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Golf Club: Wasteland

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Golf Club: Wasteland
Cover artwork featuring the player in an orange space suit with a golf club looking at a large structure
Developer(s)Demagog Studio
Publisher(s)Untold Tales
Director(s)Igor Simić
Composer(s)
  • Shane Berry
  • Igor Simić
EngineUnity
Platform(s)
Release
  • iOS
  • June 20, 2018
  • Android
  • December 24, 2018
  • PC, PS4, XONE, NS
  • September 3, 2021
Genre(s)Sports
Mode(s)Single-player

Golf Club: Wasteland is a golf video game developed by Demagog Studio and published by Untold Tales. It was initially launched on June 20, 2018 on iOS and released on Android on December 24 of that year. On September 3, 2021, it was released on Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch, after being announced at E3 2021. The game has players explore desolate ruins of the Earth that have been transformed into a golf course after an apocalyptic event kills all of humanity except for the extremely wealthy, who flee to Mars. Primarily developed by the visual artist Igor Simić, the game follows in the footsteps of his earlier mobile games, Crisis Expert and Children's Play, in providing commentary on social issues. Specifically, Golf Club: Wasteland was inspired by the influence that owners of large corporations have on the world.

The game's narrative is mainly told through its soundtrack, which presents itself as a radio show called "Radio Nostalgia from Mars" playing music and interviews of people reminiscing about life on Earth. The game has been praised for its soundtrack, narrative, and art style (depicting deserted scenes from a long-abandoned Earth), while it has been criticized for relatively simple and shallow golf gameplay.

Gameplay and synopsis

A screenshot from the game, showcasing its art style and design; the player character is on a shipping container with a golf ball mid-air. Large buildings are visible in the background with pink neon signs.
A screenshot of the game, showcasing its art style and design

The gameplay of Golf Club: Wasteland occurs over 35 two-dimensional, side-on golf stages on an abandoned Earth, with environments including derelict buildings and overgrown forests.[1][2] Some levels also have players use golf balls to open mechanical switches.[3] Each hole has a designated par, ranging from 3 to 20.[1] There are three modes of gameplay: "Story Mode", with no restrictions on stroke count, "Challenge Mode", with an enforced par limit, and "Iron Mode", in which no mistakes are allowed.[1] The controls and user interface have been described as simple and minimalistic; on the desktop and console releases, the player sets an angle and power using an analog stick or mouse, shooting with one button press.[1][2][4][5][6]

In the story, an ecological catastrophe has caused rich inhabitants of Earth to move to "Tesla City" on Mars, with the decaying wasteland of Earth being used as a spot for them to enjoy a round of golf.[1][2][7] The narrative of the game is primarily told through its soundtrack, an in-game radio station called "Radio Nostalgia from Mars" playing original music tracks, safety public service announcements, and interviews of survivors expressing nostalgia for life on Earth, in addition to diary entries that are unlocked through game progress.[2][6][7][8] The art of the game's stages features demolished and empty buildings dotted with pink neon signs.[1][6][8]

Development and release

Golf Club: Wasteland was developed by Igor Simić, a visual artist from Belgrade, Serbia, in collaboration with two high school friends who were programmers.[9] Together known as "Demagog Studio" (named after demagogue, a term for a populist leader), they had previously worked on other "experiments" aiming to provide dark commentary on social issues, including Crisis Expert, a game referencing the 2008 financial crisis, and Children's Play, a game satirizing child labor.[8][9][10] The team initially formed because of Simić's interest in pursuing video games as art, and he stated that the games aimed to be "something more akin to interactive satire" due to his background as an editorial cartoonist.[9][11] For Golf Club: Wasteland, Simić was inspired by the power and influence of corporations and their owners, an idea he called the "Silicon Valley Ideology".[8][9] The apocalyptic golf concept (described internally as "Desert Golfing meets Blade Runner") took inspiration from a viral picture of golfers playing in front of the Eagle Creek Fire in addition to then-United States President Donald Trump's ownership of golf courses.[11] The background ruins were illustrated to look like communist-era architecture, particularly brutalist buildings and large monuments.[9][10]

