It's a weird thing to say, but I've been a "theoretical" fan of Damien Crawford for a while now, like actual years at this point. I say "theoretical" because I haven't actually played any of their games. I couldn't even tell you how their work came to be on my radar, but ever since I first saw it, and the way they talked about it, I caught the vibe that it was made for nerds like me, and that I'd almost certainly want to write about it. I suppose that's probably why I kept putting it off: despite how affordable and short their games are, I was sort of holding myself hostage with the expectation of engaging deeply with the work of someone I'd already come to respect via reputation, and para-social internet engagement. Well, no longer; I have had the Damien Crawford's Golf Experience 2024, and shall now endeavor to transmute my account of it into something resembling a game review.
I started by playing through the first course, Classic Greens, using the copy of the game I'd purchased through itch, where from my understanding, devs get a better portion of the sale, and I could even chip in a couple extra bucks. I quickly realized just how much "exactly my kind of shit" the game was, with no HUD, a bare-bones, text-based UI, and visuals that are minimalist, but still extremely functional. The only mechanics a player need worry about are moving around the environment, and once they're at the ball, using a text interface to first select their club, and then the effort to put into their swing. The experience can certainly be jarring for victims of corporate game design philosophy who have become accustomed to constant tutorialization, but the developer has kindly included helpful bits of starting advice on storefronts like Steam, sort of in the spirit of old paper game manuals. Or, a version of those manuals written by one person and subject to no corporate oversight. As a knuckle-head, frictional-game-experience enjoyer, however, I didn't really read that stuff too carefully.
This is, believe it or not, not close enough to hit the ball.
I figured out in only a dozen or so seconds that I'd need to stand directly on top of the ball to hit it, which seems unintuitive, since you can no longer see the ball while standing on it, but I suppose that is how you have to stand over the ball to hit it in real golf. I hit the ball a few times, choosing clubs mostly at random, only really knowing I certainly wasn't putting yet, and made slow but steady progress down the first few holes. I was having a good time, though admittedly getting jump-scared occasionally by the very loud glass-breaking sound included in the rotation of ball-has-been-hit noises. Other noises include a pleasantly soft swish-thwack, a cartoonish punching sound, and some sort of muted metal pipe clank, all of which are much less jarring than the shattering noise. Taking it as an indicator of incorrect club or swing-force choices, I did the absolute minimum amount of research I could on why there are so many different kinds of golf clubs. According to Wikipedia, woods are for long range, irons are for medium to short range, and the higher the number, generally the greater height, or loft, the ball will gain when hit.
The emotionally and graphically intensive process of setting up a shot.
That information helped, but only marginally so, as an element of randomness is added to the ball's flight, stand-in for wind condition and other factors that might make the ball go not exactly where you wanted it to. I also thought that maybe getting the lay of the land before starting each hole would be a good idea, but you move so incredibly slowly, that actually kind of felt like a waste of time. Besides, it's not like I don't already know what to do: hit ball toward hole. There's not really a need for a plan of attack; I don't know how to play golf. You get the ball on the green eventually, and then you try your best to putt it in, which almost always devolves into slowly tapping it toward the hole, the realism of which gave me a good chuckle the first few times. There's no indicator of force, or grade, or even distance, except choosing the cautious approach with the putter will almost always result in moving the ball a single grid space in the direction the player is facing. Which is, of course, agonizingly slow and terrible for your score. Having gotten that taste of the first course and all the patience-testing, carefully considered disregard for intuitiveness I had expected, the review getting written had become an inevitability, perhaps even encouraged by the game's request that I think about if I want to play again.
