ranzware
Mini Mini Golf Golf isn’t a particularly good golf game. The controls feel a tiny bit off, the physics are occasionally unpredictable and there’s not many holes to putt your way through. That might put off some people, which is a shame, as it’s just the tip of a thoroughly weird iceberg. In reality, this is an experimental narrative adventure about climate collapse, human memory, time travel and awkward FMV videogame theory podcasts. Just… mostly told through the medium of miniature golf.
Released a few days ago and the debut title from Berlin-based arthouse game collective Three More Years, this is a high-concept sci-fi story set in the year 2063. Operating from a retro-futuristic space station orbiting above the (newly-formed) Greater Baltic Ocean, you’re trying to piece together the history of what happened to our poor and abused planet while also communing with some kind of extra-dimensional entity that speaks to you through glitches in a minigolf game.
From the little bit I’ve played (and I wouldn’t want to spoil you beyond this point anyhow), it’s an audiovisual treat. A mixed-media collage of VHS-scrungled FMV, warped and glitching game geometry, text delivered through all manner of kinetic typography (including key narrative being written on the ground in the wake of your ball’s travel) and an ever-shifting perspective as you hop between screens, tuning dials, tapping buttons or waiting for text to be printed onto your weird science clipboard.
There’s a lot to unpack here. Even in its opening minutes, the game dives into the social repercussions and politics of tackling climate change, and how capitalism is unwilling or unable to address that. But it’s also a human story, about overwork, memory, love, legacy and so much more. It’s also sometimes about deep shower thoughts on games, with the developer’s own podcast—Mini Mini Talk Talk, viewable independently here on YouTube—being used to deliver ideas and chopped up to provide hints at where the next branch of its non-linear plot lies. Y’know, when you’re not lathing tectonic plate inserts using mini-golf controls.
While Mini Mini Golf Golf undeniably hits different, this isn’t the first game to do weird high-concept things with mini golf. The psychedelic Wonderputt Forever delivers some surface-level social commentary through its unfurling, recontextualizing courses, but Wonderputt feels less interested in telling a story than conveying vibes. Above all else, Mini Mini Golf Golf is here to tell you a story, however weird its delivery. The game is out now on Steam for £9.89/$11.59, with a small launch discount available until December 19.
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Kurt Indovina
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