Look What I've Been Up To

[Big Sexy JC]

Linkster,

So glad that you replied as the resident LC lidar expert. I'll admit that you inspired me to dig into learning lidar and man am I thankful. I think the biggest differentiator my game will have over any other golf game is the import lidar feature. The problem with APCD and PGA 2k25 is that we are stuck with what they gave us. Because of those limitations I've built my designer deliberately able to adjust it's plot size on the fly to accommodate a plot up to 3.5 Sq Miles. Below are screen shots of the entire Bandon Dunes resort all on a single plot. I am able to import the resort with each courses layout already routed so all I have to do is delete the holes on the courses I "don't want" and then save it as the course I do want. So I'll delete all the holes except for Sheep Ranch and save it as Sheep Ranch and then do the same for Bandon Dunes, Pacific Dunes, Old MacDonald and so on. I'm doing the same thing with PGA West and the Pebble Beach courses. Even with Bandon Dunes Resort routing 104 total holes the FPS never gets to a point where you can't "work on a course".

As for the objects, my designer allows the user to use 2d or 3d objects as desired. Obviously the higher the triangle count on the 3d objects the bigger the FPS hit, but with AI as my coder I am able to constantly run optimizations to improve FPS when something drags them down. To your point though, I just finished my home course and there are 5024 2d and 3d objects placed on that course and I played a full round on it and the FPS in the player never dropped below 70FPS so I was thrilled with that. I can tolerate a little FPS hit in the designer, but absolutely can't tolerate a FPS hit in the player.

I've had two goals that have been the motivation for my game. One is that I've always felt like Links was fantastic for it's time and it's withstood the test of time, but it could use a facelift on many fronts. None more so than the course designer. I believe someone could import lidar courses and have them finished in days instead of weeks because of the lidar options I give them to import on the fly (bunkers, greens, fairways, rough, water, forest, wasteland, paths, and even building footprints are options). We have all waited over 20 years for a next version of Links and it never came. I plan on changing that.

Number 2 is that it is a life long dream of mine to create my own video game. Combine number one with number 2 and this project just made sense with the improvements made to AI in the last 12-18 months.

Below are some more screenshots of the entire Bandon Dunes resort on a single plot. Also, there is a screenshot of my Augusta import with the lidar options. Keep in mind that all of these screenshots of the lidar imported courses are exactly how they were imported WITHOUT me doing a single thing to them yet.

Another important thing to note with my designer is that I've created a built in utility that allows the user to create almost any possible object you would need for building a golf course and the app was designed to create the objects with low triangle counts so they don't hinder FPS.

[dwg]

JC,

I am wondering if any of the work you are doing could have any application in Links, probably a wild thought but hey always worth asking.

Des

[Big Sexy JC]

JC,

I am wondering if any of the work you are doing could have any application in Links, probably a wild thought but hey always worth asking.

Des

Not sure what you mean Des. I've tried for almost 3 years to crack/break/hack Links. I've tried to create a .PIN editor. I've created a replay manager that I've used for my replay for a full season and will get that out to the community when I get a chance. I honestly just don't think many people will use it so I haven't been in a big rush. I've completely broken through on the Ani front with Links. There isn't much more we can do to enhance Links in 2026 outside of adding to the courses.

I came back to Links in early 2022 and spent almost 3 trying to make Links better. Nobody on the planet wants to improve or enhance Links more than I do. I would love to still play Links but I can't play it on my machine. The swing meter is just way too jerky/unstable for any precision or accuracy and I just never took the time to learn any other swing type to get good with them. In all honesty as much as Links was ahead of it's time and is still better than all other golf games out there for a career mode, it still falls short on what I want a golf sim to do.

This is why I've spent almost a year (started my game on May 8,2025) building my own new and improved version of Links. It was just a text based sim with a 3500 player golf universe that had every tour that exists in real life from 16 year old junior amateur to the senior circuit. You can literally follow players from the age of 16 to 66. I have almost every PGA tour player that's played from 1920 to current day in my database with ratings based on their actual performance.

There are 6 modes (universe sand box, Tour Drive, Fantasy, Career Stroke, Career Team, Career Combo) where you can either use your own player or follow all the players through their careers. The text based version has been done since November. It accomplishes everything I've ever wanted a golf sim to do EXCEPT actually play the rounds of golf. That's why I started building out the course designer and graphics engine in December when I realized I would get more sales with graphics vs a text only sim.

With my game you will be able to create a course from lidar in 20-30 mins and build a database of courses that are playable immediately after importing them (without any decorating, planting, etc). This means the database of courses could match and surpass the Links database in a matter of months with a community of course designers.

I think this community is satisfied with Links and will take it to their graves and that's OK. It's just not OK for me. I'm calling my game Pro League Golf Simulator, but it's Links 2026 I just can't call it that.

