Golfing in Aether

Starting off with two of the smaller levels this time, first up is Sharp Angles and Angle Play. Our goal here was to bring more diversity to either the early game or for players who like these simpler course designs without a whole load of obstacles. Next up is levels Hop Across and Drop Zone, these feature a jump with the goal of rebounding your ball where it has to go. Twin Bridges uses the previously introduced movers as an obstacle to cross. This one requires some timing to make it across both bridges at once, as well as getting your aiming right. There are a further five levels in this free expansion beyond what we've shown off here. As with previous levels all of them can be played in whichever theme or season you wish. As part of this free expansion we created some celebratory themed hats including a Party hat and a Cracker hat. Both of these come in a range of colours and will be suitable for a range of occasions. Additional custom game options When starting a custom game you can customise the number of holes that you will play. The default is 9 as before, but you can pick from longer or shorter games with either 18 or 5 holes. Also now found in this menu is the ability to disable ball recovery upon going out of bounds. This means if during a round your ball falls off the island or ends up in a hazard like water you will taken out of play until the next hole. This is both a harder difficulty option and method of speeding up some games, Existing level reworks The most visual change is the additional foliage including flowing plants, and in some ponds the addition of reeds. To facilitate these all levels had the placement of some decorative items such as rocks or trees tweaked with the oldest levels being the most significantly changed. Existing assets like Cherry Tree's have received improved texture mapping and performance optimisations, as well as a simple wind effect added to match the newer foliage. Above is the level Gentle Swing showing the ground for the lower section being reworked. Here is a pond area on the level Tee Time showing off the addition of some sparse reeds in spots. You an also see the autumn variation of the ground flowers. Beyond visual changes, some levels had their layouts changed slightly. An example of this is "One Hill Over" where the double ramp was given a steeper curve with more flat in between, this helps the ball come to a stop slightly quicker if caught in this spot. We also tweaked some shallow ramps and the physical materials on other levels to again make the ball stop quicker in these sections. Turkish Localisation Golfing in Aether now supports Turkish, becoming the 10th language for us to support on Steam and our fourth update introducing additional localisations. As with our previously added localisations we do want to say again that although this additional localisation has undergone QA, mistakes can still occur, especially since it’s not our native language. Please let us know if you have any feedback, as it may be improved in future updates. We have included several updates to previously localisations in this update. New XP Level & Unlocks We've added a XP Level 7 so you can have something to work towards while trying out the levels included in the expansion. The XP required is the same as going from level 5 to level 6. There are 3 balls you can unlock, the first is bovine, a cow themed ball that can resemble a few other things depending on what hat or colour your pick. There is also a new stripe design called Band, and a novelty pattern called Halftone. Each of these can be colour customised. Leaderboards display options Rather than the previous on or off we have extended the options to also include whether to bias friends or global, as well as to only show friends. Existing options included controlling which modes of play they were visible in and the option to toggle between cross platform and only steam leaderboards. Mono audio support We have added the option to force audio to mono for accessibility. When enabled this will play stereo sounds in mono and disable Spatial Audio. You'll find this setting in both the sounds menu and the accessibility menu. Golfing in Aether was Stereo as you would expect since launch, and additionally includes an option for spatial audio which is enabled by default. Upgraded Engine With this update we've moved from Unreal Engine 5.3 to the newer 5.6, along with this update will be newer versions of platform SDK's so you should see performance improvements and bug fixes where these have been made. Various other improvements In this update you will also find a number of other improvements such as the custom game levels menu gaining a preview image of the level you are selecting, or an option to pick a level at random from the practice menu. There are also a number of fixes so check the full notes below. Please don't assume any issues you may encounter are 'known issues' and let us know in either the comments, forums, or via our support email. Patch Notes General • Added a no rescue option to custom game settings. If you end go out of bounds, such as water, or lava, it will be game over for the current level rather than resetting you. • Added option to change the number of holes that a custom game will be made up of. This includes 5, 9, or 18 holes. When in an 18 hole game you will only see 9 floating islands at a time with the second 9 being visible upon hole 10. Note: the achievements Speedrun and Perfect will not work on 5 hole courses. • Added mono audio support for accessibility. When enabled this will play stereo sounds in mono and disable Spatial Audio. • Added Turkish localisation. • Fixed reliability of hole exits, especially when spectating. • Fixed an issue where if spectating it wasn't always possible to free camera, or you would not free camera from the position of the player you are spectating. • Fixed various minor camera behaviour issues. • Fixed some minor rotator sync problems. • Fixed one of the level sequence cameras for Hole in Fun not angled correctly. • Fixed various minor local stat saving issues when playing in an offline state without a platform connection. • Fixed a rare timing issue where it was possible for a client