Golf Club: Wasteland was created using the game engine Unity. The development team used FMOD to create ambient sounds, and they used custom shaders and tools to form the game's atmospheric art style.[10] They reduced background assets to minimal silhouettes with small color palettes and used a blue fog effect, aiming to create a bleak yet light-hearted mood.[11] Demagog also animated three-dimensional music videos, acting as narrative-less mood boards, in Unity.[10] "Radio Nostalgia from Mars", the game's soundtrack, was developed in collaboration with Shane Berry and originally comprised seven original songs in addition to interviews.[9][10] Simić envisioned the game as an "interactive audio book", with the radio program being the focal point of the game.[11] After meeting Janet Biggs, an artist who had worked at the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah, they decided to make the interviews be realistic and plausible for Martian residents, rather than add satirical elements, as "the reality was absurd enough".[8]

The game was released for iOS on June 20, 2018, to coincide with the Unite Berlin event.[9][12][13] In September 2018, a new song called "Two Astronauts" was added to the soundtrack, with vocals from Ana Ćurčin.[14] The game was then ported to Android on December 24, 2018.[15] The desktop and console release of Golf Club: Wasteland was announced for August 2021 during IGN's Summer of Gaming event, part of E3 2021.[16][17] Simić jokingly announced in July of that year that only one copy of the game would be sold, at a price of $500 million.[18] He added that it would be distributed on 750 floppy disks to "help maximize the amount of environmental damage" of the video game.[18] The game's release was slightly delayed, due to the developers wanting "to finish up some free extras", to September 3, 2021.[19] On that day, it was released on Microsoft Windows (distributed via both Steam and the Epic Games Store), PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch.[20] Orders of the game also included a two-hour-long soundtrack and a 55-page graphic novel called "Charlie's Odyssey".[1][20][21]

Reception

According to review aggregator Metacritic, reviews of Golf Club: Wasteland were "generally favorable" on all desktop and console platforms; the mobile version did not receive a score.[22][23][24][25][28] Reviewers generally praised the sound design of the game: Jordan Loades of Nintendo World Report noted that the radio station is "an incredibly effective oral storytelling technique" and Andy Chalk of PC Gamer stated that it "plays one of the best videogame soundtracks [he's] heard in ages".[1][2][5][6][7] The narrative and art style were also high points noted by reviewers, though Ollie Reynolds of Nintendo Life found some of the neon signs to be "needlessly childish" or inappropriate and that the signs "pulled [them] out of an otherwise pretty engaging and deep narrative".[1][2][6][7] TouchArcade's Carter Dotson enjoyed the story and its themes, saying that "it uses golf quite well to convey a message, even if it is a bit ham-fisted at times".[27] Christopher Byrd, writing for The Washington Post, applauded the game's "cultural savviness" with references to many science fiction novels and films.[6]

