Disc Golf 3D Guide

Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Main Menu
  3. Starting a Game
  4. Gameplay
  5. Career
  6. Pro Shop
  7. Achievements/Scores
  8. Preferences
  9. Additional Resources
  10. Tips
  11. System Requirements
  12. Credits

Introduction

Welcome to Disc Golf 3D, the finest disc golfing game on the iPhone, iPad, iPod, and Mac! While most of Disc Golf 3D can be picked up through the in-game tutorial and by exploring the application, this guide is meant to explain some of the finer details.

Main Menu

  • Career Mode – Use this to create and customize profiles, level them up, and play in tournaments. More Info
  • Practice – Play 18 holes on any course or practice a specific hole with unlimited mulligans. More Info
  • Pro Shop – Upgrade equipment using credits earned in game or through In-App Purchase. More Info
  • Challenge a Friend – Email a friend with information on Disc Golf 3D
  • Achievements – Various statistics for each profile and GameCenter achievements. More Info
  • Scores – Local top scores on each course/difficulty and GameCenter internet leader boards. More Info
  • Controls – Lists all hotkeys for controlling the game
  • Settings – Adjust gameplay and graphics settings. More Info

Starting a Game

The pre-game menu can be intimidating at first, but after exploring all of the options it becomes simple. All orange text fields are adjustable, just click to change them!

  • Course – Choose between all available courses. Each course has different terrain types and characteristics to make it unique
  • Profile – Pick any character created in the Career menu. Experience earned while practicing is applied directly to the selected profile
  • Mode – Full 18 is a standard round of golf, while Practice allows each hole to be played as many times, in any order, and gives unlimited mulligans
  • Difficulty – Choose the perfect challenge for you
    • Beginner – Slow wind. White/blue/green tees available
    • Amateur – Average wind. Blue/green tees available
    • Pro – Fastest wind. Green tees available
  • Tees – Adjusts the length of the course. Green tees typically play 20% longer than the blue tees, which already play 20% longer than the white tees
  • Pins – Each hole has four possible pin locations. Typically D is the most challenging, followed by C, B, then A
  • Discs – Choose a number of discs based on the profile’s level. Each disc has different flight characteristics
    • Speed: The discs ability to cut through the air with little resistance. Beginners may notice that they throw low to mid speed discs just as far as high speed discs. This is because high speed discs require a certain threshold of power to create the necessary lift for optimal distance.
    • Glide: The discs ability to create lift. Too much lift will rob the discs of it’s speed, converting kinetic to potential energy. Too little will prevent the disc from staying airborne long enough to travel far
    • Stability: The discs tendency to turn over, a simplification of the some very complex physics going on in the throw. A positive number is considered over-stable and will turn heavily to the left initially. A negative number is considered under-stable and will turn heavily to the right initially. All discs will eventually turn to the left towards the end of the flight. Note this is for right hand backhand (RHBH) throws, everything is reversed for forehand and left-handed throws!
  • Disc Quality – Choose which distance/fairway/midway/putters to use. Choices are limited to available discs purchased from the Pro Shop

Gameplay

The objective of Disc Golf 3D is to get the disc into the basket in as few throws as possible. A shot can be broken down into four phase: Planning, Shot Select, Disc Flight, and Post Shot

