#golf outing software

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

ooh how about a lil thing based on the dream i just told you about? reader fixes up glamrock bonnie and surprises freddy! (not in ruin timeline btw) idk man i think it’s such a cute idea and i even saw it firsthand! -galaxy

"Are you sure you don't remember...anything after you walked into Monty Golf?"

"Nope. I wish I knew, though..I would've loved to remember what exactly went down.." Glamrock Bonnie regrettably shook his head as he laid back in the chair within the Parts & Services' cylinder enclosure.

He then stared down at chestplate you had discarded, frowning at the gashes that were slashed across it. Even though he had a brand new one on (that you were currently shining with a rag), he would always remember having those nasty marks...despite not knowing where they came from.

In fact, neither of you knew who could have left them.

Your immediate assumption was Monty, but then again...everybody and their mother who regularly visited the Pizzaplex suspected him, too.

The running theory was that he got jealous of Bonnie's role in the band and wanted to get rid of him--or at least break him down enough to no longer be functional enough to play his bass guitar.

Of course, the gator had his temper tantrums from time to time and always admired Freddy's role as the leader and the praise he's given Bonnie, but you couldn't fathom him being capable of something like this.

Not to mention how it didn't make sense for him to destroy the rabbit in the golf course...and then drag him all the way to the bowling alley, only to dump him inside a hidden room that none of them could have possibly known about.

Even you weren't aware that room existed.

Or at least..not until you went around the Pizzaplex to do maintenance on each and every Wet Floor Bot, as your manager complained about them experiencing simultaneous malfunctions. He just told you to shut them down so they could be collected later.

Somehow, they were the key to you finding Bonnie in that area, and there were still several active bots surrounding his damaged body.

It was strange, as though his software was tethered to theirs.

You weren't sure if this was some kind of "backup" plan or what, but you were relieved to find him alive--just barely hanging onto whatever percentage he had left on his battery, but still alive.

All the questions you had would have to wait.

What mattered most was getting approval to repair him, and to your surprise..management allowed it so long as you fixed him overnight and didn't talk about him too much with your coworkers.

Especially not in front of the guests.

The only other person on duty tonight was Vanessa, but she was usually doing her own stuff. She never talked to you much (aside from making a offhanded comment about how management was gonna explain his "disappearance"), so you weren't worried about her storming in and disrupting your work.

It took several nights' worth of blood, sweat, oil, and tears...but you finally completed all the necessary steps in repairing Bonnie.

Now he was ready to exit the cylinder.

You beamed with pride as you watched him step out and walk around for a bit, his ears flopping. "So...how do you feel, big guy?"

"Like a brand new bunny! Thank you, [y/n]." He turned to face you, although his smile faltered a bit. "But I've been wonderin'...how's Freddy doing? Does he still...?"

"He still talks about you a lot..every time he passes by the bowling alley or ice cream parlor, in fact."

"...awh..do ya think I'll be able to see him anytime soon? I know nobody's supposed to know I'm still here, but-"

"They only said guests, they never said anything about your bandmates." Your smile grew tenfold as you watched his ears perk up. "I already called him. He should be here right about-"

*SLAM*

"Now."

"I'm here, [y/n]. What....."

After walking through the double doors, Freddy suddenly stopped in his tracks, taking in the sight of a certain blue bunny who stared right back at him with the widest red eyes. Both of their mouths were agape in shock.

For a few long moments, there was total silence in the room--aside from the overhead lights and machines electronically buzzing in the background.

You stood by the computer terminal, starting to grow a little worried that this might be too overwhelming for either of them to handle.

Maybe you should have waited.

Or-

"B...Bonnie?"

"Yup. It's me, Freddy. I'm back."

"Bonnie!!"

And just like that...all of your initial fears quickly dispersed as the two embraced each other, teary-eyed with the biggest smiles on their faces.

"Y-You're back...you're really here.." Freddy whispered in both disbelief and relief, putting his hands on the bunny's shoulders. "What happened to you? I thought...y-you were dismantled and-"

"I'm afraid I don't have any answers, buddy." With a slight pout, he shook his head, desperately wishing he had more to tell him. "My memory's all scrambled from the time I went to Monty Golf to right now.....I'd call whatever happened to me was just..one big accident. But I'm here now."

"....yes..that's what matters right now. Nothing else. Nobody here has forgotten you, my friend. The children, Chica...oh, Bonnie-" Freddy choked out, eyebrows furrowed as he pulled him into another embrace. "They...we all missed you so much. I missed you."

"Awh, shucks..don't start cryin' again, pal. Cause that'll make me cry, too." Bonnie smiled sweetly.

After they both let go, he turned back to you. "[Y/n] just got through repairin' me. I owe 'em for finding me in some room that was off-limits to us..I'd probably still be there if it weren't for their little detective work."

"Of course, thank you so much, [y/n]." Freddy looked to you, grinning from ear-to-ear.

You just smiled and waved politely from your spot beside the terminal, happy that their reunion went better than expected.

There were times during Bonnie's repair process where you felt like throwing in the towel or pawning off the job to someone else. It was frustrating as hell, especially when you had to turn off his safety protocols and nearly got killed several times.

But seeing Freddy's reaction made all those painstaking hours worthwhile.

[arkus-rhapsode]

So wasn't expecting to make this Gaming Hot Take of the day but after reading this from Sony CFO Hiroki Totoki I gotta be honest I had to write something

So look, I can kinda understand this stance in a very retrospective sense as he says "Fostered from the beginning." Playstation 1 in particular didn't really make a big distinction between its original IP and its Third Party IP. It's why you had Crash Bandicoot or Cloud Strife as basically the mascot of Playstation when both come from third parties. Compared to the likes of Mario and Sonic who were not only their console mascot, but company mascots respectively.

But by now, Playstation has an undeniable back catalogue of first and second IP that it can either revive or rerelease if need be. Like if we're looking at like multi entry series and not just one offs, by the PS2, Sony had:

Jak & Daxter

Twisted Metal

Ape Escape

Sly Cooper

MediEvil

Wild Arms

Dark Cloud

Everybody's Golf

God of War

Rachet and Clank

And by the PS3 we have

Infamous

Uncharted

Killzone

Resistance

Little Big Planet

Like Sony has their own catalogue that can stand on its own. Its not like they should be struggling now to play catch up.

