As a huge games enthusiast, I’ve written about games that are fun for idling away a few spare moments, games that instill a feeling of great accomplishment when completed and games that take a bit of strategy to figure out. Of course, in that time, I have also played games that are clunky and difficult to the point of being unfun. Since I have no intention of wasting anyone’s time, I rarely tell anyone about these games. It is only on the sparsest of occasions that I come across a game that is so mind-blowingly hard, yet incredibly fun, as the one I bring to you today.
I began playing Super Stickman Golf back in May at the recommendation of a friend, and I haven’t yet made much of a dent in the set of courses available to play. Learning the game is simple, and you may feel good about your performance after your first few rounds. But don’t let that fool you: in order to enjoy this game, you must be prepared to be incessantly abused by failure. Have I scared you away yet? No? Then hit that jump to find out more.
Practice Swings
It’s time to polish up those shoes you haven’t used since you bought them and load up that golf bag, because we’re gonna hit the links.
Nice knickers. You must be new. Start with “how-to.”
If you’re not a country club member, as it were, you may want to start by tapping that “how-to” button, and maybe hit from the children’s tees. The tutorial (rookie class) will teach you how to play, but since I’m here to tell you how hard this game is, I’ll quickly cover the basics.
The controls are easy. It’s the courses that are hard.
The arrows there will adjust the angle of your golfers swing. This is what you’ll use most often, because typically when you’ve chosen an angle, you tap the “go!” button to initiate the swing. Most gamers will recognize this mechanic: tap the button once to begin the backswing, and tap a second time when the meter reaches your desired power level (this determines how far the ball goes, assuming nothing is in the way).
The pause button will bring up the menu, which lets you restart the course (a necessity for keeping it under par) and return to the main menu. The button that looks like a sniper crosshair will center the camera back on your golfer. You’ll need this later, because the levels get huge. Finally, the golf ball button brings up a menu of the tricks you’ve chosen to hide in your golf bag (more on this later), in case you get into a bind (you will).
Tee Off
You’ve probably got the hang of it by now, so when you’re ready, tap on “Play!” from the home screen. First, you’ll be asked to choose a course pack. They’re labelled according to difficulty, but it doesn’t really matter which one you pick, your frustration is imminent. The only difference that I’ve found is the higher the difficulty, the sooner you’ll run into an impassable brick wall of skill that requires an unfathomable amount of patience to overcome. Let’s press on, shall we?
You might as well start with ‘beginner.’ No sense in burning yourself out too early.
Next you’ll be asked to pick a course. Better start with Loftstrom Links, otherwise you’ll just be cutting your success short.
There’s a course further down called Handicap Forest.
Finally, all you have to do now is stock your golfbag and you’re off. Each course allows you to choose seven balls from a list of unlockable power-ups designed to make your nine-hole adventure slightly easier. The mulligan is self explanatory, but that’s about the end of golf normalcy.
The Sticky Ball makes your ball stick to whatever surface it comes in contact with first. Try not to get confused when you’re hitting off of an inverted 45-degree slant. The Ice Ball will turn a water trap into ice on contact, letting you play over a lake as if it were grass. Hazard Swap turns the sand traps into water traps and vice versa for the remainder of the hole. Use Air Brakes to stop your ball in mid air so it falls straight to the ground (what?) and Super Ball/Nitro Ball to add that extra oomph for long drives.
These won’t really help you.
After choosing your weapons, you might think you’re ready to play. You’re not, but no matter: tap “Tee Off!” You’ll be brought to the first hole of the course.
If you don’t ace this hole, your future looks grim.
That doesn’t look so bad does it? Well, for comparison’s sake, here’s one of the later holes (pieced together, on account of the size).
It gets even harder than this.
You’re going to want to smash your iPhone against the wall. Don’t do it, because this game is addicting and you’ll suffer from withdrawal. Also, a new iPhone is pretty expensive.
Conclusion
Alright, so I may have made playing this game seem like a horrible idea, but Super Stickman Golf continues to prove itself as the most maddeningly difficult, yet frustratingly addictive and fun game I’ve ever played on iOS. Noodlecake Studios implemented a real neat art style here, and I’d like to see it translated into other games. Also worth mentioning is the music: the 8-bit soundtrack is superb.
Super Stickman Golf is a solid iOS game from a developer with the coolest name I’ve ever heard, and at a mere $0.99, I can’t help but recommend it. It’s loads of fun, and did I mention it’s really, inexplicably hard?