If you played and enjoyed Corporate Salmon, Narcissus, or SHUMP, or very much into hyper-casual games that offer an enjoyable yet relaxing experience, then Alexander Johansson’s latest offering on the App Store, 100% Golf, may just be the right game for you.
With hundreds of different golf games flooding the mobile gaming scene, 100% Golf’s uniquely simplified graphics and gameplay mechanics makes it so that everyone can learn to play it in a matter of minutes. Presented with a nostalgic 8-bit graphics and audio, 100% Golf can quickly give you a sense of ease as its evident simplicity tends to leave very little room for distractions. Mastering the game takes a lot of practice and patience, though, as each shot counts all the way from the first to the ninth hole.
There are no tutorials included in 100% Golf although the controls and gameplay are easy enough to understand. There are neither different golf clubs nor air that would impact how each shot is made. As each course is two-dimensional to the core and confined to the edges of your screen, there are only a few details you need to look into to keep getting better at your game.
If you are having a hard time keeping a consistent good score or if you are looking for more efficient ways to sink shots, then check out our 100% Golf beginner’s guide. With the help of our tips, cheats and strategies you will certainly be able to reach high scores and break charts.
1. Every Percent Counts
If you are wondering why the game’s title is 100% Golf, the perhaps you will get what makes it unique before completing a course or at least very soon after. For each hole, you have 100% power and you need to manage it well as each shot you make reduces that power depending on how strong or weak your shots are.
Striking the golf ball is done with a slingshot method and as you hold and pull towards one end of the screen and release your hold, the golf ball will propel to the opposite end. As you pull and any time before you release your hold, you can swipe left or right to adjust the direction of your shot.
The maximum power you can use is, of course, 100% but if you do, that will leave you with 0% or 0 points at the end of the hole. The idea is to sink the ball utilizing as little power percentage as possible and the less power used on each hole, the better. Running out of energy before putting the ball ends your run for that hole and having the ball touch any water hazard also ends you with 0%.
Like any golf game, though, a bad performance in one hole does not end your run and is also something you should not be stressed about as the totality of your performance comes after you finish the ninth hole. The case will always be that you will perform better in some holes than others but in no case will you be able to finish a hole with 100% power.
Without air or different golf clubs at your disposal, every shot you make only follows a straight line and, on top of friction, only obstacles along the way stand between you and the hole. So naturally, each hole is designed in such a way that you do not need to expend the entire 100%. Rather, the game provides various ways and approaches for you to finish a hole and it is up to you to determine the most efficient way to do so, meaning the lowest power consumption.
2. Take As Much Time As You Need
Like any other golf game, 100% Golf is a game of patience above all else. The basic mechanics may be different from other golf games, but the key requisites of patience and precision remain. For that matter, patience can influence precision and since there are no time limits within which you must take a shot, you should feel free to take halts in-between each shot to assess the surroundings, determine the best course of action, and implement your strategy with much care.
Again, there are many ways to take the golf ball all the way into the hole and before you even take the first shot, you should consider each and every viable option. For one, there are choices to make with regard to using 50% power in one shot as against using 25% power in two shots. With this simple dichotomy, you will always have to think beyond and consider all possible options that ends with 25 1% shots. Beyond power, mapping out the best path to take should also come before making the actual shot.
It can take a lot of time to actually have each shot result the exact same way how you planned it. With some practice, as well as taking note of the power and angle you use with each shot, you will soon be able to master it. The golf ball will always travel a straight line but often, the best and shortest way to the hole is a series of small straight shots that make it look like the ball will travel curves along the greens.
3. Fairways, Bunkers, Water Hazards, And Trees
You can imagine each hole or stage in 100% as flat and very 2-dimensional. The golf ball only rolls across the flat fairways and bunkers or sandtraps, water hazards, and trees are all at the same level. Unlike conventional golf courses in most other golf games, the speed at which your ball travels is consistent under the same power invested in the shot across the entire fairway.