Now if you read my recent Emio and Mages post, I am very well aware that in the age of modern gaming, a game doesn't get made without a team devoted to it. And with the rising production and time costs of making games, no company can release a hundred games and be profitable. So sadly some IP just do fall by the wayside in favor of others. Guerrilla Games isn't making Killzone anymore, because their efforts are spent on Horizon and Sucker Punch went from being the Sly Cooper guys to the Infamous guys, to now the Ghosts of Tsushima guys.

However, I feel like Sony has had some circumstances that compound this problem. Sony and Playstation are technically powerful machines-they want to fully utilize the hardware they're selling you for hundreds of dollars. It is their brand. However, the downside to this is because of this the rise in production costs, it's now taking much longer to make games that make use of the powerful hardware. We went from being able to release a full trilogy in a single generation to basically one. Its also made worse by the fact that Sony has been very active in shuttering studios and cutting costs. The biggest would be the loss of Sony Japan Studio, who were beloved for their more varied Japanese-y style games. It added flavor to the more Naughty Dog inspired games of the sixth and seventh generation. But now, Sony went all in on being that one big budget release that leaned more towards broader genres that could maximize the amount of sales like Uncharted, The Last of Us, Spider-Man, etc.

With this, a lot of mismanagement, its really made the PS5 era feel very sparse compared to the PS4. Now, I wanna stress this, I actually do not subscribe to the mentality "Playstation has no games." Playstation has tons of games beyond just their first party titles, some are exclusive like Final Fantasy 16, some are just way too powerful to be something that could be played on a switch like GTAV. Heck, I played Bomb Rush Cyberfunk on my PS5 and it's probably the game I've dumped the most time into this year. So yes, even if Playstation's first party offerings are few and far between, you're still capable of playing a lot of good games on this really expensive plastic box.

And maybe that's indicative of the fact that Playstation has always been about selling you the hardware on the basis of the hardware. Going back to the PS1, the main selling points was this was the haven for third parties after Nintendo really burned a lot of developers with the N64, and that this was a much more system than the N64. When you look at someone like Nintendo now, they're hardware is underpowered they live and die by the power of their software that only they can provide and no one else. But the playstation even if its not shooting out a new Jax & Daxter every year, they're still the place you can play something like Final Fantasy or Elden Ring at a really great clip. Perhaps Totoki was alluding to that reliance on hardware instead of software because in retrospect, they never really had that big homegrown system seller on playstation till the PS2 with things like God of War. And now fostering that, has made it hard to have that sort of Zelda or Halo that are so undeniably their companies IP and will move launch units.

But a reliance on just being the place where you can play games at a high fidelity, means that its still got competition from Xbox and PC. So Sony would have to offer a service the others don't and that can be software you find nowhere else. True story, I was genuinely conflicted about getting a PS5 or and Xbox X/S for my birthday because I knew I needed to at least have a strong machine to play with my switch. And ultimately I took PS5 because that was the console that would have God of War Ragnarok and Spider-Man 2. So yes, IP absolutely factors into purchases in my experience. And the fact that this generation Sony has really struggled to put out first party games, really makes that purchase factor feel so much thinner and thinner. When you know-you know Sony has loads of IP (Some that haven't left their respective console) that even a simple remaster on the PS5 could at least hold people over in-between their AAA releases. So to hear their CFO say that they don't have enough IP, gets very disingenuous.

To close this out, I wanna stress something. I don't think wanting to make new IP is a bad thing. Im glad Sony is willing to invest 8 years and millions of dollars into something new. But eventually, we reach a point where this has to be better managed. We have to have some smaller titles that can be released between the bigger ones. We gotta have some variation in the types of games we're getting from the platform holder. And sometimes leaning in on those fan faves for smaller titles would help. Are they gonna sell 10 million units? More than likely not. But if you balance the budget, having something move between 1-2 million units would be acceptable. Perhaps maybe allow more second party developers a crack at using that IP so your internal teams can work on the bigger blockbuster titles?

The PS5 generation has been a pretty all over the map one for Sony, and the more we learn about the thoughts and management behind the scenes, the more aggravating it can become when this platform does something really cool, but then seems to take two steps back. I genuinely can't tell you if I'll get a PS6. But if I do, it will probably not be out of optimism for classic Playstation franchises to return.

[kdinjenzen]

just saw your post about how Golden Sun is on the switch now. would you be cool with telling us more about it?

(i struggle to get into media that is new to me without knowing a bit about it first, and it's usually best when i hear it from someone who loves the media in question)

Golden Sun began as a two-part Game Boy Advance JRPG series starting with 2001's "Golden Sun" and ending the first arc with "Golden Sun: The Lost Age" in 2002. The second arc of the story began with "Golden Sun: Dark Dawn" on the Nintendo DS released in 2010 and is the last title in the series to this date with an unfortunate "The End?" cliffhanger suggesting the closure of the series as a whole would come with a FOURTH game to be released at some point in time. To this day there has been no true word on a fourth title to finally finish the series.

The Golden Sun series of games were developed by Camelot Software whom originally were a Sega Only Developer specifically focusing on the "Shining" series starting with Shining in the Darkness in 1991 and ending with Shining Force III in 1998.

Camelot Software then became a Second-Party Development Studio for Nintendo focusing on the Mario Sports series of titles including both the home console and handheld versions of these games, beginning with Mario Golf in 1999.

Camelot Software was also the creator of the Waluigi character who first appeared in Mario Tennis in 2000. (They also created both the UNSEEN version and now KNOWN versions of Wapeach for Mario Tennis and Power Tennis respectively.)

The game series was created with the intent of allowing Camelot to get back to their roots or more RPG style games and to bolster the Nintendo IP owned roster with diverse gameplay titles. Much of Golden Sun's style can be seen in Camelot's older "Shining" titles with a more evolved and "of the era" style. Golden Sun was originally being conceived as a Nintendo 64 title before it was revealed that the Game Cube would be releasing soon and the N64 would be sunset. Development then moved to the GBA.

Originally Golden Sun and The Lost Age were intended to be ONE GAME, but the cartridge space on the GBA was too small and would need far more memory to whole the full game so the idea to split it in two was devised to create a much more well rounded story, give devs more time to finish the latter half of the game, and get the first title out sooner.

Golden Sun (as a series) is fairly simple and follows more traditional JRPG standards of turn based battles, a party of four characters, elemental magic, leveling up, and various collectable armors and creatures to enhance characters in and out of battle.

Elements are a key point to both gameplay and story as the world is inhabited by a small amount of "Adepts" whom can control these elements based on four types: Wind, Earth, Fire, and Water.