  • Planning – Gather knowledge of the upcoming shot and plan accordingly
    • Center Screen – The estimated flight path is shown as a series of discs, with a white landing zone at the end. This is a best case scenario that accounts for disc, wind, and any fade/draw/loft/punch modifiers. The larger the landing zone sphere, the larger uncertainty in the throw
    • Top Left Screen – Distance to hole, and any vertical distance to compensate for. The disc carry distance is listed directly beneath. This yardage is an ideal case, both a low accuracy stat and low quality discs cause random variation from this ideal distance
    • Bottom Left Screen- Wind speed/direction. This updates after each shot, no need to sit and wait for the wind to change
      • Wind plays a more significant role in disc golf compared to conventional golf. Headwinds make the disc act more under-table and can cause them to draw more, while tailwinds make the disc more over-stable causing them to fade more. The large surface area on discs can also causes crosswinds to move the discs significantly, especially if they angle over sideways
    • Bottom Right Screen – Hole minimap. The ball flight path is estimated along with the landing zone, similar to the flight path in the center of the screen
    • Top Left Screen – Shot modifiers
      • Disc – Switch between available discs
      • Fade – Angles the disc to the left (for backhand throws)
      • Draw – Angles the disc to the right (for backhand throws)
      • Loft – Increases the trajectory of the shot
      • Punch – Decreases the trajectory of the shot
    • Half-Power – While close to the green half power shots can be used for more precision
    • Backhand/Forehand – Choose how the discs is thrown. Forehand reverses the spin on the discs, reversing disc stability and curve directions.
    • The angle of which the disc lies on the ground effects the above modifiers
      • A slope going down towards the flight path increases punch while a slope going up towards the flight path increases loft
    • The View button gives several different views of the hole from various locations
  • Shot Select
    • Now you’re ready to hit the ball (Space Bar on OSX, Throw button iOS). The first press will reveal the Power Meter. The teal area near the top represents 100% power, the red above represents an over throw and will reduce power. The number at the top of the power bar is the ideal carry of the selected disc. For shots where the disc has more than enough power to make it to the pin, a second number shows up below the maximum distance. This is the location on the power bar that should get the ball to land close to the pin
    • Next the accuracy bar appears. Always try to land in the middle, any variation will cause the disc to randomly push/pull and fade/draw. Poor accuracy selection also decreases shot power
    • Both the power and accuracy bar speeds can be slowed by increasing the profile accuracy stat.
  • Disc Flight
    • Once the disc is in the air sit back and enjoy the shot
    • Going in the water results in a one stroke penalty and the disc is placed at the last flat non-water location. Fortunately lost discs are free, unlike in real life!
    • Going out of bounds is a one stroke penalty and the disc is placed where it was last thrown. There are no stakes marking OB, it is generally a few hundred yards away from any point of interest
  • Post Shot
    • The top right hand of the screen shots actual throw distance, broken down into the carry and roll portions
    • The throw flight may be viewed over again using the Replay button
    • One free redo per round is permitted with the Mulligan button, use it wisely!
    • In rare instances the disc may become impossible to throw. Use the Unplayable Lie button to move the ball back to an acceptable spot to drop, taking a one stroke penalty
    • Both the game scorecard and tournament results are visible with the Score button

Career

The career menu allows for custom profiles to be created and progressed through a series of tournaments, earning experience and pro shop credits along the way.

  • The Active profile can be changed by clicking the Profile text
  • Profiles can be managed using the Add/Delete Profile buttons. A maximum of eight unique profiles are available.
  • Name changes are made by pressing the Name text
  • Appearance can be customized by pressing the Height/Weight/Shoes/Shirt/Pants/Shirt/Sex text.
  • Experience is used to improve each profile
    • Power – How hard the disc is thrown
    • Accuracy – How much random variation is added to each throw. Slows down the power/accuracy bar speeds
    • Backhand – Equal to one additional point in power and accuracy when backhand shots are used
    • Forehand – Equal to one additional point in power and accuracy when forehand shots are used
    • Spin/Focus – Increases disc spin, flattening flight paths and reducing head/tailwind effects. Slows down power/accuracy bar speed
    • As stats rise they cost more experience to increases. Enhance the Stats that best suit your play style. Be sure to create new profiles and experiment with different player types. Power, finess, etc
    • Experience is earned by completing rounds, finishing holes at or under par, or through In-App Purchase
  • Tournaments are used to gain pro shop credit and to gain status as an elite professional disc golfer
    • The Start button advances to the upcoming tournament round. A pre game menu will appear with round specific information and options
    • The Tournament Progress button lists all events, their status, pay, and results
    • The top half of the field advances to the next event and earns credits. The bottom half has to repeat the same event
    • Pay is calculated by the formula Payout = 1stPlacePay * ((players-rank+1)/players)^2. This format pays deep into the field, for example placing 24th out of 80 still results in 50% of the 1st place compensation!
    • Tournaments can be ended using the Concede Tournament button

Pro Shop

In addition to leveling up profile stats, the pro shop provides another method to improve shots. Everything in the pro shop can be purchased with credits earned from the career mode or through In-App Purchase.

