The Arena Golf devs have been steadily plugging away at the game and have recently invited a second batch of players into the beta test. Since some people have missed both the alpha and beta signup, I wanted to give them a taste of what to expect.
Once you have access, you’ll notice a big blue practice button at the bottom of each of your golfers.
After you choose which golfer you want to practice with, you will have the option to choose your difficulty. If you simply want to get a feel for your golfer’s stats I recommend beginner. The removal of the wind and slower meters makes the results of your aim very clear. It also let me develop a better understanding of the differences between my golfers.
Regardless of the difficulty you choose you will be given a similar layout. The screen will be dominated by a field with a set number of targets depending on difficulty. You will have 15 minutes to complete 10 shots. You will have a top down view of the range on the right and a wind speed meter.
You can click on the picture of your golfer in the bottom left to view your stats. You can click on the “Scores” trophy to see the current leaderboard.
When you are ready to play click start and you will be able to choose your target. You can either click or drag the target to choose where to aim. This will then tell you how far you are aiming, which will let you choose the proper club.
Each type of club is recommended for a specific distance, and this distance varies depending on your golfer’s power. Personally I recommend using the club one step above your target range. If I was aiming for 66 yards I would use the 89 yard club.
Once you have selected your club, and clicked on the ball to indicate you are ready to shoot, you will be presented with a meter at the top of the screen. This is to determine how hard you hit the ball, and its speed will vary depending on the course, your club, and your golfer’s abilities. The yellow area is over-swinging, if you are trying to send the ball further than the club’s range. This will make it much harder to aim. I typically aim for the third tick while shooting for 66 yards with my 89 yard club, but you will need to figure the proper time to click for your own play style.
Once you have decided how hard you will swing, now you need to aim. The speed of the arrow will vary depending on how hard you are swinging and without wind it is fairly accurate in pointing to where the ball will land.
Hopefully you clicked at the right time and will land a perfect shot. You will find out after a short animation where you watch the course of the ball. This is where wind will be most obvious as you can see the ball curve because of it.
The game is very straightforward and easy to learn, though it takes practice to get high scores. I am looking forward to seeing how it evolves and am particular eager to strengthen my golfers as the impact of their skill level is very clear to me.
Arena Golf seems promising to me as a player. While your golfer’s skills are important, the emphasis seems to be on gameplay as opposed to collectability. At this point you only need one well rounded golfer.
If you are interested, head on over to opensea and buy a golfer using my referral link. Alternatively you can sign up and buy golfers directly at the official website but you will likely pay more.
Make sure you join their discord channel as well to stay up to date on the latest news.
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