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What’s the deal with all the wacky golf games?Fore!

Fore!

Image credit:Chuhai Labs

Image credit:Chuhai Labs

Cursed To Golf - The player in a pixelated world sits inside a golf cart in front of a giant green golfing ghost with a large club. They have cards called “Scattershot, Practice Shot, and Mulligan” to choose from.

Would you believe Good Friday isn’t a bank holiday in Ireland? I didn’t, until I found myself living it. I’m here driving the RPS bus alone, nobody to stop me as I careen down the motorway screaming and trying to slam on the brakes. But I can’t, because a golf ball has rolled under the pedal!

You ride this bus long enough, you see games move in cycles similar to fashion designers, or those big ferris wheels at fairgrounds. Things come round, they peak, they go round again. Often a few different people independently notice an empty niche and start working on something to fill it, so you get a bunch of games with similar themes or styles coming out within months of each other. So I ask: why and/or how have a bunch of people identified golf as a gap in the market?

RPGolf LegendsWatch on YouTube

RPGolf Legends

Cover image for YouTube video

I understand how it works, thematically. Golf is kind of a stuffy game for boring rich people and/or old dudes, right? That’s the perception, anyway. So making it ker-azy is extra trope-subversion, extra contrast. I get that.

But why golf? How did everyone hit upon this? Did a bunch of people go on a golf stag do or team-building retreat in 2018? Personally I thinkWhat The Golfprobably started this. Golf, but fun (please don’t come at me, golfers), and everyone loved it! I knowDangerous Golfcame out in 2016 but I feel like What The Golf made more of a dent.

Any suggestions for other sports that can be made into not-sports games? Or weird stuff to do with golf? A golf deckbuilder. A tennis roguelike with zombies. Give me your best shot. Tee off. Ho ho.

Disclosure: my partner worked onGolf Gangfor about three months.