LogFAQs > #932275423

23.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8FNaJ2YPmU

2014
Mobile, PC

I am forever golfing in the desert. Im not entirely sure why, but Ive played something like 40,000 holes in Desert Golfing. I play it all the damn time. I played it yesterday. Ill play it today. Ill probably play it tomorrow. Anytime I just need something to do quickly, I golf in the desert.

Its fascinating to try to figure out why this game of all games is my go-to. One main reason for the fascination is its ultra minimalist design. Desert Golfing is stripped down to the purest elements possible: a ball, a hole, the ground and the angle of your shot. The only sounds youll hear are the tink of the ball being hit, the sound of the ball rolling the desert and a Pavlovian little ding when the ball goes in the hole. Thats it. Thats the game.

The other aspect of this game that appeals to me on a deep level is the permanence. The desert just keeps going. The game tracks your scores forever. Hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of shots. You never see a title screen because youre always right in the game.

You could call it a cheap mobile game with no thought put into it, but I feel like theres way more to it. It takes a lot of active restraint to let such simple concepts shine. Desert Golfing will occasionally throw a vase at you on hole #537 and it completely shocks your system because the minimalism is so stark. The color palette changes every so slightly every hole and you dont notice it at all until youre 1500 holes in and suddenly you realize that the orange background is purple. There's a bunch of super weird stuff like that and it draws a lot of people in.

Its the little things that make Desert Golfing really mesmerizing despite it being undoubtedly the most boring game in the world. This game would never work as a sit down and play kind of thing, but as far as on-the-go gaming goes, it's perfect.

---

xyzzy