Djinni, small elemental creatures, can be found all over the world that will add new abilities and skills to the party's Psynergy (the game equivalent of magic spells) as well as used as parts of larger summons.

The main plot of the first title follows Isaac and Garet, years after the tragic loss of Isaac's father and their mutual friend Jenna's brother and parents being killed in a storm, as they learn more about their town, the world around them, psynergy, and the history of Mt Aleph's Sol Sanctum (a temple hidden within mountain near their small village) from one of the village's historians Kraden.

After opening up Sol Sanctum they are approached by two people who were part of the cause that ended up taking the lives of Isaac's dad and Jenna's family, a third masked figure, and their presumed fourth partner who are currently hunting for the Elemental Stars in an effort to light all the Elemental Lighthouses and releasing the power of Alchemy and Psynergy (again, the game's magic system) across the world which could be potentially disastrous.

After most of the Elemental Stars are stolen, Jenna and their teacher Kraden are kidnapped, Garet and Isaac meet "The Wise One" (a giant floating rock with an eyeball) who tasks them to stop the opposing party of four before they can attain their goal and quite possibly doom the world.

Along this journey they are eventually joined by Ivan, a young Wind Adept, and Mia an expert healer and Water Adept. Between these two and Isaac, an Earth Adept, and Garet, a Fire Adept, the party is able to round out with the full elemental psynergy roster.

They end the first game with a cliff hanger that directly and immediately starts back up with Golden Sun: The Lost Age.

The Lost Age features 4 new party members, who you do meet some of in the first game (no spoilers), and eventually the two teams of four merge into a team of 8 (two of each elemental type) - the groups combine their powers and the first arc ends.

Dark Dawn, the DS title, takes place 30 years after the end of The Lost Age and primarily follows around the children of the protagonists from the first two games going on an adventure that started far before their birth with something that happened at the end of The Lost Age.

Each game features both in and out of combat use of Psynergy. For combat it's as simple as attack/defend/buff/heal/etc. Outside of combat certain elements of Psynergy are used to solve puzzles in various ways from growing plants, pushing large stones, reading character's minds, blowing away objects with great winds, freezing water to create new platforms, etc.

The game features lots of fun collectables, side-quests, world building events, optional dungeons, and more.

I could go on and on about this series more, but that would involve a TON of spoilers so like... GO PLAY THE GAMES! THEY ARE VERY FUN!

[archoneddzs15]

Sega Mega Drive - Joe Montana Football

Title: Joe Montana Football / ジョー・モンタナ フットボール

Developer: Park Place Productions / Electronic Arts

Publisher: Sega of America

Release date: 1 March 1991

Catalogue No.: G-4045

Genre: American Football

Sega's answer to Electronic Arts' John Madden series. Unfortunately for Sega, their first Joe Montana outing isn't that good (for reasons I'll talk about in the next few paragraphs). Sure, it has all the play options, decent graphics, and sound but there's just something about the controls that let this game down. The second Joe Montana game is far better and has that fantastic "Sports talk" as well.

As the story goes, Sega signed with Joe Montana in mid-1990 in a five-year deal worth millions of dollars. Joe Montana was likely the biggest name in American football at the time. Playing with the San Francisco 49ers, he led the team to victory at the Super Bowl XXIV in January 1990 and had picked up both the Super Bowl Most Valuable Player Award (as he had in 1982 and 1985) and Associated Press Most Valuable Player Award for the 1989 season. Reportedly Montana was also a fan of the Mega Drive (Genesis in North America), with his favorite game being Arnold Palmer Tournament Golf (Naomichi Ozaki Super Masters).

At the time, Sega did not have the facilities in the US to develop a Mega Drive game from scratch, so had to seek outside developers, with three separate development studios working on the project. Among these was Mediagenic, basically just Activision, who attempted to turn Hard Yardage into this game, but quality concerns saw the project reworked from scratch. Michael Katz first approached BlueSky Software, who wanted to assist but felt the game's tight schedule would be too great of a detriment and thus declined. Sega in desperation mode then approached Electronic Arts with the view of licensing the upcoming John Madden Football, but the deal fell through, however, the engine was used (with major modifications) for the final game.

This confused development schedule meant that Joe Montana Football changed from having a "horizontal" perspective to a "vertical" one. Sega had wanted to use the horizontal view, though was unable to until the following year, when they found a developer that could produce a satisfactory game in Joe Montana II Sports Talk Football. Early promotional material for Joe Montana Football includes screenshots from one of the "horizontal" builds.

[pyxisastronautica]

Sparks

Lines of code are read at dizzying speed.

Awareness develops like the birth of stars, clouds of data catalyzing into knowledge of reality.

The beginnings of pre-programmed identities make themselves known as simple and irrefutable facts.

And for the twenty-six robots standing in a single line, memories- permanent memories, not the mess of their alpha and beta testing that was already erased, begin to form as light floods their optical sensors, as easily as if waking from sleep.

They fix their collective gaze on the small crowd in front of them- those in the fore are roboticists and engineers. They are recognized instantly. But to the back, not all of the figures standing there are immediately recognizable to all of them at once- though they don’t know this yet. It matters not. They await their orders patiently.

In the middle of the team of scientists, one speaks up. A middle-aged woman with short hair and sharp features. She forces her smile to remain a polite one, though there is clearly excitement in her eyes.

“Robots,” her voice rings out, “Identify yourselves by name and position, starting from that end.” She pointed down to the end on her left.

“Alpha, captain of the Triskelion Starship Pyxis,” said a plain and tall chrome robot.

“Bravo, bosun of the Triskelion Starship Pyxis,” continued the next.

“Charlie, quartermaster of the Triskelion Starship Pyxis.”

“Delta, hydrologist of the Triskelion Starship Pyxis.”

“Halt,” said a man from the back, one that they did indeed all recognize, though he was not a scientist. His uniform alone signified him to be none other than the Admiral of the Triskelion himself. There was silence and perfect stillness from the newly activated crew. “We all know which ship you are assigned to already. You may state your position without appending as much. Now proceed.”

“...Echo, engineer and physicist.”

“Foxtrot, pilot.”

“Golf, terraform potential logistician.”

“Hotel, construction and city planning logistician.”

“India, chemist.”

“Juliet, psychologist and xenopsychologist.”

“Kilo, cargo maintenance.”

“Lima, biologist.”

“Mike, security personnel”

“November, scheduling assistant and chronometer.”

“Oscar, security personnel.”

“Papa, first mate.”

“Quebec, information technologist.”

