itch.io

Super awesome that you're on the AppLab now!  Good job and congrats - you deserve it!

That's the ticket.  Looks great! :)

Man, you (and your designer/team) have really done great work on this game.  I can't wait for it to land in the App Lab as your next step towards being featured in the Oculus Store.  Kudos!

The page you linked to looks great.  It's this page that has some of the old style graphics going on: https://gamerboyadvanced.itch.io/disc-benders (the page that I wrote this message on, but you might not be seeing it in context).

You need to update these images to reflect some of the awesome new aesthetics in your latest release.  :)

Congrats on your latest release!  It looks pimp as hell, man.  I'm looking forward to playing it (I would be right now if I wasn't at work, hah).

Sweet.  Kudos on all your continued work on this.  It's starting to look really polished.  I look forward to giving it a try!

He or she certainly did!  Got an ETA?  I won't hold you to a firm date, I promise. :)

That new disc bag looks sexy and the smart trails and picture-in-picture are super snazzy!

Then you went and hit me with the Black Friday / Cyber Monday deal, which is an awesome way to get more people on board.  I bought immediately (I feel guilty for delaying the purchase now even more, hehe) and told all my friends to go buy it today, damn it!  That would be super fun to play it with you sometime.  Let me get some time in with my buddies and then I'll hit you up.  I think I'm part of the Discord already, but I'm spread so thin on that platform, that I forget half the stuff that I'm involved in.

Now I have no idea where I saw that older build.  Maybe I confused myself when I saw the "Published on March 20, 2020" info?  Maybe it was just weird cached junk in my browser?  On Itch.io, I see that you updated it 17 days ago for the Quest (19 days ago for the Rift), so who knows what crack I was smokin'!  Anyhow, super cool that it's all multiplayer fancy.  You might want to update the SideQuest info because that doesn't show the multiplayer stuff (and is the current version 1.0.0?).  Of course, since you just dropped your note about that yesterday here on Itch, you're probably already working on the SideQuest goodness...

Anyhow, I'll definitely convince my amigos to join soon, especially as we go into Lockdown Season, hah.  Looking forward to giving it a spin!  (See what I did there?  Heh.)

Hmm... it still shows the last updated date on Itch as August 31st.  Have you not uploaded the new version yet or is this just an Itch bug?

Holy smokes, Batman!  Full multiplayer support!?  That's amazeballs!  OK, I'll stop with the exclamations.  Sorry I have been off the grid for a while, but damn, you've been really, really busy, haven't you?  This is perfect timing for the next Coronavirus lockdown that we all know is coming, hah.  Seriously, I've got at least 4 friends that I'm sure will be up for buying your game, although it might take me a week or two to get them on board.

Kudos, GBA!  It's looking great.  Time is flying by and I will be purchasing shortly. Your beta version was already good, so I'm looking forward to playing the polished version!

I got your message and I'm excited to try it out!

Yep, that worked.  Thanks!

I did get an Invite Expired message when I followed your Discord link: https://support.discord.com/hc/en-us/articles/360001556852

I really respect that you are continuing to forge ahead with what seems to be an exceptionally strong wind behind your sails.  The fact that you're making such progress doing all the artwork, all the advertising, and all the coding as a solo operation speaks volumes to your overall (and wide-scope!) skill level.  Kudos, and keep up the good work!  Somehow the underscore at the end of your Twitter handle amuses me, too. :)

That sucks that you broke your headset!  Glad Oculus is replacing it and that you've got enough on your plate that it won't really slow down your development while you work on the guts of it.

Impressive!  Of course my stats will not be impressive, but it will be great to see them anyhow and it is easy to see how this will help keep players coming back to the game to work on their stats, and inviting others to compete (stat sharing would be great, and maybe even auto-posting to Facebook).

OK, the back 9 is really neat and challenging and the physics same WAY more real (almost too real, damn it!), but I had some issues last night that made it a little frustrating.  The first thing I suggest you add is a way to jump straight to a hole, or at least jump to the back 9 directly so we can test that in a more focused manner.  Maybe it's already there, but it would also be nice to have a "repeat hole" option in case you want to really test the heck out of one particular hole.