Before diving back in, I bought the game a second time on Steam, partially to leave a shamelessly self-promotional link to this review, but also because I knew leaving a positive review there is often helpful to smaller games, and I'm trying to make a habit of supporting games I review however I'm able. I get comfortable at my computer, even open up a tab to play a video on my second monitor, and get right into the second course, Verdant Forest. After only a few strokes I somehow hit a wrong key on my keyboard, discovering that apparently the camera can be titled up and down. Unsure what key I pressed, and unable to see anything but the solid color ground, I reset the game. Annoying, but no problem, I go take a picture of the controls with my phone, so now I know what I did, won't happen again. I restart Verdant Forest, and as I play through the first few holes, I realize I'm getting a feel for the clubs, nothing even from the research I did, just an intuitive understanding of the mechanics. I somehow nail a long putt from off the green, and feel an immense sense of accomplishment, though no clear idea what happened. I also start to realize that the glass breaking sound that keeps startling me might actually mean nothing. You choose your club, choose your swing power, and then you wait, for a long few seconds you wait, and then sometimes the game just decides to scare you. Is this an attempt to recreate that vague impression of, "ugh, I think I goofed that one up," that one often feels when repeatedly attempting a physical feat one is unfamiliar with? At some point I get stuck in a bunker, through what feels like no fault of my own, and gain several strokes not only getting the ball back to the fairway, but then slowly chipping in the putt. I close the tab playing the video, mumbling to myself, "I need to focus."
The monotony of the golfing experience is hard to describe in text, it isn't as quick as "hit the ball and then walk" makes it sound. You have plenty of time to think in the process of walking to the ball, and in navigating the menus to plan a swing, which leaves a lot of room for speculation. I nail a fairway wedge shot across a patch of rough onto the green, even though I still don't really know what I'm doing, but now I'm saying golf sentences like that to myself, like I understand ANY of this. You start to draw conclusions about your play, whether they're true or not, and the feelings about clubs start to morph into strongly held opinions. The 1 wood is basically only good for tee-shots and drives from flat fairway, it's pretty unpredictable anywhere else; the 3 wood performs consistently well on fairway for long drives, and the 7 wood is a useless weight in the golf bag, an abomination of it's kind. Regardless, they will all betray you at a moments notice with the visceral sound of glass shattering like the hopes and dreams you once had of creating something, anything, that people would connect with and love. Then you nail a fairway to green shot with the 7 wood, apologize to it and promise daddy loves all his babies equally, before absolutely bungling it with an attempted chip shot that goes clear over the green, not once, but TWICE.
You get into the rhythm of the thing, and suddenly your mind is wandering: the game doesn't require your full attention, but neither is it mindless enough for you to have background noise, and so you're just raw-dogging existence for a while, your immersion into the game world taking on an existential bent. For example: Are the buildings of this world as evenly spaced and perfectly cloned like it's trees? Do the people here, cloaked in shadow as they appear to be (based on the only example available to you), know of the vibrant world outside of the simulation their master painstakingly crafted for the experience of higher beings? God DAMN it, the glass shattering sound again! There's no glass Damien! I haven't seen a single pane of fucking glass in the game; WHAT AM I SHATTERING DAMIEN, BEYOND MY OWN WILL TO CARRY ON? What can a person shatter, that does not shatter them in return? The course answers with only it's endlessly looping bit-crushed music track. It's a certified banger; they're all certified bangers.
And the 7 wood betrays me again by launching the ball outside the fairway, if only just barely. Or, perhaps, was it my attempt at moderation that caused the misfire, a feckless centrism of my digital limbs? Though caution has only found me endlessly puttering around the green. Well except for that one sweet fairway to green wedge shot, god that felt good; do I like golf now?
There's a dash key, that I'm not sure does anything? I think it moves you a little, tiny bit faster. I try it, hoping that it might make scoping out the terrain less of a monotonous chore, but alas, the time gains are microscopic. The itch to know, to plan and control, never quite subsides. This is Damien's world, and we're just golfin' in it. I did find the stand of trees in the middle of one course by running around a bit though, not that it changed the strategy. Hit ball. Find ball. Hit ball. Always implied to be straight, never quite flying that way; "like a repressed old conservative, this ball," I quip to myself. The 3 wood rewards my bad joke with the jarring sound of some foley artist probably having a really good time who knows how long ago. They're probably dead now.