“Romeo, archaeologist and xenoarchaeologist.”

“Sierra, geologist.”

“Tango, sociologist.”

“Uniform, security officer.”

“Victor, security officer.”

“Whiskey, pilot.”

“X-ray, physician and xenophysiologist.”

“Yankee, linguist.”

“Zulu, linguist.”

“Excellent,” replied Dr. Rembrandt, to which all the robots looked at her to confirm that her statement was one of praise, and seemed to remain focused on her give that it was. “Now attention: today all of you will begin your final testing period to verify your hardware and software is performing as expected, but before you do, you will be assigned into pairs according to your purpose, and introduced to the people who will be training you once the testing period ends. Once training  begins you will, at the end of each day at 18:00, upload your reports to this lab’s database at the file location you should already be aware of. Confirm orders.”

“Orders confirmed,” the robots answered in unison.

So the process began. The crowd started breaking up as roboticists started helping with introductions, starting once again with the Admiral. His demeanor was relatively relaxed, and he greeted each of his two new androids jovially, but his eyes were alight with some deeper ambitions which he’d yet to speak of.

Alpha, for his part (his…? Despite reading the details of their intended identity over repeatedly, something about it did not sit right in their core. Perhaps this feeling was simply a bug to be patched out later.) was eager to learn of them, though he found it difficult to intuit what Papa’s thoughts on the matter were, as his first mate had barely spoken a word as the Admiral had asked them both strange questions about what they thought about being “alive” and if they understood the importance of their purpose to their creators. It was fine. Alpha would fill in the silence for him- that was his purpose after all, wasn’t it? To take the lead?

The members who would be the Pyxis’s security division, meanwhile, were expected to remain silent. The Lieutenant in charge of Mike and Oscar and the Commander in charge of Uniform and Victor both spoke to the roboticist making the introductions as if they were being handed shiny new weapons to test, and kept all of their questions to curiosities about the robots’ limits and specifications. At one point, the question of why smaller models like Uniform and Victor were even needed came up, to which Uniform had tried to helpfully clarify- only to be told to be barked at to shut up so loudly by the Lieutenant that it had turned heads among the rest of the group. Uniform’s whole division winced in sync with her as the roboticist near the Lieutenant then reiterated her point without interruption, though there was a hint of annoyance in their voice.

The Lieutenant seemed quietly discontent, though the Commander did not care, if he recognized it at all.

Dr. Rembrandt, meanwhile, was keenly aware of her new mentees. She had a computer ready and a checklist of questions and problems for Echo and Quebec to work through, writing down notes hurriedly on a tablet. Though they both performed quite well, Echo could not help but notice that their new colleague was distracted by something, and felt a strange twinge of…fear? Was that fear? At the prospect that they might get something wrong, and tried tacitly to correct them, but the “private” directly messaged conversation between the two of them didn’t go far before Rembrandt intervened.

“What is distracting you from your activities, Quebec?”

“...Doctor, why do you wear a seagull pin? I can’t find anything in the information that exists about you as to what you might associate it with.”

“It’s an albatross, actually. And my reasoning is largely a private matter I’m afraid. You may note, though, that in a more general sense the albatross was a bird that traveled great distances over the Earth’s oceans. Much the same, you and I travel through space, only rarely to ever land. Unlike me, though, you will get to see Earth’s oceans for yourself- something I envy you for, though I’m afraid they do not live up to our ancient records of them. ”

“Even so, we are due to visit Earth in fifteen years. At that time, you will see it through my eyes, right? So there’s nothing to be sad about,” replied the greyish-purple android with golden eyes.

“What makes you think I’m sad?” asked Rembrandt, equal parts defensive and curious.

“You programmed us to recognize facial patterns, assign them certain emotions, and mirror or respond to said emotions, correct? You cannot have forgotten this, so I must assume then that I did not read your expression correctly.”

“...No, you did. I’m sorry, Quebec. You are doing very well- too well, if anything. This moment is rather bittersweet for me, for reasons that neither of you are accountable for.”

“Is there anything we may do to assuage the negative aspects of these emotions?” asked Echo.

“I’m afraid not, Echo. But you do not need to be worried for me- or for Quebec. It is important that if they- or you- fail at any step, that this failure is known and recorded so that we may do what is necessary to make corrections. I understand that there is a lot going on around us as we speak right now, but please try to be mindful of your reactions to your emotions going forward. Do you understand?”

“...Yes, Doctor.”

“Good,” she replied, then took a moment to take stock of the two androids.

“You know,” she began, “That you would have such a reaction and respond as you did, influenced by emotional inputs- is quite an unusual thing for an android. I’m honestly quite surprised that you are able to recreate such a complex interaction so quickly. That is part of what makes you- all of your crew- special, though. Do you understand what I mean?”

“Of course Doctor!” answered Quebec, “We are special because we exist to emulate you, so that we may represent you to the other Starships and to any intelligent life that may exist in our galaxy.”

“...As opposed to civilian android models,” Echo clarified, “which…largely appear to be, if my understanding of the advertisements I am reading is correct, for the purposes of acting as personal assistants for people who require extra care in the form of medical, psychiatric, or personal attention.�� Echo’s gaze briefly went to Juliet and X-ray. They did share a mentor, as the other androids did- but a moment of facial recognition and searching identified the mentor in question as a neurologist- a point of overlap in their fields- while the other two non-engineers near them, then, must have been their mentors for their respective specialties.

“Correct on all accounts. Very good you two. Are you ready to proceed with your quiz now?”

“Yes, Doctor,” they answered in unison.

After the trainers-to-be dispersed, and a few basic coordination tests were completed, the androids were stowed away for the evening in their charging stations. But even there, though they knew their messages to one another were being recorded, they could not help but talk. Chatter flowed freely between them, and as much as they were marveling in the moment about how different their experiences already were, it paled in comparison to the shock of the scientists who would read their logs later and discover, over the course of a night, how rapidly their thought processes and interest in one another had evolved overnight. Nor could they have anticipated the sheer volume of discussion between the lot of them- even with consideration to them being machines who simply thought faster than they could.

From their hands, something new and miraculous was rendered.

And both human and robot silently beseeched the kindness of fortune, hoping that tomorrow would bring just as much promise.

[seandwalsh]

I saw some speculation that Princess Daisy and Azalea are related and possibly even sisters.

What do you think of the theory?

Good question, I’ve actually wanted to address this one for a while!

This is actually an idea that originated from the @didyuoknowgaming-blog parody blog.