First, the little display that shows the overhead view of the hole was completely missing (the signs were just empty pieces of wood) from all the back 9 holes.  

And for some reason, the popup version was just displaying the overhead view from one of the front 9 holes (see photos).  It was very much not obvious as to where I was supposed to go on each hole when I was half way to the basket; I was frequently confused about where to throw.  Yes, the fly-through on the hole helped a lot, but what would be really, really, really helpful would be a dot on the mini map (ignoring the fact that the bug I experienced hid the map from me entirely) with your current location AND the direction you are currently facing, just like a car GPS.  Now, I forgot to consult my watch very much, so maybe you kind of already did something like this there, but if so, that might need some explanation.

I also fell through the course "into the void" a number of times on one hole where the disc would fall into a very small pond of water in the middle of a hole and the respawn put me in the void every time (see photo).

Once I had the issue with not being able to grab the disc but it eventually glitched a few more times and let me grab it again.  I think this was somehow related to being on a slope.  I think you need to build in some kind of buffering or different movement detection (block movement when only turning is happening vs. actual lateral player movement) because randomly sliding down slopes is also disconcerting and can make it frustrating when you're just trying to grab a disc out of the bag and you suddenly slide down a hill, looking up at your floating disc bag! :)

I know this is not possible and probably just related to my tiredness when I tried the course for the first time last night, but part way through the back 9, I felt like the physics changed and my discs were really not going where I wanted them too.  It became a tedious game of throw, press A, throw, press A, faster and faster in frustration.  Hopefully that was just me being weird and the next time I try won't be like that.

On an unrelated note, what's with the clunking around noise that you hear when you first enter a course?  It's not horrible or anything; I'm just curious to know what it's supposed to be.

Ironically, the more you can make it feel like I screwed up just as I do when throwing discs in real life, the more fun it will be!  :)

You're really stepping it up a notch (yet again) and I look forward to trying out this newest version.  An additional half-a-course is like adding a whole new game to play and all the goodies you've added are icing on the cake.  I really dig that new flight path viewer in the disc golf bag and it makes it very easy for anyone to understand what the disc will do (if you don't throw it terribly as I sometimes to, hah!)

Well played, Good Sir!  I just thought I wasn't doing it right when I turned on advanced throwing.  Your latest update has some excellent improvements (finally got a chance to play it a couple of days ago) and I can't wait to try this out once you release it.

I feel guilty that I have not found time to play the latest version, even with the three day weekend.  My only defense is that I was busy being productive IRL, heh.

You'll definitely get into the Oculus store once you've fleshed it out with more holes and multiplayer.  It would be stupid for them to pass it up at that point, as I assume that they get to skim at least a little off the top and FG is a great example of a relaxing social game for all ages.

Speaking of which, I'm sure it's already in your list, but private parties are an absolute must since I'm a crotchety old man (with crotchety old friends) when compared to most of the young ones who dominate the social VR landscape.

Holy smokes, you have been busy!  That is so much good stuff (that smart watch is exactly the kind of nerdy thing I love, haha) and I cannot wait to give it a shot tonight.  Your course designs are great and I look forward to being able to play your full fledged 18 hole course eventually.  I wonder if we can find some professional disc golf course designers who might be willing to donate some of their designs (because they're bored at home right now!) to future courses.  It's unfortunate that Oculus denied you, but I suspect it's only because they want to see more development (course content, as you're going to soon release, and multiplayer, which we all know is a larger endeavor) before they bring it into the fold.  I'm sure you'll get in on your next attempt!

Hah, awesome!  I guess you can ignore my other reply then, but in case anyone else is following this thread, that warning is good for anyone!

Yep, I had a buddy get one from Walmart this way just about a week ago.

Just be careful because Amazon and Walmart will both redirect you to third party rapists... sorry, sellers... if it's suddenly out of stock.  If you don't see $399, then it's not actually Amazon or Walmart that's selling it.

I forgot to mention, in regards to getting another Quest, I and 3 out of 4 of my friends who recently purchased a Quest used this site to be able to purchase our Quests: https://www.nowinstock.net/videogaming/accessories/oculusquest/. 

Setup a browser alert and you can buy one within a day, usually, although you do have to act very fast since you can get the Quest purchased out from under you while you're still messing around in the checkout process.

