Desert Golf - One small gameplay idea distilled and refined to perfection.

This is one of those games that made me step back and think about how I design games. I think I go too wide too fast when developing a game. For example if i were working on a platformer I might get a player with some basic movement then move on to working on a set of levels and then some enemies. The problem is that because I didn’t focus enough on making the movement and feel of the game good at the stage when I made the player, the rest of the game suffered. Desert Golf on the other hand is one small gameplay idea distilled and refined to perfection.

The game is insanely simple but there’s something about it. The fact the levels are generated from a fixed seed meaning everyone has the same near-infinite set of levels is pretty cool. It’s like everyone is playing through the same experience together. Considering the game slowly changes color and gets small changes in environment over a very long time is really interesting.

I think many of us playing this game are all secretly thinking that if we just play far enough into the game, we’ll find something. I’m currently approaching hole 200. A friend of mine on Twitter is approaching hole 3000. I’m sure there are people out there much further into the game.

One other awesome thing about the game is that YOU CAN’T RESTART. You have to live with your sucky playing. There’s no main menu. When you start the game you just start on the last hole you played with your accumulated score on one side of the screen and your current hole score on the other. This is so great because it means that people who are competing aren’t able to factor in practicing a certain level in order to memorize the shots required to get a good score. It’s based more on ones ability to accurately gauge a shot and deal with levels you haven't been able to practice on previously.

You can get Desert Golf for Android at https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.captaingames.golf&hl=en

You can also get Desert Golf on the IOS store.

Story by Alex McGilvray 
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