now playing: "Wonderputt"

The Wonderful World of Wonderputt!

Let me just forewarn you that golf, of all things, is not my thing. I'd much rather handle a bow and arrow any day of the week than attempt to use a golf club for anything else besides... well, clubbing something.

So I was altogether rather surprised when, scrolling through the list of Independent Games finalists, that the adventure golf Wonderputt (Damp Gnat, 2011) came up as one of the few browser-based titles I could review. "How could a little golf game be that appealing? Really?" I asked myself; but lo and behold, it was nomianted for the Excellence in Visual Art category, of all things. Oh sure, why not?

It would now appear that reviewing this game has been the best decision I've made since the beginning of the new year. Say what you will about the implications of that statement for my life (/sarcasm), but when you apply it to this particular adventure, you've got to consider that's a tremendous cake of a compliment. Honestly, Wonderputt is the most original browser game I've seen in a while; in the past few months I've started to notice just how many "transcended" casual games aren't so much "transcended originals" as they are "transcended remixes" of the original ideals I ran across in my exploration of the casual web genre. Wonderputt stands out in this regard--down-to-earth and out-of-this-world fun simultaneously and at the same time!

Elevator ride... whee!

I actually didn't do so half-bad on the slopes!

Your player-character-icon of a golf ball is dropped into a mesmerizing 3D, multi-level landscape that resembles eight little Super Mario worlds mushed together into an amoebic growth--in other words, it's easy to forget you're in an 18-hole course as you're fascinated by this space-age artsy microcosm. In some ways, it's an interesting perspective into what goes on in the mind of a golf ball. Rolling over bean-green hills and tromping through cereal sand probably isn't its idea of a good time. Wouldn't it rather live in a world of alien agriculture invasions, ski hills, miniature temples of doom, and industrial furnace playgrounds? 

Wonderputt is a pure golf ball's paradise. 

The heavenly synth string harmony doesn't hurt you either, as you experience a continuous stream of euphoric moments in the beautiful transitions from hole to hole. The entire landscape shifts, morphs, dies, and is reborn again, creating pockets of places you never thought you could maneuver a golf ball. Even when you get stuck from time to time (darn you physics!), the serendipity of this empty environment--and yet, it's not empty, it's just populated with machines and nature and non-people things--tends to relax you all the same (when you're not squealing for joy in the same pitch as the "albatross" point acheivement).

Whether or not you're athletically inclined in your choice real-world or virtual entertainment, Wonderputt is just one of those games that will make you re-evaluate what a "transcended" web game really is.