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Why Hardcore Gamers Are Hooked on a 2D Desert Golf Game

'Desert Golfing' is a nihilistic rendition of simple mobile games like 'Angry Birds.'
Image: YouTube

Golfing in the desert is a real thing, a verified recreation. There's even a magazine dedicated to the subject and the main reason why indie game developer Justin Smith, aka Captain Games, had to call his 2D game for mobile devices Desert Golfing, instead of Desert Golf. When I spoke with him, Smith brought it up when I initially said the title wrong, though I suppose now the already taken Desert Golf was the original name he had in mind.

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But the polo-dressed fun of real golfing is not like Smith's game—Desert Golfing—a buried treasure that has pervaded the game scene among gamers who can't stop playing for hours on end. A mysterious time waster which eggs its players to keep on putting, despite there being no end in sight, with level after level produced for your insanity.

Desert Golfing is as bare bones as a game can get. Given that both of Smith's previous games were about reckless driving, one starring a hungry bear and one I found amazing whilst stoned, a muted lonely golf sim is a real departure.

Simple swinging mechanics, think the slinging of your Angry Birds across a touch screen, with nothing more than a line dividing two tones of red sand, and a little flag showing where the tin cup is. When you sink your ball, it rises back up to the surface, the camera pans, revealing that the next course begins with the end of the last one.

There are no pars, and while your score is tallied above there are no guidelines. Only you can feel if you're getting too sloppy. The game will not shame you, you'll only have self-pity. And that's why I still haven't posted any screens on my Twitter feed to join the chorus, I don't want you to see how many moves it's taken me to get to the 200th hole.

"Playing real golf might help," Smith told me after he asked if I played the sport outside of an iPhone game. "Just, mentally getting focused, treating every shot like it's important. People get too impatient, that's probably why your score is suffering."

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Simple games dominate smart phones. Angry Birds, Cut the Rope and their ilk function on one part easily digestible mechanic, and one part adorable cartoon mascots. Desert Golfing is a nihilistic rendition of the formula, no playhouse jingles or smiley faces or googly eyes. There's no coded reward, though Smith says the occasional hole-in-one can be a nibble of gratification.

It seemingly goes on forever, many tweeting levels from faraway numbers, appearing with a fresh purple night sky. It's playing for playings sake alone, a game that uses the most popular gaming elements for the least popular sum, a seemingly never-ending sand trap. Similar as it may be to other mobile games, Desert Golfing is Justin Smith's reaction to other independent games.

Related: Unbeatable 2D Platformers Are All the Rage Among Hardcore Gamers

"Have you heard of this thing called Just Walking-ism?" asked Smith. "There's kind of a prejudice that some people have in the wider game world about games where you don't do much, games like FlowerJourney or The Stanley Parable. It gets some people really irate. I think you should just not worry about it, there's room for all sorts of games in the world."

The current look of Desert Golfing is from Smith joking with himself, creating mock-ups of a golf game in the Journey world. Literally photoshopping a golfer onto a scenic screen of the PlayStation cult classic.

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"This was my grand plan," says Smith, "I wanted to take screenshots of these beautiful landscape exploration games, and then reconstruct the 3D geometry behind them, and turn them into golf games. Somehow that just led to me thinking more about just a golf game. The initial palette is actually a complete ripoff of Journey. Plagiarism!"

However minimal it may be, people aren't just playing it to spite themselves. Some are dragged on by the tantalizing promise of a surprise, some players saying anomalies begin the deeper into the desert you go. The game can also get hard, real hard, when it wants to.

mentally getting focused, treating every shot like it's important. People get too impatient, that's probably why your score is suffering.

A steep, flat wall is a red flag for trouble, and if you see that the hole is close to the edge of the screen, brace yourself, because flying out of sight causes the ball to re-spawn from the start. And you can't restart. No mulligans.

Smith seems humbled that other game makers have triumphed his game. He'd be the first to admit it's simple, silly, there isn't much pretence to it, though playing it makes you constantly question why it is you play games at all. The promise of reward that you tell yourself instead of an actual one, seeing an oasis off screen.

"It's a little surprising," says Smith on the reception. "I had no real expectations. People like it probably because it's satisfying. It has a very simple mechanic, and no bullshit around it. It's my Flappy Bird. But it's still kind of pointless. You're stuck in the desert, but you just have something to do."

In other words, it's not too far off being a complete masocore gaming experience, if not for inspiring you to dream about a real game, of real golf, in the desert. The type of game that ends with mojitos and after eighteen holes, not 200.