As there are no going over any of the given obstacles, the ball will tremendously slow down anywhere within the bunkers or sand traps. As much as possible, you should avoid having your ball travel through bunkers and go around it instead. There will naturally be instances when you will be left with no other choice but to traverse the bunker to get to the hole. The best tactic in such instances is to roll the ball close to the bunker first before launching a shot that is stronger than you usual to travel the needed distance.
Although water hazards in all other golf games are bad enough and adds a count to your shots, it is even more punishing in 100% Golf. One your golf ball touches just the edge of any water in the level, you will instantly lose further shots, get a score of 0% or 0, and be taken immediately to the next hole. The thing is, there will be a lot of holes that provide very narrow paths in-between bodies of water that seems designed to lure you into taking the risk.
For starters, though, you should choose the safer, longer path and only take on the more challenging hazards once you have a solid enough grip of your shots. Keep in mind that finishing a hole with even a 5% score is better than water hazard fails.
Trees in perhaps all other golf games can make it very challenging for any shot to cross through and, typically as well, areas where trees are laid are rougher areas at the boundaries of fairways, making it harder to get the ball out of it. In 100% Golf, trees can block your shots but once you start to tap and hold the screen, the leaves will disappear giving you a much better view of the path underneath the leaves. In essence, you only need to avoid contact with the bark of the trees as the ball will pass underneath the leaves, making the huge space occupied by tress seem like an illusion.
Considering the workaround on trees and the underlying shortcuts it can provide you on your succeeding runs, be sure to always take advantage of it and work your way around the trunks if possible. As it may be a challenge to hold the screen to see the barks before you make adjustments to your shots, you can always assume that barks are at the center of the bigger circle, even without needing to hold the screen.
4. Rotating Your Device Can Help Your Aim
Each of the 27 holes across the 3 courses is essentially static as you cannot adjust views and perspectives within the game. With holes situated in different locations and with each shot resulting in a different angle from the hole or the next area you need to get to, you are somewhat required to take shots from different angles, which is difficult to pull especially if you maintain your device in a constant position.
One trick you can do to make each shot easier is to adjust your device’s orientation to try and make each shot consistent. Instead of pulling at various degrees and trying to release shots consistently, the easiest way to do it is pulling down on your screen to make a shot go upwards. Feel free to tilt your device in such a way that you can pull straight down on it to launch the golf ball straight up. It may take some time to get used to but once you make a habit out of it, your performance with each shot will certainly improve.
5. Pull Back Away From The Ball
For a lot of games in the mobile gaming market that requires you to swipe or touch and hold, there is always a preconceived notion that you need to do so on top of the character or object where the action should apply. While doing so may not be remotely harmful in some games, it can make your game a lot more difficult in 100% Golf.
Whenever you touch and hold the screen as you pull back to invest more power into a shot, the percentage of power will be shown right underneath the golf ball. If you pull back on your screen right on top of the golf ball, it will be very difficult or even impossible to see the numbers. As we mentioned earlier, every bit of percentage counts so estimations as to how much power you are putting on a shot just does not cut it if you are going for a high score.
You should keep in mind that you can touch and hold on any part of the screen for absolutely the same effect. For some, it can be a little distracting when you hold and swipe down far from the golf ball, adjust the power of the shot or perhaps even the direction of the shot. Doing so, however, in combination with adjusting your device to make each shot a perfectly vertical one will make it much easier. If you can, choose to swipe away not just from the golf ball the path itself as you should always take note of how to improve that shot on succeeding attempts.
6. Your Initial Goal Should Be To Complete Each Hole
Even if you are an experience golf player in video games, or even in real life, 100% Golf’s simple yet unique mechanics takes some time and practice of getting used to. While scores or average ratings for each course is important not just for bragging rights but to unlock the other courses as well as the endless mode, it is important to set the bar a little lower for your initial playthroughs.
For starters, do not worry as much yet on the most efficient use of power for your first few tries. Your focus first would be to complete each hole with even just a 1% score at the end of it. That means that you will avoid water hazards at all cost, or even steer clear of sand traps as much as you can to save every bit of power on the fairways.
