Thanks to a dysfunctional relationship with my own bones and muscles, I accepted from a very young age that I wasn’t ever going to be much of a golfer. Golf games, however, I’ve believed myself to be pretty good at, having achieved mastery over the subtle arts of pressing A when the meters make you golf good.
That, as I learned today, was hubris. Whatever faith I had in my own simulated golf skillset has been systematically dismantled by the demo for Normal Golf Game, a deceptively golf-like torture apparatus developed by Fruit Ninja creator Luke Muscat—presumably for the purpose of inflicting widespread psychic harm.
The demo makes an immediately pleasant impression as its main menu logo becomes unfixed and starts bouncing around the screen like the canonical DVD screensaver. It maintained that charm as I started a new save, at which point I was treated to my character’s pair of first-person, FMV-animated hands that shimmy with a golferly self-importance as I strutted about in search of my first tee.
The vibes quickly shifted, however, when I was abruptly accosted by text narration dispensed through a CCTV camera by Luke Muscat himself, who informed me that I am $100,000 in debt after signing a legally binding contract and must earn my way out of bankruptcy by completing golf-related feats and bounties. Which would be fine, except the golfing is a harrowing Foddy-esque trial of personal fortitude.
To golf, I press Tab, which pulls the camera back to give me a full-body, third-person view of my FMV golf-self as additional UI panels accumulate on-screen. One represents my character’s body, letting me swing my club by clicking and dragging my hands, determining the swing’s power and contact angle with the ball based on my speed and movement. It’s imprecise, but it’s manageable after some trial and error.
Simple enough, I—a fool—thought after growing comfortable enough to complete some promising swings. That arrogance was short-lived, because Muscat then introduced another UI pane, presenting a top-down view of my club through which I can control the placement and angle of the clubface.
That doesn’t sound too bad in the abstract, but that’s because I haven’t mentioned that—thanks to my character’s fleshy, organic fluidity—my club is constantly swaying. I can’t simply set my ideal angle and fire away; I have to actively compensate for the club’s perpetual motion with keyboard presses, all while trying to click and drag my hands with the appropriate speed and motion for a square, solid impact with the ball and not the dirt beneath it.
I did a lot of hitting the dirt beneath it.
Meanwhile, Muscat’s golf demands are escalating in difficulty and absurdity. Not long after achieving rudimentary competence in completing a straightforward swing, he demanded I start executing hooks, fades, and draws—not to sink any holes in one, but to remove planks from boarded up NO PARKING signs, topple a giant bowling pin obscured by forcefields, or strike a massive gong the size of an Olympic swimming pool.
Successfully striking the massive gong took me 11 unbroken minutes of consecutive golf swings.
It’s as compelling as it is maddening. Triumphing over the antagonistic control scheme has all the satisfaction of a record-setting QWOP sprint. And while it can feel brutal, it’s not without some clever affordances to help you adjust—or attempt to adjust—your strategy for a tricky shot.
For example, Normal Golf Game traces the path of your golfball, as any self-respecting golf game should. Here, there’s an added benefit: At any time, you can press Tab again to resume first-person view while maintaining the traced path from your last swing. Because you aren’t anchored to a tee while following Muscat’s golf instructions, it’s a nice way to evaluate whether you’re swinging from the most advantageous angle, or if you’d be better off repositioning.
While I wouldn’t say I had gotten good at juggling Normal Golf Game’s input demands by the end of the demo, I could feel myself getting tantalizingly better. Surely the full game can only get so hard, right?
Normal Golf Game doesn’t have a launch date for its full release yet, but you can wishlist it on Steam now.
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