A new golf video game has done what decades of developers failed to manage — accurately replicate the humiliating, infuriating experience of playing actual golf, and one reviewer needed 428 strokes and nearly two hours to complete a single hole.
Normal Golf Game, a demo of which is available on Steam, comes from Luke Muscat, the creator of mobile hits Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. It could not be more different from those games. Where those were effortlessly pick-up-and-play, Normal Golf Game is deliberately, almost sadistically difficult — and that, paradoxically, is precisely what makes it so compelling.
The game uses a ragdoll stickman character controlled by a combination of mouse movements and keyboard inputs. Players must simultaneously watch their golfer’s arm position to ensure clean contact with the ball while also tracking the club face angle, which shifts in and out of the correct position during the swing. The concentration required is considerable. According to the reviewer, the perfect shot is achievable roughly ten per cent of the time — which, as anyone who has played real golf will recognise, is a depressingly accurate figure.
For generations of gamers who grew up on golf titles like the Mega Drive’s PGA Golf, where the sport was reduced to three taps of a button and virtually impossible to get wrong, the experience is a revelation. Traditional golf games gave players an unrealistic sense of mastery that felt satisfying but ultimately wore thin. What Normal Golf Game offers instead is the specific, acute frustration of knowing exactly what you need to do and being unable to do it — a feeling that will resonate with any genuine golfer.
The game is not without charm. The script is described as excellent, with bonus money earned for destroying signs, striking hidden gongs and landing the ball in oversized toilets. Some bonus challenges can keep players attempting the same shot for twenty minutes at a stretch, which even the game’s admirers acknowledge can test patience. But the underlying logic of the mechanics is sound enough to keep players engaged rather than simply enraged.
The reviewer places Normal Golf Game alongside last year’s Baby Steps as evidence of a new genre emerging — one built around deliberately awkward controls that force players to feel the authentic difficulty of the real-world activity being simulated. Whether that formula translates to a full eighteen holes remains to be seen, but as a multiplayer experience for friends looking to mock each other’s incompetence, it may be unrivalled.
