Golf (Editor) Games

By LEAGUES my favourite editor for golf. It is very fluid and fast to prototype, once you're used to the controls. There's always more complex and interesting tools to discover, too, or more tricks to figure out to solve problems you have with your maps.

The official maps are truly exceptional, as well. They properly balance gameplay and aesthetics, with no irritating gimmicks.

The workshop maps can be a little clunky sometimes, because of some engine bugs, but they're generally imaginative and fun :)

By far the most versatile and "pretty" pick, as the game's building system was made also for decorating homes / worlds, so there are a LOT of props to use, and they look good.

The only "mutator" option is collision, and honestly that's to my preference-- I like minigolf being minigolf, and not some kind of weird platformer where you happen to randomly be a golf ball. The physics and planning shots should be the focus. Different strokes for different folks obviously, enjoy your jumping golf balls as you like, but that's my own opinion.

I hadn't ever touched minigolf before this game, period. And now it's one of my favourite things.

This is second in my preference for editor. It's a little simplistic, with limited props, but the props available are nice and there are a LOT of different golf pieces to choose from. And the tools are "enough" to work with, has a duplicate tool and the snapping works correctly.

The official maps are, for the most part, good. There are a few that are too gimmicky for my tastes, relying too much on lazers or fire "killing" your golf ball. But there are more good than bad, and quite a few fun ones for those who lean towards "golf purists" as well. Perhaps a little "simplistic," but that's not always a bad thing in minigolf. Can be refreshing.

This game has issues with dropping FPS for me, especially on specific maps, and unfortunately that is a HUGE issue in a game as precise as golf. You are a round ball that gets bumped with every tiny hitch in the terrain-- frame drops will introduce inconsistency and bugs, which is annoying.

The workshop maps available I haven't tried yet, but most of them look fairly simple/straightforward (which isn't necessarily *bad,* but not "too exciting" either.) Just a vague impression, I haven't looked hard!

This one has a lot of silly gamemodes that don't "ruin" the gamefeel of minigolf to me, where the emphasis should be on physics and the courses. Turning your golf ball into a chicken figurine makes the focus still "physical." There are a few options like jumping too but... other people can use that one ha.

Overall it has a few issues, but I still consider it "second best."

The editor in this game is fairly simplistic, with limited props, and the props are, in my opinion, extremely ugly. They also do not "fit together" very well, it's difficult to mix items from different courses because the visual styles clash so much, so your ability to make good custom courses is fairly limited. You cannot use pieces from DLCs without owning the DLCs. The golf pieces available seemed average, adequate but not extremely varied.

I do not like the visual style in this game, at all. There's a reason almost all the screenshots for the game are the newer courses, and even then I'd call them "the most ideal screenshots possible." I was *vastly* disappointed by the halloween-haunted-house themed course.

Honestly, I have a hard time understanding why anyone likes the official maps for this game. You cannot go through the courses without constantly stopping, going into freelook mode, and then awkwardly teleporting back to your ball and trying to guess what you are aiming for. Because nothing is set up so you can actually see where you are going. Sometimes it's difficult to even tell where you *are* supposed to go.

I actually loathe the official maps in this game because of decisions like this. The game was *designed around* having a freelook camera, which means apparently it is basically required, and it takes me out of the pure simple fun of doing a course to do fiddly annoying camera flying nearly every single putt. It's distracting and it's not fun.

There are a few official maps I can appreciate parts of, but all of them tend to devolve into "blind putting" and gimmicks the further along you go.

This is probably a fun party game, but I have strong feelings about it as a pure minigolf experience ha.

Speaking of, there are lots of powerups, and some of them are even mandatory to each map-- required boats, jetpacks, jumping, etc. I personally loathe this and it's not what I'm looking for in a minigolf game, and it's worse that I can't opt out of it.

The redeeming quality of this game is that the workshop maps are fairly plentiful, and some are good! It's impressive what people can do with limited props. Funnily, the workshop maps tend to be less gimmicky.

I don't love the control scheme in this one (holding down mouse without twitching can be hard on certain days for me) but it's acceptable. It is a little unsatisfying how much your golf ball feels like a hollow rubber ball, though-- so bouncy, yet heavy!

They also set up a lot of out-of-bounds to require you to COMPLETELY stop rolling before you reset, which can be kind of maddening ha.

Overall, it's... okay, I guess.

I'll admit I didn't try super hard to get into it, but I loathed the editor in this game. It was not intuitive to figure out how to place decorative props individually without a lot of fiddling-- it seems geared to push people towards using their "prop brush" functionality, which scatters props semirandomly with a giant brush. I'm sure it saves time for those who struggle with decorating, but for anyone more particular, it is annoying to seemingly be the only option.

The terrain shaper irritated me, it reminded me of the editor in Lords of Magic, a B-tier game from 1997. I didn't care for placing the golf pieces much, either, everything felt very very clunky, and it was difficult to find where anything was. Maybe sometime I'll try looking around again... I don't exactly feel like I "unlocked" the functionality hah.

The editor and the control scheme is why this is so low on the list. The default control is to literally use your mouse to "swing" your golf club forwards... and while this is a vaguely fun gimmick for the first course or two, it quickly becomes annoying for those of us who can't draw a straight line to save our lives. This is also a problem for me in particular, as I run into a lot of random twitches making things go haywire.

I did eventually find the alternative control system, which lets you do a more traditional line with power, but it's... clunky, and the difference between "flying into the stratosphere" and "barely hard enough" feels like a few pixels at the end of the line. It feels the least fun and fluid to control out of the lot of the games, and in a minigolf game, this is VERY important.

The official courses in this one are, interestingly, a bit all over the map. Some are awful, and some are good. Some have a few dud holes. A mixed bag, I suppose. Both in terms of decorating, and the course being fun to play. ...And not having too many gimmicks.

I find the visuals a little puzzling, they're often visually appealing while being unappealing at the same time. So-so on the visual style personally. The underwater course looks quite nice.

There are some REALLY cool maps on the workshop in this one. I haven't been able to try too many, but-- impressive stuff.

I haven't tried the editor in this one, no comments on that. It doesn't have steam workshop support.

I don't really count this so much a golf game-- this is too abstracted from minigolf to me. Holes are timed, you have time reversal powers and powerups, and physics feel almost an afterthought-- in my opinion, this is, well, vertiginous golf, not minigolf.

It still technically qualifies for the list, I do want it to be comprehensive of the things I've tried, ha. It *is* last because it doesn't function for this list very well, though.