Available for: PC, iOS, Android
Desert Golfing it is exactly what it says on the tin and nothing more. In between is a ball, a hole, and some procedurally generated desert lands. that’s it. No settings, no club selection, no music, no items, no pause menu, no restart, not even an avatar. Trying to move the cursor back and get from A to B to determine the angle and power of the next shot. Once you do, a new hole appears and you continue forever. (Game technically there is an “ending”, but God bless anyone who played long enough to see it.)
Desert Golfing reads too simplistic on paper, and it’s meant as a veiled criticism of time-consuming, player-demeaning mobile games. In fact, playing it is limited to meditation. The game’s radical minimalism makes everything and nothing important at once. There’s a shot counter at the top, but it’s functionally meaningless, it just shows how much you’ve played. You can spend 60 shots on a hole, but there is no invisible eye judging you. Instead, you’re allowed to focus on the simple joy of seeing the ball arc through the air, seeing it hit the sand, and finally. plonk in the hole. It’s more about the action of the game than the rules of the game: golfEngnot golf. And when something new appears – a water well, a setting sun, a cactus – it’s a great feeling.
