest, and make visits to the restroom. If they can't satisfy these needs their mood will go down, costing you potential revenue. Build benches, vending machines and restroom in strategic locations to keep your golfers happy.

Golfer will only use these services if they can see them near by. You'll need to build many service structures in order to keep a large golf course working smoothly. Keep in mind that every structure has a daily upkeep cost, so only place them where they are needed.
You can click on GOLFERS, TEES, or HOLES to see a list of positive and negative thoughts. Click on a thought to see where they took place. This will help you understand where your golf course has problems, and why.

Lights

Your golf course operates 24 hours a day. Golf balls are made up of a glowing material that makes them easy to find during the night hours. This glowing effect will diminish over time. Place lights around your course to recharge golf balls that pass under them. Keep in mind that golf balls will hold a glow charge for a couple of minutes, so placing lights absolutely everywhere is unnecessary and expensive.

Making A Great Hole

Golfers want to feel like they are being challenged. Place trees, rocks, water, and sand traps around your holes to make them seem more challenging, while still keeping the holes possible. Ideally, every shot taken will look challenging, but still have a chance to land within the fairway or green. Keep in mind that some level of failure is expected. Golfers will complain if your holes are too easy.

Making a truly awesome golf course is difficult and time consuming. Watch your golfers play on your course and make adjustments as necessary. Use fairway to encourage golfers to shoot where you want, and hazards to scare them away from where you don't. Golfers will tell you everything they like and dislike about your course. Click on their thoughts to see where they took place. This will help you figure out where changes are needed.

Adjusting Terrain

You can use the terrain tools to change the shape of your course. Steepness and large elevation changes can add challenge to your course.

The shape of the terrain can manipulate the path of a rolling golf ball. This can be useful to keep a ball out of a hazard area, or to funnel a ball to a desirable location such as the fairway or green. Flattening an area can also provide golfers a nice plateau to shoot for, instead of an angled unpredictable surface.

Weeds

Every time a golfer complains about something, a tiny weed will sprout somewhere on the island. Left unchecked, these weeds can evolve into aggressive WEED HIVES which can rapidly infest your island. Golfers will complain about seeing weeds, causing even more weeds to sprout. It is imperative you deal with this growing menace before it spirals out of control.

DRONE HUBS can be constructed to deal with the weed invasion, but they are ugly and have a high daily upkeep cost. TURRETS can also be constructed around your island, but they require line of sight to their targets.

Drone Workers

Build DRONE HUBS to bolster your work force. Drones will fight weeds, restock vending machines, clean restroom, empty garbage cans and repair any damaged structures. Drone Hubs are very expensive and ugly, so place them wisely.

Drones will destroy weeds on sight, but they WILL NOT comb the island looking for weeds. Every Drone HUB has a deployable WEED-DETECTOR that allows you to target an area as a priority work zone. This is helpful when trying to clean weeds from a remote part of the island your workers tend not to go.
Keep in mind drones have to periodically return to their Hub to resupply.

Upgrade The Clubhouse

You initially start off with a zero-star clubhouse, but it can be upgraded all the way up to a five-star mega tower. Every upgrade unlocks new prestigious structures and allows you to build 3 additional holes. Upgrades get progressively more expensive, and require you to have a minimum number of golf memberships.

Transport Tubes

Transport Tubes can suck up your golfers and workers and zip them around the course at high rates of speed. Tubes networks are built across a series of tube connector buildings that act as entrance and exit points for the tube network. Connector buildings can be raised and lowered, allowing the connected tubes to avoid other ground obstacles. Every connector building can be connected to 4 other connector buildings, via a tube.

Tubes are fragile, therefore you must place a connector building every so often if you plan to transport golfers across long distances. You pay upkeep on every connector building, so place them sparingly and strategically.

Traffic Jams

You want to push as many visitors through your golf course as possible, but as your course grows you may find some areas becoming congested with golfers waiting to play.
You can build SKILL BOOSTERS around the congested area to temporarily increase golfer skills, allowing them to play faster. There are a variety of booster types, so place the ones that boost the necessary skills for the problematic area.

Alternatively, you can try to slow golfers down before they reach the problem area by making earlier holes more difficult. You can also manually set the wait time for your tees, which will hold back individual groups for a set amount of time.

Congestion leads to boredom, which is bad for business. A pile up of 10 golfers is a problem, but 6 or less waiting at a tee is pretty normal. Build flowers, fountains, vending machines, etc to keep your golfers occupied and combat boredom.

