With todays update you can now accessorize your golf ball with various hats! Each of these models has received tons of little details and come with color options like youll find on the golf ball.
These are designed to fit with the ball pattern designs with an adjustment to how they sit if the design needs it. A good example is when you compare say the lady-bug design to the smiley face. The face has a higher angle so you can see more, whereas it looks better with less for the bug. Its a small detail but makes everything look a bit nicer.
Hats can be equipped in the next box over from where you would normally customize your ball. Ill now show off a bunch from each of the different themes of hats. Note: check full notes for complete list of hats, also as hats are supposed to be rendered at a few centimeters in size in-game, so may have specific texture tile rates or other details suited for that.

Fancy Hats

First up is a selection of common headwear items such as fedora, a straw sun hat, and newsboy. Youll be able to notice detailed headbands, and for the newsboy in particular little bits of stitching detail. The sun hat has a bow element on the rear of the hat.

Novelty Hats

In a different direction are these novelty hat items featuring various ears, tomato, and propeller. The base of these is from two models, a bucket, or a bell hat. I thought having those models as-is wouldnt be that interesting so came up with these modified versions. I will most likely be adding more variations of these with more ear types especially as think will be fun, especially in a multiplayer session where players are using different ones. A fun little addition to the propeller hat is it not only moves in the wind when stationary, but as you hit your ball the velocity can make it move directions faster.

Deluxe Edition Additions

All previous hats mentioned are included in the game but Ive also added five hats to the existing deluxe edition DLC. These hats are specifically an attempt to match with some of the ball designs (such as the seasonal ones) already in this DLC. These all come with color options, for the knights helmet which comes in an all metal appearance by default has color options via a painted-look visor.

How do I get more hats?

I looked at a few different ways to have the hats unlock, ranging from item drops, to an built in item shop, or even just having them as part of existing progression levels from where you obtain ball designs but I kind-of felt for this type of game it was very forced progression. My intent for Golfing in Aether is its a game you can just pick up and play with family or friends for any occasion without a ton of stuff you have to do to obtain basic customization. So my plan here is that all items Ive mentioned today will either be unlocked at the start of the game right away, or those five specific ones will be part of the Deluxe Edition DLC. Upgrading to the Deluxe for me is a few extra dollars more towards development for what normally is a pretty cheap game, and it will let me pursue the free expansions and other cool stuff. Development simply isnt free and I feel this is the nicest way of doing it without being another of those games that spams hat dlc. However there will be two routes that new hats will be added in the future, the first is I will be adding to the selection periodically with regular updates as little extras as Ive made a new model. The second is I want to look into events or challenges, whether its gameplay based like I did for Halloween or just a give-away for a certain holiday like with Christmas. I feel there is simply no fun in grinding away or idling in a game with hope you might get the hat you want, but I think events with a theme and actual stuff to do throughout the year (perhaps around specific holidays) will offer something of genuine interest. So, this is basically my thinking and what Ill be looking at as time goes on. Feel free to make suggestions on items you'd like to see, I can't promise I'll be able to add every one, but I'll certainly keep note :)

But I dont like hats!

Ive added two new settings for you to adjust how you see both the ball and accessories. The first is whether the ball visibly rolls at all, this is more an accessibility option to reduce motion on screen. When disabled the ball will only slowly rotate towards its direction of travel but otherwise remain upright. The second of the new settings allows you to adjust the visibility of these new accessories. There are three options, on, in which you will always see the hats, stationary only; the hats will disappear while your ball is rolling, and third is off, in case you dont want to see the hats at all, and the game will be as it was before. Some of you may not want or like the hats and this way you can all play the game you want to play it without it affecting anyone elses experience.

Demo Support

I recently put a demo of the game out to play and yes hats have been added to that demo! A selection anyway, so you can experience a portion of the game as it truly is in the paid version. Hope you like it!

Various fixes

Also in this update are a few fixes to issues found since the update earlier this week, if you encounter any problems please let me know and I can certainly look into doing a hotfix. You can do this publically either on the forums or discord, or via the support@vetron.net email if you'd rather not post on either of those. It certainly helps and I can get things quickly sorted then. https://store.steampowered.com/app/1914980/Golfing_In_Aether/

Patch Notes

General

• Added accessories (specifically hats right now) as an additional customization element.
• Added several options available to pick from at the start and an additional handful available for users who own the deluxe edition of the game. More will be added over time.
• Fixed an issue from previous update where some ball customization wasnt showing up in the menu.
• Added backend extension to replay system to support hats. All previous replays will remain working and when hat data isn't found will simply show no hat.

Customization

• Added Sun Hat (available immediately).
• Added Newsboy Hat (available immediately).
• Added Fedora Hat (available immediately).
• Added Homburg Hat (available immediately).
• Added Cat Hat (available immediately).
• Added Bear Hat (available immediately).
• Added Cow Hat (available immediately).
• Added Tomato Hat (available immediately).
• Added Propeller Hat (available immediately).
• Added Top Hat (available as part of deluxe edition).
• Added Bicorn Hat (available as part of deluxe edition).
• Added Santa Hat (available as part of deluxe edition).
• Added Knight Hat (available as part of deluxe edition).
• Added Mage Hat (available as part of deluxe edition).

Environment

• Fixed a wall piece on Rebound being lower than it should.

Interface

• Added element to select hats on the customization screen, this is the second box, next to where you would already customize your ball.

Discord Server

Be sure to check out the official discord server with channels for Golfing In Aether and my other various projects.