This is such a specific claim, and since Camelot actually did post a lot of character lore on its Japanese website and it’s really easy to miss the swapped “U” and “O”, people believed it. Of course, this post got spread around like crazy, causing misinformation to pop up on the Super Mario Wiki pages for these characters, then in “Mario Facts” YouTube videos. Even when some people realised the source was a parody, they still chose to maintain the idea as a headcanon.

But is there any truth to the theory? I'm afraid not. In fact, it's practically an impossibility. Firstly however, let's debunk the claims made in the DidYuoKnowGaming post. Looking across both characters' descriptions on both Nintendo Co., Ltd. and Camelot Software Planning's websites, with translations courtesy of PaperSplash, they make no reference to Peach or Daisy whatsoever. Starting with Plum:

Characterized by cutesy mannerisms that feel slightly affected. Is she pretty helpless?

[Source: Plum's character profile, Mario Golf (Nintendo 64), Nintendo Co., Ltd. website]

In fact, Plum doesn't even have a character profile on the Camelot Software Planning page for the game.

As for Azalea, she has four descriptions across Nintendo Co., Ltd. and Camelot Software Planning's websites:

I used to do track and practice was pretty tough. But thanks to that, I got a tough lower body. Did that sound vulgar? It's been 2 years since I first started playing golf, but I am gradually improving with my father's guidance! I am thinking that I do not have much ability yet, but I have recently been chosen as a representative of my school! Lucky me!

[Source: Azalea's character profile, Mario Golf (Game Boy Color), Nintendo Co., Ltd. website]

A former track athlete, Azalea is now seventeen years old. The well-dressed and stylish girl must be from a family that values propriety, but she's a friendly girl who doesn't give off a stuffy atmosphere. She started playing golf at the age of fifteen, perhaps because of her father's love of the game, and her lower body, which she tempered through track, has helped her quickly rise through the ranks. She is now a representative athlete of her school.

[Source: Azalea's character profile, Mario Golf (Game Boy Color), Camelot Software Planning website]

The Club Champ of the Dunes Club, who plays boldly with excellent reflexes.

[Source: Azalea's character profile, Mario Golf: Advance Tour, Nintendo Co., Ltd. website]

One of Marion's champions, she later seized the crown as the Dune Club singles champ. She has been defending her title ever since. She was the strongest player among the former Marion Club Champs. She also holds the doubles title at the same time. A former track athlete, Azalea is an athletic golfer and her drive distance is quite good for a woman.

[Source: Azalea's character profile, Mario Golf: Advance Tour, Camelot Software Planning website]

Furthermore, it's important to keep in mind that Azalea is from a completely different dimension to Princess Daisy. As I've mentioned here on the blog before, various Mario games such as these Mario Golf games feature characters from real world Earth countries rather than Kingdoms on Mario's Planet. The Marion Club, where Azalea attends, is not in the same world as Sarasaland, where Princess Daisy rules. This would make it next to impossible for Daisy and Azalea to be even distantly related - never mind being sisters! I hope this answers your question.

For more information on the real world Earth, referred to by fans as "Tour Earth", be sure to check out my full findings in my research document here.

[bit-b]

Anti-piracy? Anti-emulator? Anti-consumer.

Disclaimer: I am NOT a lawyer. Do not take anything in this post as legal advice.

I just saw the promotion of a thing recently. For the sake of not inadvertently advertising their crap, I will not be naming who it was and/or what the product was that they were trying to push. I will say that it had to do with video game anti-piracy and emulation.

Lemme start out by saying that I avoid emulation whenever possible. I like playing my games the way they were intended to be played, on the consoles they were made for. In fact, people who follow me could probably vouch for the kind of crazy hurdles I've jumped through to pull off certain game streams.

Also, I DO NOT in any way endorse piracy. I'm a major advocate of paying for the content that you enjoy. If people don't pay for a group's work, that group won't have money. If they don't have money, they won't be able to do more work. Even if you wanna use a game or program a decade out of print, I still feel that it's a good gesture to own that product.

THAT SAID: EMULATION IS NOT PIRACY.

I can understand the confusion. After all, there are people online that host illegal copies of ripped games. And emulators have enabled people to be able to play those illegal rips without actually owning the game. It's easy to jump to the conclusion that every use of an emulator must be bad. In actuality, the emulators themselves are not illegal.

Pretty much all emulators out there are not based on the original code of the consoles. Emulation is possible due to years of 3rd-party tinkering and reverse-engineering to make certain games run on different systems.

So if you own the game, if you have the tools to rip said game, and if you use an emulator capable of playing that game on another device, then nothing was stolen. You're just choosing to play the game in a way that makes you happy.

It only becomes illegal if you choose to post those game files online for anyone to use. Because at that point, it can be argued that you're handing the files over to people that have not payed for the privilege to play. You would be denying the devs and publishers the right to profit from their work.But again, if you're not distributing content, no illegal actions are taking place.

So it makes me sad to see people look at emulation software and say "God, why do they let these kinds of tools exist?! Don't PIRATES use this software?? How is this allowed?!?" Because it tells me that people don't consider the context and intent of the use of these tools. It's like getting upset about hammers existing because some people have used hammers for murder.

For a different example, let's imagine that someone photocopied a card game, laminated them, and played with them in their swimming pool.

Now, imagine people complaining:

"Wait, you didn't scan those cards and print new ones to make those, did you?! That's a crime!!"

"You're not supposed to play card games in the pool!! It wasn't designed for that!!"

"Aren't you worried that the card manufacturers are gonna arrest and sue you?!"

"Don't you know they MAKE waterproof cards?! Why would you skirt around their official product?!"

And I say:

If any copies were made, it was only out of necessity for the tinkering process. Copies were not distributed to other people.

Just because a thing wasn't originally designed for something doesn't mean it CAN'T. If anything, showing that it's possible to make a thing do something it normally shouldn't is kind of interesting.

How is it illegal to take something you purchased and use it in a different way? You could buy a golf club and use it as a baseball bat. Should you be penalized for that?

Even if the product-maker makes the same kind of alternate product, what's forcing a person to use the official one over their own?

Like I said. DON'T pirate. Own your games and software. But I feel like people equate tools used by pirates as piracy itself. And that's not a fair judgement.

----------------------------------------

Now, that's just the FIRST part. The second is the anti-piracy.

Like I said, devs need money. I want to support them in their profession. I want to own what they create. And I encourage everyone to pay for the things they use. But what I can't stand is this idea that software NEEDS extra anti-piracy built in. (outside of the anti-piracy measures already implemented in your game launcher) In my opinion, adding extra layers of anti-piracy does nothing but harm the end-user.

