Dev Log: The Clubhouse Opens
This stretch was about everything around the round: the room you walk into after you putt out, and the bag tag that says who you are. Plus the biggest bug hunt the game has had. Here's what changed, and what went wrong along the way.
The Plan
The clubhouse was a list of numbers. You could shoot the round of your life and the only proof was a row in a table. A clubhouse should feel like the room where your disc golf life is kept: the boards on the wall, the record book, the people you keep running into.
And the bag tag. Everyone who claimed one has been wearing the same plain brass since day one. I wanted it to be able to say you're part of this.
What's New
The clubhouse, rebuilt. The boards come first now, with your real rank on them. Your bag tag hangs on a strip across the top. Every stat has a story behind it: tap a number and it tells you where it came from.
The record book. A lifetime ledger of your golf, kept across every round you've finished: aces, eagles, birdies, best rounds, longest putts, in six cases.
Every hole keeps a book. Your best, your average and your aces on each hole, plus the hardest hole and the signature hole on each course, for you.
Your rivals. Every name on a board is a door. Tap one and you get their bag tag, where they stand, their best eighteen on every course, and how you stack up. The people you've actually played get ranked among themselves.
The trend. Your last twenty rounds as a line, in the record book and on your career card. You can finally see whether you're getting better.
A career card to share. Your whole career as one picture, ready to send.
Bag tags come in three metals. Every bag tag is real bronze now. Link your Patreon from your bag tag and it turns silver if you follow for free, gold if you're a paying patron. It shows on your tag, in the clubhouse, on your career card, and on every board, where your number sits on a little tag of its metal with a glint running across it.
Going up a metal gets a moment. The light hits your tag, it flips, and the word slams in like an albatross.
One flight on every screen. A throw now flies the exact same arc whether your screen runs at 30, 60 or 120 frames a second. Before, a faster screen threw a very slightly different disc.
The trees at the edge of a hole match. The overhead view and the putting view now draw the same tree in the same spot.
Dev logs live on the site. Public posts like this one also show up at playchainchasers.com/devlog, so people looking for a disc golf game can find them.
What Went Wrong (All Fixed)
My first bag tag strip was too small. The tag was tiny and its line of text ran right off the side of the screen. Resized and wrapped.
The hole book counted your round twice. The first time it was built, it folded in the round you'd just finished and then banked it again. There's a test that counts it now.
I ran a full audit of the game, seven separate reviews, and fixed about 45 bugs. A few you might have hit:
After a round with no board to post to, the scorecard said THE BOARD IS LOOKING... forever.
A minigame you played while waiting on a match could survive a concede and carry into your next round.
A tap-in could be recorded as your longest made putt, using the putt you missed before it.
Resuming a Fast Three could restart it as a Quick Nine.
Wisp Bog, The Moat and Peninsula could stall while their water was drawn.
In a match, the game sometimes said THE MATCH MOVED ON when honours changed hands. It was racing its own save. It waits its turn now.
Linking Patreon on my iPad bounced me to the browser. Opened from the home screen, the first try finished in a browser page and my tag didn't change until the next day. The app now checks the moment you come back to it.
Things I tried and threw out: a tiny metal dot next to names on the boards. It worked, but it had no juice, so the whole number became a little metal tag instead.
Scores: no course changed this time, so the fairness bot's numbers didn't move. The bot tests the physics directly, so the one-flight change doesn't touch what it measures either.
Your Turn
Open the clubhouse and tap a name on a board. Find out who you keep losing to. If you're on the Patreon, even for free, open your bag tag, tap LINK PATREON, and watch it change. And Crooked Hollow is only open until October 31.
I appreciate you being here, whether you’re a paid supporter, following along for free, or just checking Chain Chasers out.
— Alex, Assistant Greenskeeper