Desert Golfing
Developer(s)Blinkbat Games
Publisher(s)Blinkbat Games
Designer(s)Justin Smith
Platform(s)Windows, macOS, iOS, Android
ReleaseiOS, Android
August 6, 2014
Windows, macOS
December 19, 2017
Genre(s)Sports
Mode(s)Single-player

Desert Golfing is a minimalist golf video game developed and published by Canadian indie studio Blinkbat Games and released on August 6, 2014, for iOS and Android,[1] and on December 19, 2017, for Windows and macOS.[2] It received positive reception from critics for its addictive gameplay and simplicity. In July 2020, Smith, now operating under the studio name Captain Games, released a follow-up titled Golf on Mars, featuring new control options and course generation variety.[3]

Gameplay

The game takes place in an endless side-scrolling desert, where the player can shoot a golf ball using a one finger swipe to determine direction and power.[4] The entirety of the "golf course" is made of sand, making the physics of the golf ball more difficult to predict and control, as if from a bunker.[4] The goal is to make the golf ball reach each hole in the fewest shots, but when this happens the game continues with a new, pseudorandomly generated course.[4] Therefore, the game seemingly never ends, and the score is ultimately solely dependent on how long the player plays the game.[4]

Development

The setting of Desert Golfing was inspired by the mention of Journey in a Gamasutra article about art games and their penchant for making walking simulators.[5] The game's creator, Justin Smith, said that while those types of games bored him, he thought it would be interesting to make such a game with a more immediate challenge.[5] He also compared it to the game Desert Bus.[5] Smith stated that he did not realize people would be so invested in the game and would have put more thought into making the later holes more different if he had known,[6] or adding a true ending.[5]

Each hole in the game is procedurally generated,[5] but with human orchestrated constraints that slowly introduce new gameplay aspects,[7] as well as environmental features and color palette changes, possibly representing a day-night cycle, as the game goes on.[7] The holes after 2000+ become harder[5] and used to be impossible at some point, giving the game an unintentional ending.[8] The game has since been updated to prevent the random generation of impossible holes, and to eventually have an ending[9] on hole 10,001.

Reception

Tom Bramwell of Eurogamer rated the game 9/10 and gave it the "Recommended" award, calling it "wonderfully sparse" and "an art game take on [...] mobile sports rubbish".[6] He called the control and physics "superb", and said that it succeeded equally well as an art game and as a fun video game.[6]

Alessandro Zampini of IGN Italia also rated the game 90/100, saying that it is "magnetic, minimalist and ruthless".[10]

Kyle Orland of Ars Technica called the game "addictive" and said that it achieves "transcendent beauty".[11] Brendan Keogh called the game "majestic", "restrained and confident".[7]

References

  1. ↑ "Desert Golfing". Metacritic. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  2. ↑ "Desert Golfing out now on PC". pcgamer. Retrieved 2018-01-11.
  3. ↑ Clayton, Natalie (4 July 2020). "At long last, there is Golf On Mars". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Retrieved 30 May 2022.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Plunkett, Luke. "F**k You, Desert Golfing, aka The Worst Best Game In The World". Kotaku. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Graft, Kris. "7 questions for Desert Golfing creator Justin Smith". Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  6. 1 2 3 Bramwell, Tom (2014-10-01). "Desert Golfing review". Eurogamer. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  7. 1 2 3 "Exploring the Desert". Reverse Shot. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  8. ↑ "'Desert Golfing' and Video Gaming's Gradual March to the Other Side". Vice. 19 December 2014. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  9. ↑ Klepek, Patrick (Jan 8 2018) One Player's 21,000 Hole Quest to Beat the Seemingly Endless 'Desert Golf' Vice.com. Retrieved 2018-08-23.
  10. ↑ "Touch Me #90: i giochi per smartphone e tablet della settimana". IGN Italia (in Italian). 2015-01-19. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
  11. ↑ "Sublime simplicity: The transcendent beauty of Desert Golfing". Ars Technica. Retrieved 2017-08-08.
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