to obtain the incorrect spawn location. • Fixed several minor cosmetic / accessory positioning sync issues when playing in multiplayer. • Fixed a rare instance of being able to move the camera after skipping a level, the camera will now correctly snap to the flag as expected. • Fixed various skipping level related issues when playing in local multiplayer. • Fixed various multiplayer timing issues relating to spectating. • Fixed an issue where some obstacles might not undo with shot in some modes. • Fixed an issue where upon retry under some timing combinations you couldn't retrigger a pipe camera. • Fixed an issue where the camera when spectating and jumping between players doesn't appear to be a seamless snap. • Fixed some minor issues with tutorial when restarting it under uncommon scenarios. • Fixed various minor behaviour issues with replays. Platform • Added updated Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR versions. • Fixed an issue where Nvidia DLSS wouldn't work on Microsoft Game Store version. • Fixed various issues with sharpness. • Added updated platform SDK's. Customization • Added customisation for XP Level 7, including Bovine, Band, and Halftone. • Added additional brown color option to the cow novelty hat. • Added Party, and Cracker hats as part of Anniversary Expansion. Environment • Added adjustment to the double ramp in “One Hill Over” so theres an extra bit of flat ground in between to make coming to a stop a bit easier. • Fixed potential for ball to not stop yet move slow on very shallow ramps. • Added additional flag textures for holes 10 to 18. • Added additional foliage to all levels. • Added quality of life improvements to visual appearance of all levels. • Added improvements to cherry tree branches. This includes improved texture mapping and adding wind movement to leaves. • Added new flowering plants to all levels with an autumn variant without flowers. • Added reeds to ponds on some levels. • Fixed a rock after the ledge in Rail Run not having a steep enough angle for the ball to roll off. • Fixed some unusual camera behaviour that could occur on the painted line at tee if positioned and angled right on some levels. • Fixed a part of Putt and Dunk near a ledge that auto resets you when it shouldn't do. • Fixed the top of towers on Fork in the road and possibly other levels not resetting when land on them. • Fixed some rotators on distant islands spinning in the wrong direction. • Fixed a rock placement on mill pond. • Fixed a clipping rock in Bone Yard. • Fixed the appearance of some pipe materials and meshes. • Fixed the collisions of some flat ground pieces to be simpler and more efficient / reliable. • Fixed minor overlapping pond ground materials on several levels. • Added adjustments to some ramp meshes so they have slightly steeper angle the lowest part in order to fit more flat at the bottom. This is to help with rolling / stopping on some levels and is barely noticeable visually. Interface • Added additional options to custom game menu for hole amounts and no rescue. • Fixed custom game options having the wrong scrollbar color in dark mode. • Fixed scoreboard having an incorrect scroll fade color in dark mode. • Fixed How-to-XP menu missing out an XP value for style. • Added larger level preview and current rank for selected level in the custom levels menu. • Added changes to description in custom levels menu in relation to ability to choose number of holes. Now says ‘required’ instead of ‘nine’. • Fixed a minor inconsistency with navigation when using the mouse and switching to gamepad in the custom levels menu. • Added a ‘Random’ option to practice menu. This will initially pick at random a level you’ve not previously gotten a rank in for easy, then hard, and then just be completely random. • Added online settings option to change how leaderboards are displayed on the scoreboard XP page. This includes the default current option, or giving more focus to friends, or just friends only entirely. • Fixed an issue where if you tried to skip, restart, or return to main menu upon pausing just as about to go into the hole could lead to holeout still playing. The ball will now be frozen in place. • Fixed possible to hear navigation sounds while on Podium. • Added improvements to the consistency of the scoreboard headers. • Fixed the controller icon on the ingame/pause menu appearing bit inconsistently blurry compared to other menus. • Added options to set stereo to mono in both sound and accessibility settings menus. • Added improvements to how player avatars are rendered on various menu screens. Rather than separate layers for glasses and the ball they will combined as a single image. This will improve the appearance when fading in and out. • Improved appearance of quick chat search box when in lobby/scoreboard. • Fixed an issue where when pressing escape to cancel quick chat search the pause menu could open. • Fixed an issue where on some platforms opening an overlay as host with controller disconnect can cause a pause to an online session with players. • Fixed various power indicator behaviour issues on some platforms. • Fixed an issue here names might still show when in a hole. • Fixed some wording on the scoreboard. • Fixed the 'X' for none selected in accessories which wasn't appearing correct under some theme / contrast combinations. • Fixed an issue where pause menu didn't always appear in replay under specific combinations. • Fixed level names in the custom levels menu had potential to clip in some localisations. • Fixed incorrectly labelled game menu if player 1 plays using a local profile in some game modes. • Fixed an issue where a shared input player cannot pause. • Fixed various minor shared input settings display depending on combination of profiles selected. • Fixed some quick chat input overlaps. • Fixed an issue where an unloaded player would see WWWWWWW on one of the scoreboard menus if timed right. • Fixed various minor pixel alignment issues with scoreboard and quick chat. • Fixed decal behaviour bouncing when switching views on scoreboard rapidly. • Fixed 'view' button sometimes appearing on scoreboard when no need to change view, such as when leaderboards disabled in practice mode.