Also, the game has click to navigate controls for some reason? Even though the entire thing is predicated on a grid, and you can only adjust the camera by 90 degrees at a time? What's up with that? Should we allow our path to be determined by someone else, let alone a collection of electrical impulses traveling though micro-filaments, coaxed into the ghost of a decision making process by a software engineer? Well, it was probably implemented for accessibility, since some players might experience discomfort having to hold down a key for movement. Nevertheless!
The green approaches in the dense fog, a lighthouse calling me back to home. The sea is vast and empty, and life out here is slower, the shots taking less planning, less consideration, though more time to execute, more time to reckon with the consequences. The flag signals a return, a finality, the comfort of seeing closure on the horizon. But this illusion is broken quickly with the first few steps back on land, where things are a bit more stressful, where the shots are harder to parse, more random. You find yourself thinking "I've got a lot more control if I approach cautiously," but where does that leave you? Slowly pacing out your progress, one tiny putt at a time, while somebody else is out there living your dream. Sure they're doing it recklessly, messily, not the way you see it as needing to be done. But they're fucking doing it aren't they, not like you, tap, tap, tapping away at the ball on the green. So you try it, hey, I'll be a little more chill, I'll give it some moderation. And then the ball's in the rough on the other side of the green. You bungled it again, all because you keep looking- no, not even looking, IMAGINING, how some other person is playing their game. The ball goes in the hole eventually, even if it is with another four putts. And then you're back out in the ocean anyway, whacking and glass-smashing your way back to the damn green.
A perfectly lined up putt.
Or was it?
Are you even here to get the ball to the hole? Like, that's the goal, and that is how the game progresses to its conclusion, but for what ends? The lowest stroke count? The game congratulates the player regardless of their score. To see the next course? Why? The color schemes change, there is a bit of variety to the course layouts, they were hand-crafted, one must assume, by Damien themself, lord over these lands, but avenues of exploration and discovery they are not, my friend. You are simply here to play. To make decisions that have results, yes, and results may vary, but it is not in the results, nor their variance, but the deciding itself. The frame fades away, and there is nothing but the golf course. The very experience. The Damien Crawford Golf Experience.
This one is vaporwave.
This one is literally The Moon.
Who is Damien Crawford? A madman? A torturer? A teacher? A guide? They are all of these things, and more. They are me, and I am them, and you are us, and we are one. This is not a game, it is an Experience. A mirror held up to ones own soul, laying it bare in the possible hours of weightless, arguably unfair and oft frustrating, but nevertheless EASY toil. Oh, I'm sorry; are you BORED, sad little gamer? Does it seem pointless to you? Then you have walked by the mirror and seen nothing worth noting, nothing worth pondering. You have seen yourself with distractions and illusions stripped away, and have been left wanting, and in your want, you flee, blaming the mirror. As if it gave you those things. As if you didn't bring them with you. As if you don't carry their weight each and every day. We all have our burdens, little gamer. And we ignore them at our own peril.
So you forge ahead, you continue the game. You finish the second course and think "let's see what other stuff is on offer here." Feeling a bit of whimsy, you defy the order of the courses list and pick something conspicuous, like Dracula's Castle. You revel in the harsh red color pallette, and even in how each hole seems to get longer and longer. "The Experience," you think, "I gaze into the void, and the void stares back; I know it, and it knows me!" You take a sense of accomplishment, of achievement, from your cleverness and your ability to sus out the nature of this experience. And then you hit a second-stroke drive down a par four course and somehow, it goes in! It was totally random, pure chance basically, but what a wonderful, joyous, LITERAL stroke of luck! You start the next hole, and it's another long one, hit, walk, hit, walk. And you're really feeling how slowly you move.
Did I earn this? Or was it a gift from the abyss itself?
You refer to yourself in the second person, perhaps to distance yourself from the idea of yourself, that deep down inside, you know doesn't really reflect who YOU are, it's a construct, something you can hold at arm's length and examine. Something you can drone on and on about. But for how long?
