| Golf Club: Nostalgia | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer | Demagog Studio |
| Publisher | Untold Tales |
| Director | Igor Simić |
| Composers |
|
| Engine | Unity |
| Platforms | |
| Release |
|
| Genre | Sports |
| Mode | Single-player |
Golf Club: Nostalgia (formerly known asGolf Club: Wasteland) is a 2018video game developed by Demagog Studio and published by Untold Tales. It was initially launched on June 20, 2018, oniOS and onAndroid in late December 2018. On September 3, 2021, it was released onMicrosoft Windows,PlayStation 4,Xbox One, andNintendo Switch, after being announced atE3 2021. The game has players explore desolate ruins of the Earth that have been transformed into agolf course after an apocalyptic event kills all of humanity except for the extremely wealthy, who flee toMars. The game's narrative is mainly told through its soundtrack, which presents itself as aradio show called "Radio Nostalgia from Mars" playing music and interviews of people reminiscing about life on Earth.
Primarily developed by the visual artist Igor Simić, the game follows in the footsteps of his earlier mobile games,Crisis Expert andChildren's Play, in providing commentary on social issues. Specifically,Golf Club: Nostalgia was inspired by the influence that owners of large corporations have on the world. The game has been praised for its soundtrack, narrative, and art style, while it has been criticized for relatively simple and shallow golf gameplay.
The gameplay ofGolf Club: Nostalgia occurs over 35two-dimensional, side-on golf stages.[1] Some levels also have players use golf balls to open mechanical switches.[2] Each hole has a designatedpar, ranging from 3 to 20.[3] There are three modes of gameplay: "Story Mode", with no restrictions on stroke count, "Challenge Mode", with an enforced par limit, and "Iron Mode", in which no mistakes are allowed.[3] On the desktop and console releases, players set an angle and power using ananalog stick ormouse, swinging with one button press, while mobile players drag their fingers to aim and release.[4][5]
In the story, anecological catastrophe has caused rich inhabitants of Earth to move to Tesla City onMars, with the decaying wasteland of Earth (specifically the city of Alphaville) being used as a golf course.[1][6] The narrative of the game is primarily told through its soundtrack, an in-game radio station called "Radio Nostalgia from Mars" playing original music tracks, safetypublic service announcements, and interviews of survivors, in addition to diary entries that are unlocked through game progress.[7][8] A common theme throughout the interviews is thenostalgia that people have for Earth, contrasting to the corporate-owned environment of Mars, with one interviewee wondering "Is living this way on Mars worth living at all?" The public service announcements showcase details of Martian life, such as the need for rationing water and anger management.[9] The art of the game's stages features demolished and empty buildings dotted with neon signs.[8]
Golf Club: Nostalgia was developed by Igor Simić, a visual artist fromBelgrade, Serbia, in collaboration with two high school friends who were programmers.[10] The team initially formed because of Simić's interest in pursuingvideo games as art, and he stated that the games aimed to be "something more akin to interactive satire" due to his background as aneditorial cartoonist.[10][11] Together known as "Demagog Studio" (named afterdemagogue, a term for a populist leader), they had previously worked on other "experiments" aiming to provide dark commentary on social issues, includingCrisis Expert, a game referencing the2008 financial crisis, andChildren's Play, themed aroundchild labor.[10][12] ForGolf Club: Nostalgia, Simić was inspired by the power and influence of corporations and their owners, an idea he called the "Silicon Valley Ideology".[8][10] The apocalyptic golf concept (described internally as "Desert Golfing meetsBlade Runner") took inspiration from a viral picture of golfers playing in front of theEagle Creek Fire in addition to then-United States PresidentDonald Trump's ownership of golf courses.[11] Simić aimed to create an "emotional kind of message" with the story, attempting to "make [players] think of things [they] have now as if [they] had lost them forever".[8] The background ruins were illustrated to look like communist-era architecture, particularlybrutalist buildings and large monuments.[10][12]
