Up to eight players can simultaneously smash their way around, and off, hundreds of mini-golf holes in Golf Gang.
I’m not sure when it happened, but golf has definitely made it back into vogue over recent years. We’ve had golfing RPGs, golfing puzzle games, golfing VR games and a lot of multiplayer, party golf games. There’s more coming too, but the focus of today is what happens when multiplayer and golfing smash together, creating a golf game that plays like a racer, and is teeming with potential for chaotic fun. That’s Golf Gang.
A few levels into Golf Gang‘s single-player and you’ll probably be wondering what the hell I’m on about. It starts slow and steady, a simple-looking golf game stuffed with relatively standard ‘indie golf game’ fare. There are some water jumps, there’re some aerial rings that allow you to perform an action, and sometimes you can hit the ball when it’s in the air. Carry on with the single-player campaign and you get introduced to spinning platforms and more, but it’s all really a fairly standard take on digital mini-golf — the fact that the levels have no textures also doesn’t do it any favour.
But, if you told me that you only had a certain amount of time to play Golf Gang I’d very quickly and sharply tell you to quit out of the single-player and boot up the multiplayer. That’s where the fun, and chaos, take place.
My first multiplayer match had one, simple modifier added to it. Jump. With that I could click the right mouse button to suddenly go aerial, you can do this while static while scooting along after hitting the ball (left mouse held, wind back by pulling the mouse toward you), or even jump into the air and then take your shot. Those first eighteen holes were incredible fun, we were on snowy levels and so the floor caused us to slip and slide across, but most of us were trying to time our jumps and launches to totally shortcut most of the course. This would be much easier if players couldn’t hit each other’s ball, which they can, and will.
The second multiplayer had several modifiers on it, Jump was still in, but now the balls got bigger each time we hit them, the balls caused a small but dramatic explosion when they collided and a third variable summoned up a random modifier for each hole. Utter chaos ensued. I was playing with a group of people that I don’t normally play games with, but by the end of it, we were all chatting and laughing together. Moans and groans filled the chat as we all watched the last player struggle to the finish pole, and laughs erupted as we all collectively blasted each other from the course in those earlier hits.
A few experts started emerging, but when you can punt somebody yards off course with a simple clip then experts don’t retain that title for long. In fact, the strategy of when you hit the ball became as important as how. That said, you can’t wait around too long as time to finish is equally as important as how many hits it takes to get it in. The Jump modifier became the star of future rounds too. There was a point where I launched off of the course at a 45 degree angle, used jump to recenter and then rocketed myself backward back onto the course, I finished that hole in 2 hits, and was barely anywhere near the course.
Golf Gang is a great example of chaotic multiplayer, as a result, there’s little room for actual competitive play, but you know what? That’s totally fine. There is some structure in there, but the biggest danger to its lifespan is that people become familiar with mutators. As soon as the confusion from mutators wears off, the fun might well dry up. If you’re looking for something fun, simple and a bit dumb to play with some friends, here it is.
Golf Gang is available now on Windows PC