How long can you stare into that mirror? The time starts to feel... heavier. The introspection, well it's still here, and yet, something else. A frustration? The game can certainly be frustrating, but you revel in the experience, you know the experience is all there is, and to be present in it is to transcend- and then my stomach growls. The frame reappears.
I had been playing for a while now, and taking stock of myself, my mouth was a bit dry, my water bottle empty. I decided I should probably take a break, review my notes, eat some lunch. I remembered that somewhere, maybe on the steam page store, I'd read that I could leave the course early at the flag. I slowly trudged across the course, a bit impatient as the needs of my body nagged at me, saved the game, and quit the course, which threw up the message I had seen a few times, and not quite paused to think about:
"Time to go back and think about if we want to play again."
To put it bluntly (since I've probably exceeded the "verbose and pretentious" budget for this particular piece), Damien Crawford's Golf Experience is an incredibly well-crafted meditation on solitude, frustration, games generally, and patience, most of all. Even in ways that perhaps he didn't intend, which are often some of the most memorable parts of a piece of art. At one point shortly before ending my playtime with the game, I hit a particularly bad shot in Dracula's Castle, which landed very near the wall of the level. In a moment of impulsive curiosity, I attempted to walk through the wall. Not really sure why, it's an impulse many of us share I'm sure, but I just walked right into it, thinking something might happen.
Into the darkness of the unknown.
I found myself on a red path, the same color as the walls and floor of the level, suspended out over the darkness of an abyss. I walked backward, and found myself back on the other side of the wall. I walked into the wall again; the path was still there. "This mother fucker! They put fucking SECRETS!? In the GOLF SIMULATOR?" I said loudly, startling my pets. So I started following the path, confused, laughing with irritation, but excited that I'd found something novel, hidden behind the facade of giving the player only the monotonous reproduction of golfing as an amateur. The path eventually revealed a turn to the right, fading into view from the black fog, so I turned and kept going. Eventually, another right turn. And another. I started to doubt, but then remembered all the hours I had experienced so far, and even the blurbs Damien had written about the game: it is a game about patience. So I walked. For ten minutes I walked. Right turn, after right turn, after right turn. Where could this be going? What in the world could they have hidden here? Surely it would just be a dumb punchline of some sort. But I would find it. I would be patient enough to find it. Then, I took a second to look at my phone, and fell off the path.
Back into the level. I was confused; had I been climbing above it this whole time? I walked into the wall, and the path reappeared. I turned around and walked back "out," and the level floor rose up to meet me. I had spent over ten minutes, convinced I was on a path to something, sure my patience was being tested, walking in circles on the wall that surrounded the level. Apparently the movement system accounts for height by just letting the player ignore it, meaning that the few places there are walls, the player can just walk straight up onto them. The fog had obscured objects just close enough that they were completely invisible from the top of the wall in Dracula's Castle, completing the illusion of being on a path in the void. I burst into laughter, completely blown away by my own willingness to commit to the stupidest of possible scenarios in the name of playing along with the artist's intent.
You can even just look down at the course, if you remember there's a button to do that.
My stupidity aside, I also think that this story illustrates just how well the game nails the tone and mechanical engagement that it's going for. It is a test of patience, but it's also a sort of virtual Rorschach test. A player who wants to get something out of it, who gives it the opportunity to lead them to an experience of stillness, boredom, and frustration, can pull something from that experience that is transformative. You could make the argument that someone determined to get that from games will have no trouble finding it, but this game cultivates it, intentionally. The specificity of it's minimalist aesthetic and mechanics, as well as its refusal to present carrots to chase or other motivations beyond the player's own curiosity and willingness to engage, create a virtual space where a player can have an introspective experience nearly identical to the one they might have in the scenario it simulates. Why am I here? Am I having fun? Should I respond to that text from that estranged personal acquaintance? Is there something else I could be doing? Would that actually be a better way to spend my time? To put it in a way gamers might appreciate, it really makes you FEEL like you're having Damien Crawford's Golf Experience.