Golf Club: Nostalgia was created using thegame engineUnity. The development team usedFMOD to create ambient sounds, and they used customshaders and tools to form the game's atmospheric art style.[12] They reduced backgroundassets to minimal silhouettes with small color palettes and used a blue fog effect, aiming to create a bleak yet light-hearted mood.[11] Demagog also animated three-dimensional music videos, acting as narrative-lessmood boards, in Unity.[12] "Radio Nostalgia from Mars", the game's soundtrack, was developed in collaboration with Shane Berry and originally comprised seven original songs in addition to interviews.[10][12] Simić envisioned the game as an "interactive audio book", with the radio program being the focal point of the game.[11] After meetingJanet Biggs, an artist who had worked at theMars Desert Research Station inUtah, they decided to make the interviews be realistic and plausible for Martian residents, rather than add satirical elements, as "the reality was absurd enough".[8]
The game was released foriOS on June 20, 2018, to coincide with the Unite Berlin event.[10][13] In September 2018, a new song called "Two Astronauts" was added to the soundtrack, with vocals from Ana Ćurčin.[14] The game was then ported toAndroid on December 24, 2018.[15] The desktop and console release ofGolf Club: Nostalgia was announced for August 2021 duringIGN's Summer of Gaming event, part ofE3 2021.[16][17] Simić jokingly announced in July of that year that only one copy of the game would be sold, at a price of $500 million.[18] He added that it would be distributed on 750floppy disks to "help maximize the amount of environmental damage" of the video game.[18] The game's release was slightly delayed, due to the developers wanting "to finish up some free extras", to September 3, 2021.[19] On that day, it was released onMicrosoft Windows (distributed via bothSteam and theEpic Games Store),PlayStation 4,Xbox One, andNintendo Switch.[20] Orders of the game also included a two-hour-long soundtrack and a 55-pagegraphic novel calledCharlie's Odyssey.[21] The publisher Untold Tales, consisting mostly of formerTechland employees, attempted to createword-of-mouth marketing for the game by posting information about the game's story and message rather than its mechanical features.[22] In July 2023, the developers were forced to change the title of the game fromGolf Club: Wasteland toGolf Club: Nostalgia due to a legal claim.[23][24]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| Nintendo Life |   [3] |
| Nintendo World Report | 7.5/10[1] |
| Push Square | [26] |
| TouchArcade |  [5] |
According toreview aggregatorMetacritic, reviews ofGolf Club: Nostalgia were "generally favorable" on all desktop and console platforms.[25]
Reviewers generally praised the sound design of the game, especially its radio format: Andy Chalk ofPC Gamer stated that it "plays one of the best videogame soundtracks [he's] heard in ages".[7] Several found it calming, including Jordan Loades fromNintendo World Report, who noted that the soundtrack "offers an incredible yet melancholic backdrop", andRock Paper Shotgun's Katharine Castle, who called the station "[the game's] greatest weapon against any grinding or gnashing of teeth" and "just so darn soothing".[1][4] The narrative and art style were also high points noted by reviewers, with Chalk writing that "the real hook, though, is everything that's going on in the background".[1][7]TouchArcade's Carter Dotson enjoyed the story and its themes, saying that "it uses golf quite well to convey a message, even if it is a bit ham-fisted at times".[5] However, Ollie Reynolds ofNintendo Life found some of the neon signs to be "needlessly childish" or inappropriate and that they "pulled [him] out of an otherwise pretty engaging and deep narrative".[3] Christopher Byrd, writing forThe Washington Post, applauded the game's use of references toscience fiction novels and films.[6]
Some reviewers, such as Byrd, praisedGolf Club: Nostalgia's simple mechanics, but others, including Loades and Reynolds, largely considered it and the repetitive gameplay a negative.[1][3][6] Loades also thought that the level design was uninspired, with the puzzle elements seeming more like annoyances.[1] Chandler Wood ofPlayStation LifeStyle found the gameplay highly frustrating, with inconsistent swings, necessary trial and error to determine the correct path, and long animations required to restart each stage; he stated that the golf "is simply not all that fun" and that he wished the developers focused more on secrets and interactions rather than "making frustratingly difficult levels that require lobs to barely reachable and tiny platforms".[9]Push Square's John Cal McCormick stated that the holes "are more like little, self-contained puzzles than actual golf courses" but noted the presence of some frustrating levels.[26] Additionally, Castle felt that the distance of shots could be difficult to judge and thought it could be clarified withcolor coding.[4]