Normal Golf Game Launches After Viral Demo Success

Normal Golf Game has launched today on Steam, marking the second solo project from former mobile game developer Luke Muscat, best known for his work designing Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride. Muscat admits there was a point just a few months ago when he wasn’t sure his strange take on golf would ever find much of an audience, but that changed quickly after the demo arrived in June and took off online, pulling in millions of views and plenty of attention along the way.

The full release expands quite a bit on that demo, adding new difficulty modes and clubs, a much larger map and more than 100 bounties to work through. There’s also a mystery running through the game that has players kidnapped and forced to play golf while uncovering the intentions of a deranged game designer named Luke Muscat, because apparently just playing a normal round of golf would have been too easy.

For anyone who actually does want something closer to regular golf, there’s also a bonus mode that lets players simply head out and play nine holes without worrying about the rest of the madness. Muscat says the option came in part from paying attention to feedback from players and reading through the forums while development continued.

Underneath all of that weirdness is a surprisingly detailed physics-based golf game where players control the path of the club while managing their stance, direction and the angle of the clubface. The course itself is built to be explored rather than followed in one specific way, allowing shots from just about anywhere and at just about anything, as long as nobody gets any ideas about trying to leave.

Normal Golf Game is available on Steam for PC for $9.99. As part of an introductory offer running through October 5, the game is 20% off, bringing the price down to $7.99.