  • Discs
    • Each category has various brands that have various performance characteristics. As cost increases so does weight and accuracy
    • Weight has the potential to increase distance, but the profile must have sufficient power to take advantage of the additional weight. A brand new profile will lose distance throwing a 180g disc while a maxed out profile will notice a significant increase in distance
    • When in game credits are used each set must be upgraded one level at a time
    • When In-App Purchase is used then all qualities for a given set are purchased together
  • In the pre game menu, the highest level discs level is selected by default. This can be changed, for example when using different profiles it may be beneficial to use a lower quality disc
  • In the future expect to see a variety of items, including new courses, new discs, special power ups, and more!

Achievements/Scores

The Achievements screen is profile specific, to change active profile click the Profile text. On the iOS platform and Mac OS 10.8 Gamecenter is available, which provides a list of app-wide achievements to shoot for and social networking features

  • Achievement Notes
    • Driving Accuracy – Tee shot lands on fairway/green on the first shot
    • Double Eagle – Also known as an Albatross, shooting three under par on a hole. The ultimate shot in golf, more rare than a hole in one

The Scores screen is course specific, to change the active course click the Course text. On the iOS platform and Mac OS 10.8 Gamecenter leader boards are available, which provide online best round lists and social networking

Preferences

Customize Disc Golf 3D in the preference screen. iOS users have access to less options than Mac Users due to the narrow hardware selection. Since Macs vary so much in hardware all of the graphics settings are customizable to allow for the best image quality/speed settings. To get the game to run smoother turn down the graphics settings and reduce the size of the game window

  • (Both) Sound – Sound effects
  • (Both) Music – In game and menu soundtrack
  • (Both) Tutorial – General instructions on how to play. Turns off after completing a round
  • (Both) Ambient – Noises from time to time, such as lawn mowers, planes, and various birds
  • (Mac) Grass – How many grass blades and how far back they are displayed
  • (Mac) Water – How detailed the water geometry is
  • (Mac) Shadows – How many objects cast shadows
  • (Mac) Reflections – How detailed water reflections are
  • (Mac) Anti-Aliasing – Eliminates jagged lines and pixelation
  • (Mac) Texture Filtering – Creates more detail on far away terrain textures and objects at oblique angles
  • (Mac) Terrain – How detailed the terrain geometry is
  • (Mac) Trees – High or low quality tree models
  • (Mac) Retina – Enable retina display support. Large performance hit with first generation models

Additional Resources

Check out the Disc Golf 3D Forum for more information and to discuss the game with other players and the developers!

Tips

See our Forum Thread

System Requirements

  • iOS
    • iPhone 3GS+, iPad, or iPod Touch (3rd Generation+)
    • iOS System Version 4.3+
  • Macintosh
    • Mac OS 10.6.8+, CPU Speed – 2.2 GHz, Memory – 2GB+, Video Ram –  256MB+
    • Recommended: Mac OS 10.7+, CPU Speed – 2.5 GHz, Memory – 4GB+, Video Ram –  512MB+
    • Notice: The following integrated video chipsets are not supported – Intel GMA 950 and Intel GMA X3100. These are found in the Mac Mini(2006, 2007), iMac(2006), Macbook(2006, 2007, 2008), and Macbook Air(2008). The following video chipsets may require lower graphics setting and/or may run slower than anticipated in certain circumstances – ATI Radeon X1600, NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT. Experiment with the settings screen to find the best quality/speed balance for your individual system.

Credits

  • Jake Leveto – Programming , Course Design
  • Riley Hearn – 3D Modeling
  • Joseph Krzemienski – Creative Director
  • Paul Corvaisier – Music

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