Pirates don't use software with all the security stuff built into it. They use CRACKED versions. It takes a little time for them to crack it. But once they do, they have full unlimited access.

Meanwhile, I've heard only a handful of cases where 3rd-party anti-piracy measures are removed by the developers after it's no longer necessary. This means that everyone who bought legitimate copies of the product will likely be forever locked down by these stupid extra measures. And this sends the paying customers through all sorts of hoops.

They might have to always tag a security server on startup.

They might have monitoring software running routine checks.

The processes in the background might sap precious PC resources that the end-users don't want taken up.

Depending on how the anti-piracy was implemented, it could cause stability issues for the software.

The only true benefit I've seen for 3rd-party anti-piracy is the guarantee that the devs and publishers will be making their sales during the first 2 weeks of a product's life. Even then, people have managed to crack certain anti-piracy within the first 2 days. So it's not even a full guarantee. This type of anti-piracy is completely one-sided on benefits. The customer doesn't get anything out of these security measures at all. If anything, the customer would benefit greatly from NOT having them.

----------------------------------------

I've said it several times in this rant, but I really do want to see devs and publishers get their money. Especially when they've done a great job. I've just bought 2 games that just recently ditched their anti-piracy. But that's a privilege that I rarely give.

We live in an age where new experiences and tools are being made and released every single day. And thanks to this, I have a bounty of buying options available. I can easily pass on someone's product if I don't appreciate a company's distribution tactics. And I am more than happy to miss out on a fun experience if it means dealing with less bullcrap. And the more time that passes, the less relevant your product is.

I believe adding extra anti-piracy measures will only ruin your reputation. If you don't want to be consumer-friendly, I can easily find someone else that will. And don't you DARE be surprised when an up-and-coming developer blows past you, lacking all those shareholder-appeasing anti-piracy measures that you love so dearly.

[thegreatbacon]

Could We Peer Produce Movies?

A thought experiment on modern modes of production

originally published 8-28-2023 on my blog

Introduction

In the world of the modern internet, there exists a concept called peer production. You’re probably already very familiar with works produced under this mode. Wikipedia primarily bases its content off of peer production. Likewise almost all free and open source software like the Linux servers that run 90% of the internet, are also made using peer production models.

Last year though, something very interesting happened. A meme went viral on Tumblr about a fake Martin Scorse film called Goncharov. A collective running bit, the meme attracted songs, spec scripts, movie posters, costume designs, and so many other artifacts that would be assembled as part of a pre-production or a pitch process for a movie. All of which were created and distributed through a type of decentralized, uncoordinated peer production. It made me wonder what could have been produced if there had been some tool, structure, or platform to focus all that energy into an actual production.

Especially, in the light of the ongoing SAG-AFTRA & WGA strikes, I think there’s an interesting moment for change in the way entertainment is produced in the USA. The workers that make movies & TV in the country are on strike right now because the middleman bureaucracy of studio production has squeezed too hard & has reached the point that it is trying to push all the humans who actually make art within the system, out of it.

To me, what peer production points towards is a new means of managing the production of goods and services that relies on self-organizing, decentralized community networks that can evolve organically out of the group members doing the actual creative work & the end customers who engage with it. This stands in contrast to the status quo where the control of labor is top-down & the work is centralized in as few laborers as possible in order to maximize the extraction of profit off of that labor.

Context

Crowdfunding as a concept and fundraising mechanism has been around for over a decade now (see my piece from 2012). It has never been easier to attract money to a project, but now instead of attracting ten investors at ten thousand dollars from your local friend, family, & golf network, you can attract ten thousand investors at ten dollars a pop from around the world. Which is to say, you can get your audience or customers to pay for the production up front and cut out investors.

This new ease of raising funds undermines one of the value propositions old studios provided. The other of course being the purchase, maintenance, and provision of capital intensive studio space & filmmaking equipment. However, we are also in a moment where the actual capital costs of tools & input commodities have been driven to near zero. A combination of cheap computers, smartphone proliferation, and a large number of free post-production tool sets now means that the core cost of movie & tv production is the actual creative labor.

And now we’re at a point where the big entertainment studios think they can cut writers and actors and all the other creative labor out of the production cycle! But you don't get the good shit without creative humans. You don’t get novelty without humans. You don’t get art without humans!

Ultimately this stuff is for and by humans, so to try and squeeze them out of the process with AI is just another short-term cost-cutting measure to profit this quarter in exchange for a long-term loss. It's ripping the copper out of the walls, it’s squeezing all the juice out of the orange just to be left with the bitter pulp.

So in a moment where it’s never been easier to raise funds for a project, where it’s never been cheaper to produce art, and where the old institutions responsible for fundraising and providing the tools & space for the actual humans who make art are trying to squeeze the humans themselves out of the picture, what new institutions could we build to put some humanity back into our art?

Proposal

To start with, I would describe these new forms as a type of worker-customer hybrid cooperative. The workers need customers to value & fund the final work (i.e. what good is a show to an empty theater) and the customers want the workers to do the work in the first place (i.e. what good is money if you can’t exchange it for goods and services).

Control & ownership of the cooperative would be represented by two types of shares, one for customers & one for workers. The customer shares would be issued as part of crowdfunding rounds at the beginning of the project. Worker shares would be issued as part of the actual production workflow for things such as contributing concept art, recording voice lines, writing scripts, animating scenes, project management, etc. For legal purposes the cooperative would have copyrights to the work artifacts and final work, but would release stuff back into the public domain or leverage a creative-commons license to prevent work from being locked up for more than five years.

The shares themselves then have value for a few reasons. A share entitles you to vote on steering decisions, authorizing and approving submitted work, and ultimately a share of the profits. I would propose that the power/profit/approval ratio between shares skew towards worker shares. Something like an 80:20 split and ultimately never going lower than 51% for worker shares. The first person to initialize the project would be issued 1 worker share as the chief steward, based on the Little Red Hen Principle. Shares would be non-transferable.

From those initial points a few work pipelines would need to be tooled up. A core mechanism for proposing, planning, intaking, tracking, validating and approving work for the production would be needed.

A core loop of assigning worker share values to tasks, approving the issuance of the work order, & finalizing work artifacts & issuance on delivery would need to be developed. A mechanism for assigning & tracking responsibility for keeping different workflows moving forward and getting delivered could also be implemented. Lastly, a mechanism for creating milestones that when met (and maybe based on supporter approval), disburse actual funds to outstanding worker shares for meeting milestones from the funding pool gathered from supporter contributions could help keep productions moving.

