Every hole in Linkside is a small grid course. You roll for distance, drag to
aim, and thread the ball from the tee to the cup in as few strokes as you can. There is no
swing meter and no timing element - each shot is a decision, and you can take as long as you
like over it.
Par is 6 on every hole. Rounds are 9 or 18 holes.
Taking a shot
Roll. Tap ROLL to draw your distance for this stroke - a
number from 1 to 6. The dice are genuinely random, so every round has some luck in it.
Aim. Drag out from the ball. Your aim line snaps to the nearest of
eight directions - four straight, four diagonal - as your finger moves.
Read the line. The line shows exactly where the ball will come to rest:
white if the shot is legal, gold with a flag if it sinks,
red with an X if something blocks the path.
Release. Releasing on a legal aim plays the shot. Releasing on a blocked
aim simply cancels - nothing is wasted.
A plain tap never fires a shot, so you can tap around the course safely. If you start a drag
and change your mind, drag back to the ball: a red dashed ring and an X appear, and releasing
there cancels the shot while keeping your roll.
Because a finger tends to cover the ball, an aim readout sits at the top of
the course showing your direction, the effective distance after terrain, and whether the shot is
legal, blocked, or a hole-out.
Distance and terrain
Your roll is only the starting number. Where the ball is lying changes how far it
actually travels, and what it is allowed to travel over.
Terrain
Effect on your shot
Rough
The default lie. Full driving distance, but -1 when you putt out of it.
Fairway
+1 distance, and shots played from the fairway may fly over trees.
Sand trap
-1 distance on every shot, drives and putts alike. Strictly worse than rough.
Trees
You cannot land on a tree, and your path cannot cross one - unless the shot started on fairway.
Water
You cannot land in water, but a shot may travel safely straight over it.
Slopes
Arrows that push the ball one space after it lands. See below.
That gives a clean hierarchy worth playing toward: fairway is better than rough, and
rough is better than sand. Fairway is the only lie that lets you carry a tree line, which
is often the difference between a direct route and going the long way around a dogleg.
Slopes
Landing on a slope shifts the ball one space in the arrow's direction.
Slopes chain - the ball keeps rolling through consecutive arrows until it
reaches a tile that is not a slope.
A slope that would push the ball into water is ignored.
Two arrows pointing at each other cancel out - the ball stops after the first move.
The edge of the course
A shot that would carry the ball off the grid stops on the last square in bounds instead of
being disallowed. The boundary behaves like a soft wall, so a big roll in a tight spot never
leaves you stuck without a legal shot.
Putting
Near the green, switch to Putt for careful, controlled finishes. The Putt
button glows once the ball is within three tiles of the cup.
In putt mode you drag to choose one or two tiles - drag length picks the
distance, drag angle picks the direction.
Putts ignore the fairway bonus.
Putting out of sand or rough costs -1, so a putt from either moves at most
one tile.
Tap In: when the ball is directly beside the cup - any of the eight
neighbouring squares - the Putt button becomes a single-press Tap In that sinks it immediately.
No drag needed. It still counts as one stroke.
Putting exists to solve a specific frustration: rolling a 6 from two tiles out and
sailing past the pin. If you are close, stop rolling and start putting.
Sinking the ball and scoring
Landing exactly on the cup holes out.
Passing through the cup only drops if your path overshoots by exactly
one space. Overshoot by more and the ball rolls on past.
Your score is your total number of strokes. Par is 6 per hole, and your running total
against par is shown in the top bar.
The cup is always generated at least two tiles from every edge, so a shot that clamps against
the boundary can never accidentally drop. Sinking the ball always takes a genuine
distance-controlled shot or a putt.
Mulligans and the free tee reroll
You start with 5 Mulligans in a 9-hole round and 10 in an
18-hole round, carried across the whole round.
A Mulligan lets you re-take a stroke you would like back.
Separately, you get one free reroll on the tee shot - but you must keep the
second roll.
Mulligans are deliberately capped so that every player tops out at the same ceiling and score
comparisons stay fair.
A few tips
Play for the lie, not just the distance. Ending on fairway is often worth
more than ending closer, because fairway gives +1 and lets you carry trees next shot.
Trees are the real puzzle. Most holes are built as corridors and doglegs.
Look for the fairway route that opens a carry rather than forcing a path through the gap.
Water is a road, not just a wall. You cannot land in it, but you can fly
over it - a carry across a lake is frequently the shortest line.
Get out of sand first. Sand costs a stroke's worth of distance on
everything. Escaping to rough or fairway usually beats grinding a short shot from the bunker.
Watch for the fox. A rare hidden fox appears on roughly one hole in
fourteen. Tap it for a Coin - it has no effect on your score.