Some reviewers, such as Byrd, praised Golf Club: Wasteland's "elegantly simple" mechanics, but others, including Loades and Reynolds, largely considered it and the repetitive gameplay a negative.[1][2][6] Loades also thought that the level design was uninspired, with the puzzle elements seeming more like annoyances.[2] Chandler Wood of PlayStation LifeStyle found the gameplay highly frustrating, with inconsistent swings, necessary trial and error to determine the correct path, and long animations required to restart each stage; he stated that the golf "is simply not all that fun" and that he wished the developers focused more on secrets and interactions rather than "making frustratingly difficult levels that require lobs to barely reachable and tiny platforms".[29] Push Square's John Cal McCormick stated that the holes "are more like little, self-contained puzzles than actual golf courses" but noted the presence of some frustrating levels.[26] Additionally, Rock Paper Shotgun's Katharine Castle felt that the distance of shots could be difficult to judge and thought it could be clarified, writing "I wish the dotted line that acts as your force meter was also accompanied by some sort of additional colour coding to help better judge my shots."[5]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Reynolds, Ollie (September 2, 2021). "Mini Review: Golf Club: Wasteland - Surprisingly Engaging Post-Apocalyptic Putt Putt". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i Loades, Jordan (September 13, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland (Switch) Review". Nintendo World Report. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  3. ^ Stewart, Marcus (June 10, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Invites You To Tee Off Amid The Ruins Of Post-Apocalyptic Earth". Game Informer. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  4. ^ Cunningham, James (September 3, 2021). "Playing a Few Holes After the End in Golf Club: Wasteland Launch Trailer". Hardcore Gamer. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  5. ^ a b c Castle, Katharine (September 2, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland review: real life crazy golf". Rock Paper Shotgun. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g Byrd, Christopher (September 3, 2021). "'Golf Club: Wasteland': The Mario golf game we always wanted". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on September 3, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  7. ^ a b c d Chalk, Andy (September 1, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland turns a ruined Earth into a golf course for the ultra-rich". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  8. ^ a b c d e Valentine, Rebekah (October 30, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Lets You Play Golf in the Ruins of a Climate Apocalypse". IGN. Archived from the original on October 30, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
  9. ^ a b c d e f g Garcevic, Srdjan (June 28, 2018). "Serbian Artist's Phone Games Fuse Humour and Politics". Balkan Insight. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  10. ^ a b c d e "Golf Club: Wasteland". Unity Technologies. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  11. ^ a b c d Nesterenko, Oleg (October 27, 2021). "Golf Club: Wasteland creative director Igor Simic: "We create digital content for a generation that will live to witness the end times"". Game World Observer. Archived from the original on November 9, 2021. Retrieved November 10, 2021.
  12. ^ "If you missed the release of Golf Club: Wasteland, you're missing out on stellar space-age satire… and some laid back golfing". Pocket Gamer. August 9, 2018. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  13. ^ Demagog Studio [@demagog_studio] (June 20, 2018). "Golf Club: Wasteland, our atmospheric, post-apocalyptic, golf, narrative game with an hour of original music and radio program is now available exclusively on the @AppStore" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  14. ^ Frater, Luke (September 17, 2018). "Golf Club: Wasteland tees up new song Two Astronauts". Pocket Gamer. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  15. ^ Demagog Studio [@demagog_studio] (December 24, 2018). "Golf Club: Wasteland is now available on @GooglePlay" (Tweet) – via Twitter.
  16. ^ Purslow, Matt (June 8, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Is a Post-Apocalypse Golfing Platformer - Summer of Gaming". IGN. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  17. ^ Bonthuys, Darryn (June 9, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Turns Earth Into A Post-Apocalyptic Course". GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  18. ^ a b Makuch, Eddit (July 19, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Dev Offers $500 Million Version Of The Game In Elaborate Joke About Billionaires In Space". GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  19. ^ Bonthuys, Darryn (August 5, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland Release Date Set For September 3". GameSpot. Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  20. ^ a b Bischoff, Jens (September 6, 2021). "Golf Club Wasteland: Abschlag für das post-apokalyptische Golfabenteuer" [Golf Club Wasteland: Tee off for the post-apocalyptic golf adventure]. 4Players (in German). Archived from the original on October 26, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  21. ^ Craddock, Ryan (August 30, 2021). "Golf Club: Wasteland Comes With A 2-Hour Soundtrack And A 55-Page Graphic Novel". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  22. ^ a b "Golf Club: Wasteland". Metacritic. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  23. ^ a b "Golf Club: Wasteland". Metacritic. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  24. ^ a b "Golf Club: Wasteland". Metacritic. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  25. ^ a b "Golf Club: Wasteland". Metacritic. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  26. ^ a b McCormick, John Cal (September 2, 2021). "Mini Review: Golf Club Wasteland (PS4) - Post-Apocalyptic 2D Golf Game Is Well Above Par". Push Square. Archived from the original on October 25, 2021. Retrieved October 25, 2021.
  27. ^ a b Dotson, Carter (June 26, 2018). "'Golf Club: Wasteland' Review – Elon Musk HATES This!". TouchArcade. Archived from the original on November 2, 2021. Retrieved November 2, 2021.
  28. ^ "Golf Club: Wasteland". Metacritic. Archived from the original on November 3, 2021. Retrieved November 3, 2021.
  29. ^ Wood, Chandler (September 2, 2021). "Golf Club: Wasteland Review – Poignant Narrative, But How's the Golf? (PS4)". PlayStation LifeStyle. Archived from the original on October 31, 2021. Retrieved October 31, 2021.
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