Dungeon Golf is a party game that includes single-player tournaments and competitive PVP through local and online multiplayer. It's a mini-golf party video game with a fantasy-themed twist, as players step into the putting shoes of characters inspired by fantasy archetypes in video games, like the barbarian or wizard, as well as some more unusual characters like a musical frog.
Game Rant recently spoke with Dungeon Golf's Managing Director Tony Gowland and Marketing Manager Bianca Fogah of Ant Workshop about its mix of single-player and multiplayer gameplay modes.
How Dungeon Golf's Level Design, Enemies, And Characters Affect Gameplay
In terms of level design, Dungeon Golf currently has 3 different biome worlds, each with 6 courses with 6 holes. Gowland explained there is an "old dwarven" fortress, which is the most dungeon-like. There is also a volcanic forge filled with lava and machinery, as well as an ancient temple. Gowland added that these biomes are "not just visually different, but play different," each with various obstacles and enemies for players to overcome, such as swinging mallets, out-of-control machinery, and enemies like fire golems. As a result, not only does this impact its turn-based gameplay but its scoring system too, with Gowland explaining that,
If a monster attacks you and you take damage, you get one added to your score. And if you hit your ball into an enemy and defeat it, you get one knocked off your score.
The presence of different enemies and environmental obstacles on the courses adds different types of challenges for the player, adding to the competitive nature of the fantasy-style sports video game. However, character choice is also significant alongside this when it comes to the gameplay, as each of the playable characters possesses different abilities. As Gowland described,
One of the things is the characters have different accuracy, different power, and different abilities and stuff like that. It has almost got that fighting game element like Smash Brothers or something where it’s like, oh, I want to play this character because I like the special abilities. Or I like the barbarian - she's got a massive amount of power but very little accuracy. She just absolutely smashes the ball around the place, and you have to hope a little bit that it ends up where you want it to be. Whereas the Rogue character, the stealthy thief, has less power but is very technical and really good at nailing the accuracy.
How Dungeon Golf's Single-Player Focuses Compares To Local And Online Multiplayer
In Dungeon Golf's single-player tournaments, players compete to become the Greatest Ultimate Dungeon Golfer Of All Time, known as the GUDGOAT, through a televised-style sports network show with sporting commentators. Gowland explained the development team is currently figuring out what all the single-player will include. However, they hope to gather more insight into what players may be looking for through their upcoming early access release set for the third quarter of 2023. However, Gowland did say the single-player may be setting up grudge-style matches between character rivalries, in almost a fighting video game style. As Gowland put it,
You might have a single-player storyline where it's like the Necromancer versus the skeleton as a kind of dad versus rebellious teenager showdown. The commentators feed into that, and it all gets framed with the people in the studio chatting about the sort of history of this kind of conflict that they've got going on.
It will be interesting to see how Dungeon Golf might mix single-player competitive grudge-match fighting elements with the online or local multiplayer PVP. It will also be interesting to see how these experiences compare in action when the fantasy golf video game becomes available in early access later this year.
Dungeon Golf is currently in development.