desert golfing
Desert Golfing doesn't have a narrative, it doesn't even have a player that you control, there's no sign of the little golfing avatar man from the app's logo once you open the game. There's no tutorial or introduction either; the game just starts. There's a ball in a sand environment seen from the side on of various hills, ledges, and cliffs. Everything is made of straight lines, the only curve you'll see is the little white ball that you're aiming to get into a hole on the right-hand side of the screen. There isn't even a par as you would expect in a golf game. The game will tell you how many shots you've taken on that hole (+2 say) and add it to your total, but it's meaningless. You can't lose. I spent over 30 shots on one hole with no consequences except my own frustration of repeatedly shooting the ball off the screen, or being too tentative and watching it roll back down a hill. At the outset it's difficult to see if the game will even end. After around 1000 holes you might be rewarded with a slight shift in colour palette. You could set your own goals, reach level 100 with fewer than 150 shots say, but to start over you'd have to delete the app and its data since there's no options screen, no little cog sitting in any corners to take you someplace else. Just you, the ball, the flag, the desert and a hole. That's the game. The rest is up to you.
So where's the story? Well, every desert golfer, if they play for long enough, will eventually come across something that will give them pause. Spaced out so far it'll take you over 400 holes or so to find it you'll come across water, a tiny oasis in the middle of this no man's land you're golfing in. After endless orange and yellow (even the sky is pale orange), there will suddenly be a bright square of blue. It's shocking. Like what-am-I-looking-at-shocking. I stopped mid-swipe to marvel at what I was seeing. I cheered inside. I took a screen-shot. It created in me an emotion that a great book or painting can, but which in games feels more significant for your own participation: a moment of discovery, the belief you're seeing something no one else has seen.
Of course, this was a false feeling, others had trod this path before me and there are various articles online about Desert Golfing: its kill screens that are impossible to complete and its apparent endless holes which might finally have an end thanks to a new update. The narratives around Desert Golfing are by this point probably more interesting than this game: which outside of its well-crafted physics and pared back aesthetics doesn't have much else going for it. You could pull out some profound conclusion about playing a game with no end or no clear goal (look it's just like real life!), but for me, it's more about that momentarily feeling of discovery that makes playing this game worthwhile. It was a small perfect burst of emotion before I resumed playing: a true tiny narrative. I took that screen-shot because I needed to document what I was seeing, I wanted a record of what I felt I had uncovered. I wanted in some way to hold onto that moment, which to be honest in a screen-shot looks unimpressive and probably dull to someone who hasn't played the game. But still, I felt an urge to capture something that felt new and fleeting.
Every now and then when I'm bored or want to shut my brain off I'll open up Desert Golfing and play a few rounds. It's mind-numbing in the best sense: allowing you to slip into a mindful state of not-thinking as you play. When I was at my peak I would play for an hour or so before bed, happily swiping across my screen, no goal in sight, no worries about failure, just the satisfying plick of the ball as it launched and the smooth shh shh shhh as it rolled across the sand accompanied by a pleasing spray of pixels and the simple unrewarded joy of scoring the occasional hole in one. I'm up to the 1886th hole now and it's only taken me 5,104 shots to get here.
Desert Golfing is out now on iOS and Android