A COLLECTION ASIDE

This month, MEGHANN O’NEILL got unreasonably obsessed with golf and plants. Luckily, vast adventures were to follow, in procedurally generated lands. It’s great that some indie games focus on one thing, others are expansive, and many are a combination, depending on which elements of gameplay and aesthetics are under investigation. Scope is further confused when you realise a game only about golf is impossibly large, or that a game only about plants has a complex political backstory, or that your massive world is really just about the small and finite love between a band of ultimately forgettable people. We hope you find as much, or as little, as what you’re looking for, within.

BRENDAN KEOGH’S PUTTING CHALLENGE DEVELOPER Mellow Games PRICE $1-4.50 + DLC AVAILABILITY Released WEBSITE https://brkeogh.itch.io/brendan-keoghs-putting-challenge

Golf. The only thing worse than golf are golf video games games, amirite? Party Golf was OK, only because it was excessively colourful and allowed you to play with bananashaped balls. In a very “party”-averse fashion (although this can certainly be multiplayer), Brendan Keogh’s Putting Challenge doubles down on golf’s more tedious qualities and, somehow, I absolutely love it. I’ve played some golf. Mostly, I’ve done an inordinate amount of walking around, usually to go back to the shop to get more balls after losing balls in a lake, or on pixel art.

My husband told me he lost all his balls IRL, when he was playing golf in Orange with his mates. It’s a game that elicits golf stories, for sure. The golf mechanics are as you’d expect them to be. Walk, or view, the hole first (because it will span multiple scenes). Choose whether to putt, chip or drive, press Z (and Z again) to power your hit. The ball will behave differently on each surface and find the hole eventually. Check your scores with E. There are no surprises here, which makes sense. Unless you forget to pick up your ball, then, you know, walk back for it.

What I am surprised about is the intense emotional reaction I had to exploration. Keogh told me he couldn’t remember how many (sometimes procedurally generated) scenes are in the game. He estimated 20x30=600. I rented a bike and counted 30x44=1,320 scenes!! (Although I do think 44 might be wrong because I got confused by a river.) The immense and foreboding Shapeir desert in Quest for Glory 2 had 13x8=104 scenes, in which there were six special things to find. There’s a whole bloody nine hole course in this desert that you can entirely miss!

If I have one criticism, it’s that you should be required to fill up a canteen at water traps on each hole, or die from thirst… Just kidding. The fact that you can drown balls on the desert course is entirely tense enough, not to mention having to find each hole in the first place. Remember, in the early Ultimas, how you’d systematically traverse the thickest of forest, in the hopes of stumbling across a tiny treasure? It’s like that.

I actually felt a bit teary when I found a beautiful garden (literally pink pixels on pastel green) in Keogh’s seemingly endless desert.

The sanctuary, Erana’s Peace, was the best thing about Quest for Glory, and nostalgic wandering will compel me forever. Brendan Keogh’s Putting Challenge is also like the Stardew Valley of golf games, if Stardew Valley didn’t have much to do except golf. Objectively, exploration just leads to more golf, achievements, and a little dialogue, but a game with 1,320 scenes was beyond my wildest dreams, as a kid, even if they are all filled with golf. I probably should mention, I found at least five courses (some look to be under construction), mini golf, and more.

I played with my family this afternoon, but they play like they play golf (mostly mini golf ) IRL; they’re having fun until they play a bad hole and then they immediately want to quit. I think I much prefer being the lonely guy playing by himself on Sandy Desert, then aimlessly wandering (over a good couple of hundred scenes) back to town, lamenting my poor aim and the deepness of the lake. Brendan Keogh’s Putting Challenge engaged me in unexpected ways. And, don’t worry. If you hate walking, like my kids, there’s a golf cart DLC for $1.50.