Release Date: 06/05/2015
Played On: Win
Available On: Lin / Mac / Win
Time Played: 5h 12m
Progress: Completed + some multiplayer
Developer: Kinelco / Lone Elk Creative
Publisher: Surprise Attack Games
How do you take a familiar game concept and turn it around to be something original and unique? Then again, how do you make this new iteration something interesting and compelling, or is it enough to be different? These questions and more will be raised when anyone dives into Vertiginous Golf.
When I was a kid, I got excited whenever I had the chance to play minigolf in real life. It amazed me how some of the courses were created, with winding paths and seemingly insurmountable obstacles. The first time I played on an interesting course was at a hotel's course in Thailand, under the watchful eye of an elephant. Years later I'd have another go during a high school camping trip, but that would be the extent of my minigolf exposure.
I've played again since I've been an adult, but a lot of the magic gave way to the reality of my terrible sporting prowess. These days I find any kind of golf frustrating to play, as I spend more time trying to hit the ball than enjoying its trajectory. Like all sports, my enjoyment of golf is now dependent on video game interpretations, and there are loads to choose from.
Especially in recent years it seems like minigolf games are being churned out regularly. Most appear to be roughly the same, leaving the creative courses to be the point of difference. I guess it's hard to change up the mechanics of such a well-known game, but some clever developers have tried. Some have you exploding bombs instead of hitting the ball, others mess with physics to pull off incredible trick shots. However, many of these still end up looking very similar and offering a relatively equalised experience.
As a result, I don't play many minigolf games, as they rarely seem interesting enough to dive into. Until one day when I was looking at the Steam store and saw Vertiginous Golf was being given away for free, which is essentially the perfect time to try any game at all. Not to mention the fact that I had no idea what I was looking at when browsing through screenshots and reading the game description. Suffice to say, it was weird enough to be interesting, and cheap enough to roll the dice on.
Loading up Vertiginous Golf for the first time was actually a little confusing. Rather than picking a course from a menu and loading up a round, you find yourself standing in an empty street at night, with rain pouring down around you. Entering the shop ahead presents a room lined on both sides with odd seats, and a cluster of industrial looking monitors on the far side.
On approach, the monitors spring to life and you're finally presented with what would otherwise be your typical game menu. There are familiar options for choosing a course, playing multiplayer, and everything you'd expect a menu to have. It's not until choosing a game that you then see yourself sit down in one of the nearby seats, with a bright electrical current zapping your brain.
The scene fades out, and when the lights come up you find yourself floating above the clouds. The dark and rainy street has been replaced with bright sunshine and beautiful fluffy white clouds as far as you can see. All that breaks up the expanse, is an oddly carpeted minigolf course ready to be played.
It's a strange way to start off a minigolf game, but Vertiginous Golf is proud to be strange. The premise has something to do with escaping the polluted and horrific surface where humans live, to experience the peace and tranquillity of golf in the clouds. It's kind of a steampunk holo-deck, accessible only through electro-shock-treatment. Somehow this embodies you inside a hummingbird that acts as your camera for the game in the clouds.
This might all sound pretty weird and wonderful, but I really enjoy the unique justification for playing such weird minigolf courses. Rather than just shrugging it off as "hey, it's a video game", the developers of Vertiginous Golf have tried to seat the experience in a reasonable (however fantastical) kind of logic.
There's even a story mode that takes you through the game's courses, and presents you with audio recordings from various characters. I didn't really follow it all as I played, but the gist I gleaned was that these were the folks that created the system of escaping to a magical world of minigolf. I'm not sure why, but I don't really mind. Hearing their stories and soaking in the aesthetic goes a long way to embedding this strange game in some kind of reality.
Mechanically the same old minigolf rules and gameplay loop is still intact. You hit a ball with a club to guide it through a course until it lands in the cup at the end. Fewer strokes will earn more points, while various obstacles and difficult turns attempt to trip you up along the way. It all seems fairly predictable and easy to understand, but Vertiginous Golf leans hard into the fact that it's a video game.
A lot of minigolf games introduce impossible elements like autonomous obstacles and impossible architecture, so fantastical elements aren't anything new. The thing I really like about Vertiginous Golf's level design, is that everything fits into the rules of its universe, which is still quite grounded in real-world physics and systems.
In some ways, this is the dichotomy of Vertiginous Golf, as it's a combination of the weirdest setting in minigolf, and some of the most grounded physics. Sure there are moving floors, pipes that whisk away your ball to another part of the map, and even floating platforms raising you to new heights.
All of these elements manage to feel like realistic systems that have been obfuscated to appear magical in the context of the game. It's as though the ugly workings behind each obstacle has been erased from view somewhere between the ground and the clouds. Despite the creativity of the level design, it's easy to start thinking about how each obstacle could work in reality.
The reason I like how easy it is to understand the magical obstacles in Vertiginous Golf, is that it makes some relatively overwhelming courses approachable. Just about all of the courses are beautiful to look at, with their carpeted surfaces and winding structure. A lot of the levels genuinely feel impossible at first glance, but there is always a path to the finish, even for an under skilled player like me.
At the same time, each course usually includes a more difficult path that requires precise timing and skill. There are even bonus holes along the way that will grant you an extra shot, or transport you straight to the end. Some of these bonuses are timed, so you have to get to it within a certain number of shots, but all of them will ruin your game if you try for it and fail. It ends up being a nice way to present a higher challenge, without forcing you to take it on.
In some multiplayer modes, the ante get raised and each player earns a set of powers to use on their competitors. This turns the otherwise zen-like experience of golfing in the clouds, into a battle game where the goal is messing with your opponent as often as possible. It's a nice way to extend the game experience and appeal to more competitive players, but I'd much rather chill out and take my time.
Thankfully, it seems like Vertiginous Golf actively wants you to chill out and take your time, as everything is geared towards thoughtful and purposeful play. It's far too easy to lose control and mess up your score by getting impatient and hitting the ball as hard as you can. Instead you're rewarded for carefully planning your route and becoming familiar with the course ahead.
A beautiful classical music soundtrack plays throughout to calm you, and the cadence of characters talking is soft and measured. There's no wondering why you're playing a calm game of golf in the serene cloudy landscape, instead of the dark rainy world below. In fact, the street you load into at the start provides an important contrast that only enhances the beauty of playing in the sky.
While I genuinely enjoy most of what Vertiginous Golf has to offer, a quick glance online will reveal that it's actually quite a divided opinion. It seems that many players detested the fanciful setting and odd presentation. Perhaps playing on beautiful carpet instead of green astroturf turns more people off that I would expect. Althoguh, I think the real downside for other players might just be the weirdness of it all, as the game is unapolagetic about its style. Thankfully, it works for me, but I can understand why you'd be turned off if it wasn't your bag.
Also, I might have been lucky enough to pick up the game for free, but it's fairly easy to pick it up cheap these days. Such is the joy of paying attention to older games that might be worth a try. This is probably the kind of game that only an independent team could make. It's a little weird, definitely different, and fills a niche that I never knew I needed to have filled. Without a doubt, this is one of the most original takes on an established game formula I've played, which counts for a whole lot indeed.