Golfy Golf

When you think of golf you think of a very serious sport where there's a hush over the crowd as each shot is taken, with celebrations limited to a straight up fist pump, but in the cleverly-titled {Golfy Golf} we're taken to a whole new realm of putting and teeing off, where rabbits, yetis, and more are looking to knock you off course as you make your way around a blocky, isometric board aiming for the highest scores.

The premise is simple, and only a few steps away from real golf when you think about it. You have a ball (a cube, technically, considering the style of the game), and you manoeuvre it around an isometric board with each hit of your club, making your way to the hole in as few moves as possible. But wait, there's more, as there's also an egg to collect, and the other objective of getting to the hole in under five hits (which allows you to earn up to three stars per level, ensuring there's something there for the high-score seekers too).

You might think it sounds easy just to move a cube around a grid, but trust us when we say it's not, as just as you think you're learning how far you need to pull the club back to make the ball go where you want it to, the slightest alteration can send you one square back or forward, which in the later levels may see you end up either off the edge of the map or in the water, meaning you'll have to restart. With precious stars at stake, then, there's very little room for error as you progress.

There are obstacles littered throughout these levels though, and by "obstacles" we mean things like yetis and UFOs that will try and steal your ball and put you back to where you started if they catch you. With all these elements at play it turns into the craziest of crazy golfs, where the simple premise suddenly gets a lot harder than you thought it would.

As you'd expect with such a puzzler, there are different environments as you progress, starting with the lovely Meadows (which are filled with bunnies) before moving onto icier levels and alien worlds. Visually, then, there's variety, but in terms of gameplay there's not so much, as the same golf swings over the same flat square in between hazards can get repetitive quite fast, perhaps even before the end of the first world.

What's more is that there are a few bugs to mention. While the power of the swings worked fine for the most part, sometimes they would produce either a weaker or stronger shot than you'd expect, like a shot that would normally be weak instead flying off the edge of the map. We also couldn't get the tutorial to work, unfortunately, although this was a far less disastrous problem.

That said, the simple and accessible nature of the game lends itself well to VS. mode, either against the AI or a human adversary, which you can find in the game. Both modes add something extra to what is a relatively simple concept, and perhaps pump a bit more longevity into the experience once you've completed the 120 levels on offer in the six worlds.

For the most part though Golfy Golf's simplicity means it doesn't stick long in the memory. What aims to be a fun little puzzle game ends up being forgettable due to the repetitive nature of the puzzles, with the added zany features (such as all the creatures in the levels) not doing much to change this. If you want to spend an afternoon with a golf-themed puzzler then this may be for you, but it probably won't be one you find yourself coming back to all that often.