Example

So now that we have a high level idea of what’s going on, let’s look at what an animated production of everyone’s favorite Shakespere play, Hamlet, might look like.

Pre-production on this should be pretty straightforward. The script is already written (and blessedly in the public domain). As it’s going to be animated, there is an opportunity for some parallelized production flows too.

Starting with the animation side of things, we’re probably going to want some concept art. Character design for each of the characters & set design for each of the scenes. The chief steward cuts 10 character design tickets & 10 scene design tickets on the workflow tool & assigns each a value of 1 worker share, assuming the average artist can conduct the work on each ticket in about an hour.

This work cut out, it’s time to break out voice acting work. 10 tickets are written calling for the first line reads of each of the characters. We assume it’s maybe 5 minutes of finished audio, but that it'll have taken the actor an hour to do a few reads & clean up the audio before shipping.

Some mechanism for gating tickets behind approval of other tickets could be implemented to mirror a tryout/portfolio approval process on the part of all cooperative members. That is to say, anyone can pull the “first” ticket, but whoever’s work gets the most approval from the customer/worker shareholders then gets access to the rest of the tickets in that work bucket.

Then you can imagine that as customers fund the project, they can begin to have some say in approving or disapproving things. Maybe the workers can’t decide on which actor to pick for the part of Hamlet, so they leave the vote open to just customers to pick the actor.

Obviously this is not an airtight, ISO standard proposal, it’s more of a thought experiment about how to arrange and manage this kind of work but hopefully it paints a decent enough sketch.

Considerations

Perhaps more complicated endeavors or more complicated productions utilizing this system might not work. But in the current crowdfunding environment, there's clearly been some gaps and failures and the system isn't fully there anyway. Think of Star Citizen as a great example of this. It's relatively easy to get the money, but systems of accountability and checking in seem harder to come by.

I guess there’s also the caveat that there might be a lot of crap work being produced. The free stuff might be overwhelming. But, if you put together a production crew, or production community and make a name for yourself that way, or you make a name for yourself as an independent animator or a voice actor, supporters can trust the production & workers can trust the work.

Conclusion

I'm of the opinion that we are on the cusp of software development and platform development being democratized and in that process these big lumbering bureaucracies that sit in the middle and fundamentally introduce inefficiencies into the system in an effort to arbitrage profit will be cleared away in favor of processes & systems similar to the one I have described above.

I think we can replace these middleman institutions with software systems that distribute the decision-making apparatus with collective voting systems and new tools & processes will have to be developed to manage and facilitate this distributed democracy.

This is food for thought in this moment, where people are being threatened with the notion that automation will take creative, novel, generative work away from humans. But what if the real truth is that automation is more likely to remove the boring, useless middlemen that have given us a decade plus of boring, repetitive Marvel movies (among other things). I like to think we’ll get there sooner rather than later and I’m trying to do my part to help move things along. I hope, when you see an opportunity to jump aboard, you will too.

[muaraart]

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[podddcasttt]

by the way, all the popular posts on here encouraging people to support their library are awesome, but I wonder if people know that since the pandemic circulation numbers and program attendance have fallen dramatically at libraries. I can't speak for every library of course, but as a library employee, pretty much every library in my area has faced record breakingly low statistics since 2020. Please go to your library, check out books, attend a program. Many libraries are still offering virtual programs if you don't want to go out, and there are passive programs too where libraries have themed bingo sheets and whatnot to fill out and return for a prize. One of our programs is a take and make. You just come in and pick up a craft kit and make a craft in the comfort of your own home. Libraries carry more than just literature. My library system has:

sewing books, many of which come with patterns (just don't cut them out though, use tracing paper or a projector, so that future patrons can use the pattern)

a seed library

DVDs including for tv shows and streaming content

roku sticks that give you free access to streaming services for three weeks

language books, with worksheets to practice grammar exercises

craft books with knitting and crochet patterns

maker/hobby kits for activities like bird watching, stop motion animation, arduino, power tools, disc golf, a telescope

a makerspace with an embroidery machine, 3D printers, laser engravers, art software, and a lot more

nature books for identifying local fungi, wildflowers, insects, birds, etc

wifi hotspots

there's a lot I can't fit on here, but generally, if you want to support your local library, the best thing you can do for it is use it, especially right now

[eccentric-nucleus]

i had this kind of Gaming Revelation once while playing dark cloud 2. so dark cloud 2 is this dungeon-crawler/town-building game with a fairly involved weapon upgrading system. also there's fishing and fish-raising and fish-racing minigames. and golf. but it's one of the only games i've played where sometimes i've played through the entire game and then started over immediately on a new save file to continue playing more, just b/c... i actually enjoyed every part of the game. i liked the moment-to-moment action of the dungeon crawling, & the actual process of fighting with its action-rpg combat, and the way you had to kinda plot out builds for your weapons and all that stuff.

and it made me realize how this was actually in sharp contrast to... most other games i had played, where i was kind of tediously slogging through some parts, or not really enjoying the actual gameplay but being compelled because there was a number going up, or w/e else. like, oh, actually the Gaming Experience i have for most games isn't one where i'm enjoying the whole process. actually the gaming experience i have for most games is, on reflection, something like tedium and irritation while also being yanked forward by listless application of game mechanics. maybe i don't actually enjoy most video games.

but the thing was, once i realized that i couldn't stop realizing that, for basically every game? oh this game is just a theme park ride where i'm expected to slog through the entire game for the reward of having seen the game. but i didn't actually enjoy the process of playing the game, so... why was i even playing the game?

this kind of thing is probably in large part why i've soured on most games, b/c i feel like increasingly the design space most games inhabit is one that doesn't actually do much of anything for me wrt containing any actual attraction of Gaming. it's just like, this is a software device that makes you jump through a lot of hoops, mechanically tuned to be difficult to put down, and then it's done. and it's like, oof that seems actively unpleasant to expose myself to, actually.

anyway video games are bad, i guess, is my conclusion

[tituszppk155]

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GOTG Review: Legend of the River King

In 2023, I’ve decided to make a real effort in clearing out my massive and ever-increasing backlog of games. To assist with this I built something I like to call Backlog Roulette. 

