Disc Golf Simulator Right Around the Corner

As the daylight disappears and temperatures drop, many of us find ourselves spending a lot more time inside. It’s a perfect time of year for video games, and thanks to Gordon Griesel, it looks as though disc golfers will have a virtual environment to keep themselves entertained.

Earlier in the year, I mentioned Gordon’s project, and my eagerness to see it become a reality. Well, Gordon has made good on his intentions, and now has an early December release date planned for Disc Flight Sim. As a way to help get people ready for the release of the full version, a free downloadable demo is available on his site, which you can find here (currently, the password for download is “demo”.)

Being busy with several things lately, in addition to the encroaching holidays, I haven’t had a chance to play with it too much, but I can say from what little I have seen, I’m very impressed and am eagerly anticipating the full release. While the graphics may not be the cutting edge stuff you see in big budget video games, the physics at work here are quite impressive. Just throwing drives with a few selected discs, the physics at work were extremely realistic. Not that there has been a lot of competition in the world of virtual disc physics, but this simulator portrays the flight of a golf disc far more authentically than anything I’ve seen before. A disc thrown flat will fly straight and then fade left predictably. A flippy disc thrown hard with a slight hyzer angle will flip up to fly straight, turn right, and then fade left. That same flippy disc though, if thrown with full hyzer, will hold its hyzer line and finish left (just like my real life botched hyzer-flip attempts!).

The game will include some pre-made courses, a full selection of discs, several different play-modes, and the ability for players to design their own courses, which they’ll be able to share with others. As an added bonus, there will be many terrains the player can download at no cost from the Disc Fight Sim site. The game is currently only for XP/Vista, and Gordon is looking at selling it around $19.95, or “for around the cost of one nice disc” as he puts it. It will be available for download or on CD, and customers will be able to pay in a variety of ways.

Excited by the prospects of the game, I contacted Gordon (who is very accessible and responsive, by the way), and asked him a few questions.

Tim: So, with the game, you get several different challenge modes, as well as your own level designer, and free downloadable content. Is there anything I’m leaving out?

Gordon Griesel: You can build courses from one to 36 holes on any of the terrains. You get to place trees, bushes, and objects, and can have 3 different basket positions on each hole. You can later edit the courses. You can set the wind, chain difficulty, tree stickiness, fog density, etc. You can also turn off the aiming-crosshairs for the players, which makes playing a course difficult.

T: There’s a huge selection of discs, I take it you’ll only be able to carry a certain amount with you when you play a round?

GG: The list of discs was compiled from looking at actual online listings that show many different discs and manufacturers. I contacted every manufacturer last Spring about including real disc names in this game. Most were very positive, but several wanted a more formal arrangement to use their names. That’s why I made the game generic, and each player can name the discs anything they want. My intent is to make all manufacturers and disc golfers happy! (Authors’s note: I think Gordon has done a great job with re-naming the discs here–they’re not the same as the real discs, but you can figure it out. Very reminiscent of the branding in the Grand Theft Auto games.)

You load your bag with discs before playing a course or challenge. Just Ctrl-left-click on a disc to put it in your bag, then the same to remove from your bag.

T: Are you able to customize the appearance of the discs, i.e. colors & custom images?

GG: You can change the plastic color and label color of each disc. You can also name each disc, and set the flight characteristics of each. I read lots of articles about disc flight, and how far a disc will travel when thrown at a given miles-per-hour. The game is pretty close to real.

I set the max power to 64 mph because I found a video of a well-known professional throwing in a long-drive event, and the radar screen said 64 mph. If you do a run-up, your running speed will be added to the disc speed.

If you go way up on a hill (in the game) and throw downward, the disc will fly pretty far, and I worried about that for the game reality. So, I walked up onto a high hill at our local course and threw my 176gm Beast. It flew so far that I had to go home and measure it with Google Earth. 1165 feet!

So when you see the disc flying really far in the game, it’s really possible.

T: Will there be different players to choose from, ones that have different attributes, like power, accuracy, consistency, backhand vs. forehand ability, etc.? I suppose along with that, will there be any kind of “career mode” where skills progress over time?

GG: There aren’t any characters to choose from in the game at this time. It’s a first-person-shooter type game, and you are yourself

There are already plans for a version 2, which will have a play-against-the-computer mode, and you will choose opponents that have various characteristics and talents.

T: How about environmental variables, like wind or rain, tall grass vs. short grass–are those available?

GG: Yes, there are levels of wind, gusting and changing direction. A few levels of fog, 24 different lighting conditions to simulate time-of-day somewhat, and different types of clouds just for variety. The terrain is pretty smooth at this point in the game, but I experimented with voxel terrain to get that really great grass look. Voxels are still too slow for a real-time game, but maybe someday.

T: What about non-traditional throws, like thumbers or rollers?

GG: No roller or thumber physics yet, sorry. But I put lots of work into the ground physics to get a nice skip if the disc is tilted just right. Be careful, because the darn disc will skip right down a steep slope and into the water.

T: Will there be any on-line functionality, if not head-to-head, maybe a way to upload scores?

GG: No multi-player at this time. All your scores are saved in a file, so you will have a record of your play and improvement. Aces and other long shots that you sink are saved in a file.

I’m adding a last-minute feature so that players can develop their own challenge-package, like a set of courses, putting courses, hoop challenges, etc. I will compile them together and make them available online to download. This is experimental, but I think it will be popular with some.

T: And for the Mac users out there, any plans for a Mac version, or is there a way for them to play it?

GG: No Mac support for now. I’m the only programmer on this project, and I don’t have a Mac. The tools I used will allow me to port the game to a Mac, if I decide to put the time into it.

Gordon also asked to send his thanks out to Jerry Frost, a collaborator in the making of the game. As he says, “He’s not a programmer, but he’s been working on the game with me almost every day for the last 10 months. Jerry came up with many ideas such as generic disc names, tree designs, the lighthouse, about 40 terrains, and many courses. He designed our only real course, which is the mountain course at Hart Park, Bakersfield. Jerry also spent many hours testing the tools to build and edit courses. He asked for 3 baskets per hole, and other things that make this a really complete game. The JT on the JT’s mini marker is Jerry.”

So there you have it, Gordon has put together an exceptional little piece of software which will soon be available for your grubby little paws. While there are still some features that I’d like to see implemented into the game, notice how Gordon’s answers about those features are “not yet” and that there is already a version 2 in the works. Though I’m no programmer, I believe the hard part of the design is already complete, namely the physics of disc flight, and we have so much potential to build upon thanks to Gordon’s hard work. For $20, I believe this little program will be an absolute steal, and I plan on buying a copy as soon as it’s available.