RPGolf stood out to me on Indiegogo because of the high amount of money it received, over $10,000. Not many Indiegogo campaigns, at least not gaming ones, get anywhere near that these days. So I had a look at the campaign, and I liked what I saw, until I saw the 500 pound gorilla in the room staring me in the eye.
You get exactly what you’d expect from a game called RPGolf, and that’s a cross of a classic SNES style action-RPG with a golf game. Thank goodness there’s a gameplay trailer, because otherwise you might be talked into thinking to two were seamlessly blended together.
The trailer, however, shows differently. It shows a game that’s clearly been stitched together from two different genres. You hit a golf ball, complete with a power meter, spin, and all the stuff you’d expect from Tiger Woods or whatever they’re calling those games these days. After you hit the ball, the game turns into an action-RPG, somewhat similar to Final Fantasy. It’s an open-world golf course in which you hit things with your club and you have to walk to where the ball landed. It almost feels like they came up with the title first, and designed the game around that.
The thing is, the combat has nothing to do with golfing, and likewise the golfing has nothing to do with the combat mechanics. It doesn’t appear that you can be interrupted mid-swing by a monster hungry for your face, and the attacks don’t blend in any elements of the game of golf, like sleeping, checking your phone, and wishing you were anywhere else.
Still, the game looks fun in a “I’ve got ten minutes to spare while on the subway” kind of way. The trailer shows a well put together game if nothing else, and the idea of walking around a golf course and beating things with a club will be cathartic if nothing else. It’s got good music too, as seemingly all these retro RPG games inherently have.
I like the look of the game as well. Everything from the graphics to the HUD conveys an old-fashioned NES or even Gameboy style of game, so this is a good month for those kinds of games.
The gorilla in the room, however, is the donation amount itself. A mere 33 backers have donated $10,052. Although, that number is somewhat misleading. You see, 32 backers have donated $1,252 in total, meaning a massive $8,800 came from a single backer, calling themselves L.I.G.
You can watch the latest episode of Crowdfunding Analysis Time in full below where I talk about this backer, and the rest of the game in full. But – spoiler alert – I will say I wasn’t able to find any wrongdoing from the developer or the backers.
