Feature: 'Indie Postmortem: Wolverine Studios' Total Pro Golf 2'

Smaller indie developers are creating more and more intriguing games, and in this Gamasutra postmortem, we learn about the creation of Wolverine Studios' sim-heavy Total Pro Golf 2 for PC, discussing both the triumphs and pitfalls faced by creator Gary Gorski while creating the community-aided title. In this excerpt, Gorski comments on just how the original game’s fan community helped steer the development of Total Pro Golf 2: “The first thing that went right with TPG2 is what went wrong with the first game. We released the original in August of 2006, and we had a decent customer response. Reviews were generally positive, but our forums weren’t buzzing in the months after release. So we asked questions. We found out that there were two main areas we needed to improve. Some people didn’t like the fact that the game was designed to be a strict simulation of golf –during a round, all they could do was choose a club, the shot type, and an aiming point. So we decided to implement a tri-click system in TPG2 (in addition to the one-click version, which we retained). That way, people could play the game either as a straight sim or with a stronger arcade element. The second big complaint was that there just wasn’t enough to do during a round of golf. We added more shot selection options, like draws and fades, and focused on giving the player more tactical decisions during a round.” You can now read the complete postmortem, which includes more detailed insight into the development successes and difficulties that went into creating Total Pro Golf 2 (no registration required, please feel free to link to this feature from external websites).