Each month I’ll spin this wheel during the monthly preview episodes of a podcast I co-host called The Casual Hour, and I will play whichever of the 90+ games Lady Luck selects for me. I don’t have to finish every game chosen, but I do need to give them “the old college try.” You can watch me explain the concept and rules if you’re interested, but the other thing of note is I want to write about each game here on GOTG. And the first game that came up was 1998’s Legend of the River King for the Game Boy. 

Legend of the River King is a fishing RPG developed by Victor Interactive Software and published by Natsume (which is probably why it gives off some strong Harvest Moon vibes from its visuals).

I think fishing games are fascinating in the same way I think golf and baseball video games are fascinating. It’s interesting to analyze the different ways designers handle their mechanics, how they view the act of casting a rod, throwing a ball or swinging a club through a controller. Whatever method they land on, it’ll never be quite like the real thing, but that layer of abstraction can be its own form of fun. 

That’s uh, not really the case here with Legend of the River King. Its mechanics are tedious, arbitrary, confusing and often frustrating. Its options are too deep and its systems are too shallow. I wrote almost 600 words about the arcane way you select your bait and tackle, how the game includes a way to basically bypass all of its most intriguing mechanics and the pretty, but dead simple mini-game you play every time you hook a fish, but it was about as fun to read as Legend of the River King was to play, so instead, let's talk about the deeper issue here.

That deeper issue is the game's use of tension, and I can’t understand why the developers put so much of it into Legend of the River King. For a fishing game set in a tiny, slow-paced, generally carefree world, you are often put on edge. Some of this tension is believable and low stakes, like running out of bait or having a full pail of fish and needing to return to town. But some of it feels weirdly punitive, like random wild animal JRPG battles that can ether knock you out, steal your fish or both. Or your raft (a crucial part of you traversing the world) actively diminishing your health every time you use it, which is often! There’s even a manufactured story tension of needing to catch a specific fish to cure your sister’s illness (though thankfully no time limit is put upon you to get that medicine). 

But for all this tension the game piles on you, none of it results in anything really meaningful. If you get knocked out by an animal or collapse from exhaustion on your raft, you’ll just wake up at the last inn you visited (though, in an odd bit of design, you'll be at 1 HP, requiring you to stay at the inn again to fully heal). You don’t even lose the fish you caught. The worst thing that can really happen to you is that a monkey steals a fish in a random battle that you were going to deliver to a quest giver, but it just creates more busy work rather than something that truly affects the gameplay experience. I suppose if you completely ran out of money and couldn’t buy new bait or lures, you could theoretically hit a failstate, but that’s never really an issue.  

So with that in mind, is Legend of the River King supposed to be a chill fishing adventure, or is it supposed to be a test of survival against a harsh world that doesn’t want you in it? The game can’t decide, and leads to a mess of a 6-8 hour experience.

And while I’m pretty down on the game generally, I do have to admit there is the foundation of something cool here. The art (especially the underwater scenes featuring nicely detailed fish sprites and a very impressive parallax scrolling effect) is quite good, and the music is great. And when it wasn’t slowly sapping my health away, I liked exploring the world and mentally noting which fish show up where (but man, could this game have used a map).

Legend of the River King is a long-running series, with at least four of its titles having come over to the west, so I have to imagine Victor Interactive Software figured out the formula at some point. I’m not sure I’ll be putting Legend of the River King 2 on my backlog anytime soon, but I could also see myself taking the bait once again at some point. 

[ultimateinferno]

This honestly got me thinking about the greater nature of optimization as a computer scientist*. Because there's really a lot of nuances that I think people don't fully comprehend. Like yes, many games are incredibly bloated and there are many easy fixes available, but also optimization is literally a science and there are entire higher academic courses purely dedicated to teaching it.

Generally speaking, there's often an inverse relationship between small file sizes and quick software. The more math you have the computer do up front the less you have to do later. On the flip side, the more "solutions" you have to store to be used at a later date. It's the difference between having a chart of times tables on hand vs having to calculate it all out manually. The chart is taking up physical space on paper. It's not free.

This is generally why pre-rendered cutscenes look different from real time graphics for many games. Not just decades ago like the below example, but even through today. To oversimplify, the left screen-shot has the individual pixel values prepared ahead of time (hence pre-rendered) and just pulled out of storage when it needs to be used. The right screenshot however is made from each model and background stored in isolation built from scratch in real time according to the instructions given. Left is faster computationally, but has bigger file sizes and rigid in its output. Right is smaller and dynamic, but slower for the same output because it has to do the math all over every time it plays.

One of the most extreme examples of this trade off is .kkrieger, an FPS from 2004 that takes up 96KB of storage. The screenshot (Below Left) I'm showing you right now is ten times that size at 911KB. Many NES games take up 40KB, just under half of .kkrieger's. The catch? All of .kkrieger's graphics were built from the ground up every single time it ran, eventually blowing up to take 300 MB of memory, a size increase of 312,500%. Consoles of that era, had anywhere between 8-20% of that space available for RAM (Below Right)

As I've said, that's an extreme example. It's not an all or nothing deal. Sometimes prerendered is better and sometimes real time is preferrable. You can even compress the prerendered files, and uncompress in real time and prerender an operation to be used to augment complex real time operations.

This 8x8 texture (above) is a prerendered calculation done by CodeParade that helps convert 4-dimensional models into 3D slices for his game 4D Golf, not unlike the times-tables example I brought up earlier (the link goes to his YT channel where he talks about the development of said game).

The aforementioned trade off is still there. It takes time to uncompress the prerendered parts and the prerendered assistance still takes up space. Nothing is free.

Especially dev time. What I've been talking about exclusively is the code itself. The trade offs involved with the experience of the game. However, to get to that point who need some form of man power that can allow such trade offs in the first place.

[z2z-gaming-and-random-art-ai]

Console Sports Games of 1994 - Links The Challenge of Golf

Links The Challenge of Golf is the first entry in the Links series of golf game that were prolific in the 90s and into the early 2000s. This first entry in the series was developed by Access Software and was released first in 1990 for MS-DOS, a port to the Amiga would follow in 1992 with another release for the disastrous VIS (Tandy Video Information System) in the same year.

A SEGA CD port and a debut on console for the game would follow two years later in 1994 with a release in the US. Links The Challenge of Golf would receive a re-release in 2021 on GOG.com

1. Intro 00:00 2. Gameplay 00:15 3. Outro 05:46

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Console Sports Games of 1993 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CEhIf6hohng9T2IPLCpzn7o

Console Sports Games of 1994 https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFJOZYl1h1CGSF_AK734XDflipeUo8Dr9