Say what you will about golf but it at least gave us crazy golf, so it can’t be all that bad. And if crazy golf – which is surely an arcadey reconfiguring of a game that can often seem tedious and drawn-out – wasn’t good enough by itself, it’s now given us Wonderputt. Wonderputt is everything that crazy golf aspires to be: it’s intricate, devious, and magical. It’s a perfect example of the videogame difference, an ideal examination of a form that can take impossible ideas and make them work.
Wonderputt is the latest offering from Damp Gnat, Reece Millidge’s UK-based interactive arts and animation studio. Previous games include things such as Icycle, a frosty spin on the likes of Trials HD and Line Rider, and Adverputt, an earlier take on crazy golf – albeit with a sponsorship twist - that provided much of the framework for Wonderputt itself.
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And it’s a great framework. Wonderputt’s ball physics are spot on, its controls are both functional and pretty – play it and you’ll see what I mean - and the courses are scrupulously fair. None of that matters as much as it should, though, because the true appeal of this particular game lies with watching the transformations that take place in between holes. Wonderputt’s all about playing a round across the ripple of a frozen lake and then watching the lake thaw, before playing across the lily pads that then sprout on its surface. It’s about putting through the exploded diagram of an Airfix model torpedo, or sending a long shot bouncing around a field that’s been freshly mown by UFOs.
There’s a touch of Escher to Wonderputt, and a huge dose of science – and of science text book illustration, too. It’s a striking and cruelly underutilised graphical approach I’ve only seen previously exploited in Curve Studios’ excellent Metroid-by-way-of-the-water-cycle WiiWare game, Hydroventure. In Wonderputt, natural and unnatural worlds run wild, and so cutaway volcanoes erupt amidst rocket launches and sudden snowdrifts.
A legendary game designer I follow on Twitter suggested that there was something of Vectorpark’s Windosill at work in Wonderputt, and you can see it the most, I suspect, in the quick, imaginative changes, and the precise, beautifully abrupt physics - all long arcs and short stops. That, if nothing else, is a testament to what Damp Gnat has achieved here; it’s created a game that has linked everyday funfair attractions with the strange, furry, taloned wilds of indie design’s farthest reaches – and it did it with ease.