Long Term Golfer Care

Every golfer that visits your course is persistent. You'll see golfers returning to your course time and time again, slowly increasing their golf skills, while forming a long term opinion of your course.

When a golfer is leaving your golf course, they'll decide if they would like to upgrade their membership based on how happy they are, and how long your course is. The higher the membership level, the more that golfer will pay to play. Golfers with memberships will judge your course more harshly. Keep an eye on the thoughts of your members. Members have colored beams highlighting them, so you spot them among the non-members. If a golfers mood drops too low they will freak out, resign their membership and lose all of their earned skills. Do everything you can to stop this from happening.

Orbital Abilities

As golfers play on your course, you'll earn orbital power, which you can spend to cast orbital abilities on the map. Some orbital abilities can destroy weeds, while others can sap money out of golfer wallets. You can only carry so much orbital power, so cast orbital abilities as often as you can afford.

Earning Awards

If a hole has a high enough rating, it may be eligible to win a themed award. There is only one award per theme, so try to spread them around your holes and considering building each new hole with a theme in mind, in hopes of earning that particular award.

Awards are not permanent. If a hole with an award drops it's rating, or the theme no longer applies, that award can be revoked. Golfer enjoy playing on holes with awards, so it's wise to try to keep all the awards possible. You can see a list of all available awards from the Awards Sub Menu.

Crazy Devices

There are special devices such as fans, bumpers, launchers and teleporters you can add to your golf course. These devices in some way manipulate a ball in play. For example, a fan can be used to push a ball along the fairway faster, or to push against a ball, keeping it away from a hazard area. Device placement can make or break your holes. It's up to you to place them creatively.

Most crazy devices are attractive to golfers, meaning they will tend to shoot toward them if they are within their shot path. Keep in mind that golfers are not mathematicians. They will do their best to shoot logically, but their ability to predict the outcome of every shot is limited. If a fan blows the ball off course, or into another group of unsuspecting golfers, it's up to you to make adjustments.

Financial Debt

Overzealous spending or poor course design can put you in debt. Things like tees, holes, ground types, and demolition can be still purchased while in debt, but just about everything else can not be. Golfers will have a bad first impression when they visit if you are in debt.
Most structures require daily upkeep. You can disable these structures if you don't wish the pay the upkeep. Check your finances page to see a breakdown of all the things in your golf course that cost you daily upkeep.

Golf CheckPoints

Adding a Golf-Checkpoint to your holes gives you more power to shape its shot path, as golfers must shoot through the Golf-Checkpoint before moving on to the green.

Golf-Checkpoints can be turned into teleporters simply by adding a Tele-Exit, creating a link between them. Keep in mind that only the ball will be teleported. Make sure you have adequate tube transit for your golfers.

Hole Difficulty

Each of your holes tracks the successes and failures of shots taken. If your holes difficulty drops too low, golfers will complain about over-automation. Some failure is expected in order to keep your holes actually difficult, rather than just looking challenging. Ideally one out of every ten shots taken will land in a hazard of some kind. Hole difficulty is organically generated by your golfers, and takes time to accurately reflect changes made to your holes.

Course Testing

You can test your hole before you open it by clicking the “Test Hole” button found on either the tee or the hole. 10 virtual balls will simulate everything a real golfer will do, allowing you to see the shortcomings and pitfalls a real golfer will face. This can be especially useful when using crazy devices to set up complex chain reactions.

[FroBodine]

Great set of tips and instructions! Thank you!

[Narlak]

Originally posted by FroBodine:

Great set of tips and instructions! Thank you!

You are welcome :) These should present themselves as the game goes, but you can read ahead into the future here if you wish, so you know what's coming up.

[Ace]

Typo on long term golf care. "slowing increasing their golf skills." slowing instead of slowly. Just saw this in game so thought i'd mention it here.

There is quite a few actually, less than I would make but still a few.

[Narlak]

Originally posted by Ace:

Typo on long term golf care. "slowing increasing their golf skills." slowing instead of slowly. Just saw this in game so thought i'd mention it here.

Shall be fixed

[ryan_s_gardiner]

Is there a way to increase/decrease brush size when painting the ground or changing the terrain?

[Narlak]

Originally posted by ryan_s_gardiner:

Is there a way to increase/decrease brush size when painting the ground or changing the terrain?

Yeah, I can't remember what the hotkeys are off the top of my head, but there is a slider on the lower right of the screen when painting.