Normal Golf Game Key Art
Image: Luke Muscat

They're clearly putting something in the water over in Australia that makes indie developers want to torture us with esoteric, wobbly controls. And clearly the Aussie indie conspiracy has slipped something into my water too, because I keep buying them. Out today, Normal Golf Game is the most normal golf game that Luke Muscat, developer of Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride, could make.

That is to say, it's rather strange and extremely silly. From the moment the camera pans back from your FMV golfer to reveal the galaxy of confusing, stat-heavy UI panels, to the fact that you're stumbling around without your memory, being pushed into increasingly complex golf-adjacent challenges by Luke himself, it's obvious that you're not going to be casually putting your way around nine holes.

For starters, just hitting the ball requires muscle memory and hand-eye coordination like you've never applied in a game. With the mouse, you swing your character's hands around their body, trying to bring the face of the club into contact with the ball. With the other hand, you're constantly adjusting the horizontal alignment and angle of the club so that the ball goes straight. And with your other hand (or you can do this part before swinging), you can adjust your stance relative to the ball.

And all of this would be a regular nightmare if you were just trying to get your ball to a hole in the middle of a field. But have you ever tried solving puzzles with golf? Clearing up trash with golf? Entering a code into a keypad with a precisely aimed golf ball? No, because that would be absurd.

This game is absurd.

And that's great, as I don't particularly like golf, but I DO love games about wrangling wacky interfaces to do improbable things in unusual ways, so this one is right up my alley. I had a great time with the demo of this one when it first surfaced, and the full game looks to deliver all that and a bag of chips, and a few sinister hidden mysteries lurking underneath the green. Check out the launch trailer below if you have any doubts.

The only piece of bad news here is that the demo has been pulled from Steam with the release of the full game. The good news is that Normal Golf Game is quite reasonably priced at £9.09/$10, with a 20% launch discount (running until October 5th) and a bit more sliced off if you own Super Battle Golf, What The Golf? (another personal favorite as a golf-disliker), and Bennet Foddy's genre-defining Getting Over It.