Once you have played consistently enough and manage to secure a score of at least 1% on each hole, then that would be the time to consider raising each of those scores and perhaps even considering riskier moves just to shorten the path from the teeing ground all the way to the hole. Keep in mind that some holes are simply designed to be more challenging than others and the hole number does not necessarily indicate the difficulty of the stage.
7. Take Note Of Each Shot
Although we have mentioned it before, taking note of each shot you make is a very important task to do if you really want to set great records. It goes well beyond simply knowing the series of shots to make all the way to the hole but rather, keeping specific percentages of power you need to invest in each shot to sink it in the hole requires memorization or actual notes for you to at least earn some consistent solid points.
As an example, the first hole in course one is the simplest hole in the game. You can make a hole in one with 49% power and can sink it as well with anything more. Of course, if you are striving for high average percentages you will always want to be done with the first hole using only 49% power, generating a 51% score and a 5% overall score for the course.
On the second hole, there is no straight path towards the hole so the least amount of strokes you can do to bank your shot is 2. The best way is to naturally let the golf ball slide as close to the left bunker as you can without touching it. Any amount of power to have the pass the bunker and have a straight path towards the hole works almost the same way.
You can try a 40% power on your first shot and an 18% power for your second shot. While the distance of the holes on the first and second stage are practically the same, you should know that you will need to exhaust more power since the path you will travel on the latter stage is not as straight as the first one.
With each level staying exactly the same across all your playthroughs, taking note of each shot you make on each stage will eventually lead to a better performance on each one. Again, it will require a lot of patience but that is just what any golf game is and if you practice with these methods, you are guaranteed to bank a high score one after another.
8. Quick Reset To Start Off Perfectly
If you are already reaching to break records and would want a score higher than your previous one, the best way to go about each playthrough is to start out right, or perfectly, to leave little room for variance in the remaining holes. 100% Golf makes it so that you can quickly restart a game anytime while you are playing and while that feature is something you can easily overlook or ignore, it is an important key to breaking high scores.
For example, you can set the bar high easy enough on the first course by using only 49% power on the firt hole and 58% power on the second one. As both feats should relatively be easy to do at this point in time, you should be consistent enough to always be able to do it each game. If you fail to do so, then simply hit the pause button at the top of the screen and click on the home button, choose to play the same course again and hope to be able to finish both holes perfectly.
You can choose to continue playing regardless of how you perform on the third hole and subsequent stages or you can reset after the third hole until you have earned a satisfactory score that you can consistently repeat. As you keep on repeating this process, you will soon find yourself mastering each hole in the first course, one after another, then that would be the time to move on and dominate the next course.
9. You Can Play 100% Golf Offline
Video ads have long since been an important part of most free-to-play mobile games. While some players may still not get the rationale behind it, it is important to note that free games need to profit too for their developers to be able to keep the game running and available for everyone to enjoy. This is especially the case for casual games that offer little to no microtransactions to the public and would largely, if not exclusively, rely on the existence of video ads to sustain the game’s existence and further development.
Although some games earn a reputation for lodging too many adverts in their games that pop up almost every step of the way, 100% Golf actually only plays 2 short video ads as you play each 9-hole course. If the ads distract you from performing at your peak on each hole, or if you simply want to play without any sort of interruptions, then you should simply turn your Wi-Fi or mobile data off as you launch the game.
Keep in mind, however, that staying offline will prevent you from registering your high score at the leaderboards. If you played and enjoyed 100% Golf, then the least you can do is play the game online and let those short video ads slide.
And that sums up all we have for you on our 100% Golf beginner’s guide. We certainly hope that you enjoyed every bit of tips and strategies we shared with you and that you will be readily able to apply each one on your subsequent runs. If you have played 100% Golf extensively or perhaps even broke our records for the first 2 holes, feel free to share your tips and strategies with us!
jonathan
Saturday 27th of June 2020
Love it