I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but I'll let you know.  I decided to sleep last night instead. ;)  Also, if you get bored (because, you know, you don't have a ton of other more important dev work to to), you could also setup your game to be mixed-reality compatible, which is a very, very short list of games right now: https://developer.oculus.com/documentation/mrc/mr-quest/.  Then you can show off your game like all those mixed reality Beat Saber game clips like this one: 

Nice!

Sweet.  Glad you got that sorted so that people can find your game on there again.  Now tell them to please feature the game again! :)

In the SideQuest settings, there is also a section entitled "Set Video Capture Size" that states that "This changes the resolution of captured videos on the Quest" and offers the options of 480, 720, and 1080, but maybe that still captures a square?  I'll have to try the ADB commands vs. the settings and see.  That said, a lot of the comments mention that doing this has a significant framerate cost, since this is essentially just cropping/zooming the native output from the Quest in the headset itself.

Here's a little video I grabbed of the driver no-grab issue: https://www.facebook.com/john.tolle.14/videos/10218478541089029/

Oh, and any idea why Oculus won't allow me to livestream your game from the headset?  I wonder if Oculus doesn't allow livestreaming from non-Store games.  Or did you prefer not to enable it just since you want to limit bug exposure?  They do note:

• Developers can opt in or out of this feature, so livestreaming may not be available on all apps.

On their page: https://support.oculus.com/408837319677033/

It would be useful to livestream (and then share links to you) for bug reporting.  What I did was record the video to the headset and then upload to Facebook, but that is a messier process.

First, before I forget, I can no longer find your game on SideQuest, which is odd considering they just featured it recently.  I have told all of my Quest-owning friends about it and sent them the itch.io link instead.

One point of clarification: IRL, I've played frisbee golf for decades, but I'm not even close to "good" at it.  I wanted to mention that in case I had made it seem like I was any kind of accomplished player.  I am not adept, but I do enjoy playing the game and have lots of experience.

OK, back to the game.  I got to play your latest update over the weekend and it really is a good quality of life update.  I was able to play one game without any real issues at all but had an issue on the second one where I lost the ability to grab the driver starting on hole 7.  I haven't had time to try and replicate it.

While I really would love to see more holes and maybe even some silly mini-put-esque gadgets like one of the two courses on Rec Room (wind generators, floating negative point targets, etc), I think the social aspect is what will really bring replay-ability.  It's a lot less about courses and a lot more about playing with friends, and this is especially true now that we cannot go out and physically play.  My local courses IRL do not change; we keep going back to improve, enjoy the atmosphere, and socialize and razz buddies or feel their pain when they miss a shot.  In your game, it absolutely amuses the shit out of me when my disc bounces off the basket rather than going into the chains and I almost always feel the urge to laugh, then swear, and then look for my buddies to see/hear their reaction.

As for a paywall, I think that should come after the multi-player core experience.  Paying for additional/new courses just makes all the sense in the world.  Everyone is used to it in the form of DLC now.  Now, once your game is polished, obviously you can charge just for the core game like any good Oculus store game.

I've been playing frisbee golf (I know it's really "disc golf" but we've always said frisbee just like many people say Kleenex instead of tissues) for a stupidly long time.  The fact that we cannot go to any courses right now because they're closed due to the virus is killing me and several of my friends (many of whom I have convinced to buy a Quest just so we can hang out in VR!)  Once you put out a version with multiplayer, we're going to be all over that.  The Rec Room version is OK only because it allows up to 4 people to play together.  Otherwise, your alpha version already absolutely crushes it.

Wow, you are on the ball with these updates - those are actually some big ones.  Thanks again for sharing this with the community so early in your development process.  I look forward to trying out this build tonight!

Sweet.  I look forward to testing it out!

Awesome news!  Nice work, Alex!  :)

I could swear I had the link to your Reddit page, but I'm not seeing it.  Would you mind supplying it?  Then I'll do my full writeup again (after playing it again to have it fresh in my brain... and hopefully I can reproduce it because intermittent bugs are the worst!)  You also might want to update your SideQuest and/or itch.io pages to include that link for others to report with.