I'm not sure if I answered your question, but I've squeezed all the juice out of Links that I can squeeze out of it. Think of my game as a Links but with direct access to the person that built it so you can request whatever feature you want because you will have direct access to me.

For this community that's a dream. You get a new version of Links. You get more courses in 20 years less time. You get a designer that's 100 times easier to work with. You get a 3d suite that allows you to make almost any object you could imagine. You get almost the same graphics. And with all of it this community is the only place on the planet outside of my family and immediate friends that knows it exists yet so I will rely heavily on LC for feedback and feature improvements.

[sagevanni]

Hi Big,
How are you going to market this new golf game? How much is it going to cost? Do you have a demo you can release?
I'd love to try it out and beta test the designer.
It looks from the images to not be complete. Do you have any screen shots of actually being on the course or are you not that far along.

A lot of questions.............

Sage.....

[dwg]

I guess the ultimate wish list item would be a designer that can create CRZ files.

The APCD I see as Links Achilles heel.

Des

[Big Sexy JC]

Hi Big,
How are you going to market this new golf game? How much is it going to cost? Do you have a demo you can release?
I'd love to try it out and beta test the designer.
It looks from the images to not be complete. Do you have any screen shots of actually being on the course or are you not that far along.

A lot of questions.............

Sage.....

The game is going to be on Steam so it will organically be marketed through them using a number of tags, but I also plan on using multiple social media and other online platforms to get the word out. Steam is one of the top distributors of games on the planet though so just being on Steam's search engine will be massive.

When I get to the point of being ready for testers I would love to have you run it through the paces. I'll let you know.

Everything is basically at an alpha stage right now. The designer is probably the furthest along. The player is getting very close too. I'm at a point now where I'm basically treating the game as if I just bought it and I'm testing things out instead of just building. This does cause me to stop and go down a rabbit hole to fix or improve something, but I'm definitely more at the point of using it than building it.

It looks incomplete because you have the eye of a course designer. All the features of the course designer are complete so if you look at it from a program development viewpoint its very near completion. What you are seeing is incomplete courses. This is because I'm showing you screenshots of courses seconds after I've imported them from lidar. I've done absolutely nothing to any of those courses to "finish them".

There is a strategic reason for this. Behind the scenes I'm building out the logic for the AI golfers so they play a smart, competitive round of golf. To most, this is a very un-important feature, but to me this is the best feature Links had. By creating 40 or 50 lidar courses I essentially have playable test courses that are just missing the finishing touches aesthetically, but are fantastic for testing AI players decision making. I have 13 archetype AI players and they are all shooting extremely realistic rounds no matter what course I throw at them. All players are rated in 22 categories and I went to extreme lengths to make all 22 of those ratings matter when they should matter. I wanted to give players of my game an infinite number of "competitors" to play against out of the box.

I guess the ultimate wish list item would be a designer that can create CRZ files.

The APCD I see as Links Achilles heel.

Des

My designer creates .CRS files, but it could just as easily create .CRZ files. I could basically make the file extension be whatever I wanted. Of course, now that I've built my own game I know why the Links CRZ files are "uncrackable". I've tried to open them a number of ways using AI and it was a complete failure. The reason is that those CRZ files are just archives that contain all the pertinent data to build the course when it's loaded. My CRS files are exactly the same. The difference is that MS made those highly proprietary and the archiver made them where they can only be read by the APCD/Links Extender and the game.

I agree that APCD is the Links weakness because the learning curve is so high. That's the exact reason I'm making my course designer so that someone like Ian, or Colin or Sage, etc can make beautiful realistic courses, but someone who wants to build a course that doesn't have their abilities can make a very nice course in hours or days vs. weeks and months.

Nobody is going to crack those Links course files. Nobody.


I almost have enough lidar courses completed to fire them up in the player and when I do that I'll get screenshots and post them. I think most will find the graphics to be very similar to Links.

[sagevanni]

Thanks for the update and info Mr. Big...!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't wait to see the beta projects....!!!!

Sage.....

[Big Sexy JC]

I finally finished up the course I was working on and took it for a test drive in my game. These are the first ever screenshots of game play in my game to be seen by anyone but me or my family. It's not much yet, but it's what I have so far.

[dwg]

JC,

I think the feel of the game will be very comfortable to Links users.

Does it have different swing types?

Des

[Adelade]

I think the most important and interesting thing that people over here will be looking for is a demonstration of what the gameplay will be like, and how a more finished course will look like during gameplay. I think you should take your time and dont rush things, but that will the key part. There are a lot of complex systems that go into making a realistic golf game like bounce physics, roll physics, spin physics, wind physics, grass physics, game balancing, swing methods etc and I cant help but wonder how difficult it would be for one developer and AI to get all those right.

Edit: Ok a demonstration was just posted while I read the thread and posted this lol