gonna skip the spanish inquisition bit and say this game combines not one, two, etc. but several of my least favorite things. sports (though digital golf and minigolf are sometimes okay), chess (technically a sport but come on), fog of war (I like to be aware of my surroundings) and mobile or browser ports (they tend to be lazy and/or overpriced). quite a handicap (golf term) but there are other major dealbreakers, worse than these.
no hotkeys whatsoever, no dark mode, and since it's a puzzle(ish) game, [b]no undo is unacceptable[/b]. though there's not much puzzling, it's all blind luck. you can see stroke history and an animated depiction of what transpired once the level is over, that's it. settings are a single volume slider (no music, so it's fine), a windowed mode toggle (not saved, it always starts in a window) and another to show available moves. there are also stats and an in-game achievements screen.
as for the gameplay, chess pieces act as limited-use golf clubs, on top of the whole level being limited to a few moves, only revealed at the end, with par shown upfront. click a tile, select from what's available (hitting diagonally won't allow a pawn, for instance) and reveal more of the grid. there's grass and sand (not golf terms), water and trees, limiting visibility and ball movement. all this is explained on startup or whenever the ? icon is clicked.
while it only offers a single daily level, no campaign or anything, the daily archive goes back to the dark ages. supposedly, as [b]there is no level select screen, gotta click 'previous hole' a billion times[/b]. bring up a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ calendar and let me pick a date, like in every daily-based mobile game ever. insult to injury, [b]starting the game lands on the current day even if it's already finished, instead of the last unplayed one[/b]. a 'last unplayed' button would already be an improvement, no point in going previous one by one until I happen upon a new one.
further insult to an already fatally injured specimen: [b]levels can't be replayed[/b]. I don't give a ♥♥♥♥ about stats and sharing my score, why won't you let people play your game properly? arguably, if you already know where the hole is, there's not much point, but nobody's gonna remember (let's say, haven't checked) hundreds of levels. there's a clear progress option (and import and export) but I don't want to wipe everything, just bring up level select that doesn't exist and try some of them again at some point.
oh, and while the store page says 'no un-skippable video ads', there's a big-ass banner for their next game stuck in the corner that can't be turned off. I saw it, not interested, ♥♥♥♥ off. [b]the same exact game is available in a browser where you can adblock the sucker[/b], so unless you're married to meaningless steam achievements, there's no point in playing this here.
