Resort Boss: Golf is a slightly modernized take on the SimGolf formula but it lacks the same charm. Still a game worth checking out if you’re a fan of simulation games.
Type: Single-player
Genre: Simulation, Sports
Developer: Gus Martin
Publisher: Excalibur Games
Release date: 14 February, 2019
Intro
Resort Boss: Golf is a simulation game that puts you in control of a golf-themed country club. It’s similar in style to one of my favorite simulation games, Sid Meier’s SimGolf but Resort Boss: Golf has a few modernizations which we’ll get into shortly. If this sounds like something you’d be interested in, do read on since there’s quite a bit to the game.
Game Modes
Currently, Resort Boss: Golf has 3 major game modes. The first is the sandbox mode, which is common in simulation games. Sandbox mode allows you to create a custom game mode with no restrictions. When creating a sandbox game, you can choose various starting parameters such as resort size, its tileset, type of terrain, and which created boss you wish to play as. You can also choose to generate trees for your new game or not by ticking a box. Pretty standard stuff as far as sandbox modes go.
The second game mode is scenarios, another simulation game staple. The base game features a total of 5 scenarios but you can also create your own or you can get some in the game’s recently released Steam Workshop. Sadly, when I went in search of their workshop it wasn’t available so it might be being worked on as it was recently released in an update in February. Like any scenario, the missions have special win conditions that you must meet and each is more difficult than the last. We’ll talk about the scenario editor shortly.
The third and final game mode is the game’s campaign mode which grants you $100,000 to create a successful golf course. It’s recommended that you not use it all at once as it runs out quickly if you aren’t careful. Campaign mode also grants the ability to buy and sell golf resorts to build a golfing empire.
Golfer, Scenario, and Building Editors.
Resort Boss: Golf gives you a surprising amount of freedom in how you wish to design your resort. You can create your own boss, scenarios, buildings, and resorts from scratch and we’ll talk a little about each in this section.
The golfer creator allows you to create your own custom character to play as when you wish to test out your golf holes yourself. In the editor, you can choose the golfer’s type (Boss, Golfer or VIP), skin color, hat, hair (Head), torso, and bottom. You can also choose their attributes as well including strength, accuracy, vision, creativity, and control. Each attribute has varying effects on how well the golfer plays. You can choose to max out all of the stats to 20 each if you wanted to as well.
The scenario editor allows you to create custom scenarios that you can share on the game’s workshop, once it’s back up and running. The first step to creating a scenario is to choose the size of the resort, tileset, terrain and whether to generate trees or not. Similarly to sandbox mode. Once the game loads your map you can then edit the scenario as you see fit by creating a course first and choosing the parameters for the scenario in question. In the scenario options screen, you can choose the scenario name, resort name, starting funds, start/end date, goals, and limitations. The goals for completion can include any of 6 choices including worker count, hole count, member count, money count, VIP count, and resort value. All of the limitations are on by default and can be turned off as you so choose. Some limitations include the ability to take loans, placing trees/water/buildings, modifying terrain and a couple of others. Once your scenario is complete you can save it for future play.
The building editor allows you to, very easily, create your own custom buildings to use in the game. These buildings are all created from scratch but the game utilizes a very simple method of doing so. The difficult part is creating rooms that align with your doors. To create a building, you start by laying down flooring, then choosing walls, and then placing rooms within these walls. There are 8 types of buildings that you can build including a clubhouse, restaurant, staff room, pro shop, and hotel, to name a couple. These are pretty standard things for a golf course to have.
Resort Editor
The final area of Resort Boss: Golf to talk about is pretty much our gameplay section because the resort editor is what you’ll be using the most in the game. Once you begin a new game, you might be a little daunted by all the things that are available to you when running your resort. Even the tutorial doesn’t show you everything that the game utilizes but I’ll give a quick run-down of each area.
The first area is your building editor, we talked about this before, but one thing I didn’t mention is that the game comes with a couple of prefab (Already built) buildings that you can place if you’re feeling lazy. Not everything in the game has a prefab building though so you’ll still need to create many of the buildings in the game.
Next is the hole builder. This is one of the major parts of creating your resort. The number of holes that you can have at any given time depends on the current size of your resort. A tiny resort can only have up to 3 holes, that is until you expand your territory. The hole builder is pretty simple to use though. Firstly, you need to place the tee and the hole far apart from each other. It’s recommended that you place them as far apart as humanly possible because having them too close will make them too easy for many golfers. Once this is done, you can move on to landscaping by placing down tiles such as the fairway, green, rough, dirt, and grass. After this is done you can place down various hazards such as water and bunkers. You’re also given the ability to alter the terrain as well. The objective when creating a hole is to have the difficulty and risk at least 5.0. You do this by altering the terrain, landscape, and hazards to make the hole more difficult and risky. It’s much easier to do this when you have a larger resort to work with though.
Thirdly is the scenery editor. Here you can place various types of trees to make your course look better. Sadly, trees are the only type of scenery you’ll be able to add in this game, which is a bit disappointing I will admit.
Fourth is the utility section where you can purchase and place down things like vending machines, benches and lamp posts. There’s also a pathing section which allows you to place… paths, as the name suggests.
The fifth is the resort expansion button. You start gaining permits to construct new buildings when you reach level 10. These allow you to purchase more room for your resort. There’s also a tournament organizer where you can set up a tournament on your course. You can set an entrance fee, prize pool, and your tournament course.
Finally, you can also purchase animals to live in your resort in the animal manager. There are quite a few to choose from including foxes, alligators, pigs, ducks, and turtles, to name a couple.
Verdict
Truth be told, as much as I really, really, wanted to enjoy this game simply because I’m such an immense fan of Sid Meier’s SimGolf, I ultimately found this game a bit lacking by comparison. I do like some of the modernizations that Resort Boss: Golf has such as constructing buildings from scratch and terrain manipulation but I’m sad to say that the game lacks the charm that Sid Meier’s SimGolf has. I’ve also found this game to be a little buggy at times as well with one golfer’s ball dropping below the map preventing anyone else from progressing which forced me to start a new game. Sadly, I’m going to pause on this one. It’s a decent enough game by itself but it’s no Sid Meier’s SimGolf and if you were expecting it to be, then you’ll likely be disappointed here. If you’ve never played, or even heard of, SimGolf then you’ll find a pretty fun experience here. This one depends on the player more than anything so I let you be the judge. And I hope that if you do give the game a try, you enjoy it more than I did.
