Mini Mini Golf Golf is not a very good golf recreation. The controls really feel a tiny bit off, the physics are sometimes unpredictable and there is not many holes to putt your method by way of. Which may delay some folks, which is a disgrace, because it’s simply the tip of a totally bizarre iceberg. In actuality, that is an experimental narrative journey about local weather collapse, human reminiscence, time journey and awkward FMV videogame idea podcasts. Simply… largely informed by way of the medium of miniature golf.
Launched just a few days in the past and the debut title from Berlin-based arthouse recreation collective Three Extra Years, this can be a high-concept sci-fi story set within the 12 months 2063. Working from a retro-futuristic house station orbiting above the (newly-formed) Better Baltic Ocean, you are making an attempt to piece collectively the historical past of what occurred to our poor and abused planet whereas additionally communing with some form of extra-dimensional entity that speaks to you thru glitches in a minigolf recreation.
From the little bit I’ve performed (and I would not need to spoil you past this level anyhow), it is an audiovisual deal with. A mixed-media collage of VHS-scrungled FMV, warped and glitching recreation geometry, textual content delivered by way of all method of kinetic typography (together with key narrative being written on the bottom within the wake of your ball’s journey) and an ever-shifting perspective as you hop between screens, tuning dials, tapping buttons or ready for textual content to be printed onto your bizarre science clipboard.
There’s quite a bit to unpack right here. Even in its opening minutes, the sport dives into the social repercussions and politics of tackling local weather change, and the way capitalism is unwilling or unable to deal with that. Nevertheless it’s additionally a human story, about overwork, reminiscence, love, legacy and a lot extra. It is also typically about deep bathe ideas on video games, with the developer’s personal podcast—Mini Mini Speak Speak, viewable independently right here on YouTube—getting used to ship concepts and chopped as much as present hints at the place the following department of its non-linear plot lies. Y’know, whenever you’re not lathing tectonic plate inserts utilizing mini-golf controls.
Whereas Mini Mini Golf Golf undeniably hits totally different, this is not the primary recreation to do bizarre high-concept issues with mini golf. The psychedelic Wonderputt Endlessly delivers some surface-level social commentary by way of its unfurling, recontextualizing programs, however Wonderputt feels much less serious about telling a narrative than conveying vibes. Above all else, Mini Mini Golf Golf is right here to inform you a narrative, nevertheless bizarre its supply. The sport is out now on Steam for £9.89/$11.59, with a small launch low cost obtainable till December 19.
