Some people play golf because they enjoy walking around in comfortable clothes on a warm summer day. Others enjoy the challenge of placing a small ball in a small cup using a stick. In Cursed to Golf, coming to PC and Switch in 2022 from developer Chuhai Labs, you golf to escape an eternity in golf purgatory. Obviously, that’s the best reason to golf.
Thunderful Publishing and Chuhai Labs call Cursed to Golf a golf like, which is incredibly confusing. They also call it a golf roguelike, which clears things up a little, but not too much. Basically you, the player, are just about to make the winning shot at a major golf tournament when you are struck by lightning. Killed instantly, you find yourself trapped in the otherworldly golf purgatory, which I have to assume is where you end up if you’re too good for golf hell but too bad for golf heaven. I also have to assume that innocent baby golfers who die also end up in golf purgatory, but that’s an existential crisis for another time.
Long story short, you’ve got to win the golf purgatory tournament in order to escape the cursed plane. There are 18 holes spread across four different biomes. Each hole has a set number of shots you can take. Clear the hole at or under par and you can move on. Go over, and it’s back to the beginning of the course.
As you can probably tell from the screenshots and trailer, this is no ordinary golf game. It’s more of a side-scrolling golf puzzle game, where getting a shot just right can set off explosives, clear blocked paths, and more. There are power-ups. There are strange, mystical beings. And there’s lots of hitting a ball with a stick.
While we wait for next year’s release of Cursed to Golf for the PC and Switch, check out creator Liam Edwards original concept for the game over on itch.io to see how much fun golfing for the fate of your eternal soul can be.