How to play Miniature Golf online
- Position the club: arrow keys
- Hit the ball: Space bar
- Player 2 (in the two-player game): T/F/G/H to move the club, A to hit
- Choose one or two players: F11 (the console’s Select switch)
- Start a new game: F12 (the console’s Reset switch)
- Longer shots (difficulty A): F4 for Player 1, F9 for Player 2
- Save and load your progress: Ctrl + 0–9 saves to a slot, Alt + 0–9 loads it
Gameplay
You see each hole from above. At the start of a hole the club, a square, sits right on top of the ball, a smaller square. Your first job is to move the club away from the ball. The direction you pull it in sets the line of the shot, because the ball travels along the line from the club to the ball. The distance sets the power: the further away you place the club, the further the ball rolls. The club slows down when it is close to the ball, which helps with delicate putts.
You can place the club anywhere on the screen, even outside the course walls, but the ball itself has to find its way around the walls and the moving obstacles. Each hit counts as one stroke. There is no limit on strokes, but every hole has a par, the number of strokes a good player should need. Before your first stroke the hole number is shown at the top left and the par at the top right; after that, the top of the screen shows your running score. The lowest total after nine holes wins.
Game 1 is for one player. In Game 2, two players take turns, with the left player going first, and each must sink the ball before play moves on. The difficulty switch works as a handicap: in position A the ball rolls much further for the same swing, so control becomes harder.
Tips
- Think like a pool player. Many holes are easier if you bank the ball off a wall rather than aiming straight at the cup.
- Mind the edge of the screen. The club cannot leave the screen, so near the border you may not be able to pull back far enough for a full-power shot. Plan your approach so the ball does not end up stuck against the edge.
- Time the moving obstacles. Watch one pass before you hit, so the ball arrives when the gap is open.
- Start on difficulty B. Position A makes every shot roll much further and is best left until you know the holes.
History
Miniature Golf shows how new 2600 programming still was at the time: the club, ball, cup and obstacles are all plain squares. According to AtariProtos, Atari stopped selling it in 1979, at around the same time it dropped another early title, Star Ship. The box art was painted by Cliff Spohn, who went to a real miniature golf course and photographed it for reference. Later reviewers were often harsh about the look. In his book Classic Home Video Games 1972–1984, Brett Weiss said it had “some of the worst graphics in the history of video games”. Later the game was included on Atari’s 32 in 1 cartridge, which was sold outside the United States.
Similar games to play next
- Golf – Atari’s full-size golf game from the same era
- Trick Shot – Imagic’s billiards game, if you enjoy banking shots off walls
- My Golf – a much later golf cartridge from HES
- 32 in 1 – the Atari compilation that includes this game