The Controller Update

Grab your controller or Steam Deck because Celestial Golf just got updated with full (experimental) controller support!

Controller support

I have just done a complete overhaul of the control scheme when using a game controller. The game is now fully playable and tutorialized for controller (just touch any button to switch input prompts and tutorials over to controller mode). I would love to hear your feedback on anything you find difficult to control in this mode, what you think could be improved, and especially if you ever needed to switch to keyboard/mouse to accomplish a task. I would also like to know what aiming mode (see Settings) you found most useful. Please use the Send Feedback link in-game.

• Added a cursor selection mode when using the controller (D-pad-right + right thumbstick), allowing bodies to be selected as the focus (LT) or target (RT).

• Added the ability to adjust the planned shot time (B + left stick). (Known issue: it can be very slow to scan through an entire orbit at the solar system level, making Hole 8 pretty difficult with a controller.)

• Separated the angle and power adjustment controls (which were previously together on the left stick). There are three different options for how to use the left stick to aim the ball. Power is controlled using the triggers.

• You can now long-press Y to reset the camera modes.

• Changed most of the existing controller bindings to make room for the new controls. See Controls for full details.

• Updated the Controls page, and all tutorials, to show the new controller inputs when in this mode.

This mode is marked as experimental which means it is not currently the preferred control scheme.

Manual camera panning

A long-requested feature: you can now manually pan the camera anywhere in the solar system! Use W-A-S-D on the keyboard or hold D-pad-left + right thumbstick. Press Home or push down on the right thumbstick to re-lock the camera to the ball. (There is currently no tutorial for this feature.) Let me know whether this is useful. I find it helpful for getting a closer look at where the ball will land when on surfaces, and centering the solar system when out far. But I think it can also take away some of the joy of exploration if you can pan and zoom anywhere you like, so I think in the future I will limit the zoom when panned away from the ball.

• AddedHUDAdded ball lock icon to indicate when the camera is locked to the ball (the default).

• HUD: When the camera is manually controlled, arrows indicate this state. Clicking the arrows, or resetting all the camera settings, re-locks the camera to the ball.

Other changes

• Rework the way shot power is adjusted. It now has a minimum value of 0.01 (rather than getting smaller and smaller infinitely). It is now faster to adjust in the small scale, while still growing exponentially in the large scale.

• When the ball switches between spheres of influence, the camera mode resets (so if you are in Surface mode, it will go back to Orbit mode).

• If you are in Surface mode and the Focus is set to some other body, the "up" camera direction will be pointing away from the Focus body, not the nearest body.

• Removed the "Alt" time previews feature (which shows the position of all bodies at a future time); you should now use the more intuitive Target mode instead.

• Added detailed surfaces for Mercury and Venus (the latter now having a very thick atmosphere).

Settings overhaul:

• Split the Settings dialog up into separate tabs for different categories. Each tab has its own "restore defaults" button which only resets the settings on that page.

• AddedVisualAdded advanced settings (anti-aliasing and v-sync).
• AddedAudioAdded master volume setting.
• AddedControlsAdded three-way setting for controller aiming mode, and controller dead zone setting.
• AddedUIAdded a preview that shows how fast the text will appear (for adjusting the text speed setting).

• Privacy and legal: See below.

Credits and legal:

• The "Credits" on the main menu now includes just the authors who actually worked on the game. The attributions of all third-party code and artwork has moved into "Legal Attributions" in Settings.

• Legal attributions now includes all Godot third-party licenses.

• Added a Privacy Policy, explaining the optional collection of stats. This is also found in Settings.

• Added a button to request the deletion of all stats from Steam.

Bug fixes:

• Hole 3: Camera mode tutorial now has a '?' (recall) button.

• FixedHole 3Fixed condition for orbit quest (you could previously be told you're in orbit when you're actually going to crash into a mountain).

• Hole 3: Move tee and hole to the low side of the moon. This ensures you need to actually get up high, rather than just hitting the ball as hard as you can to the left.

• Hole 3: If you accidentally go past the apoapsis, it now speeds up time instead of being stuck at an unbearably slow 1/4 time.

Image credit: "Xbox Controller" by umkhero is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 .