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5 February 2014

Games developer creates Goat Simulator for a laugh, and it looks accidentally brilliant

Suggested tagline: “Be the goat you want to see in the world.”

By Ian Steadman

One of the most talked-about games right now isn’t a big console franchise like Call of Duty, or even a smartphone free-to-play hit like Flappy Bird (although Flappy Bird is certainly getting attention beyond all reason considering how dumb a game it is). No, we’re here today to talk about Goat Simulator, the game of being a goat:

It’s only an alpha version – that means a rough first draft, in computer games development terms – that was knocked together in three days by Swedish developer Coffee Stain Studios for the Global Game Jam. The glitchy video above, with a goat ramming into lamp posts and jumping off a tall tower, has become their biggest hit so far, thanks to reddit-love.

The whole thing has left them somewhat baffled, because there’s no gameplay mechanic here other than “hitting stuff”, but this is genuinely one of the most enticing games I’ve seen in ages. It’s like Grand Theft Auto, without the annoying missions getting in the way. And you’re a goat, crashing parties:

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The demand for a full release of what was only meant to be a tech demo has meant that the studio is considering what to do next, with Coffee Stain Studios PR head Armin Ibrisagic telling Vice that they’re going to “see how it goats”. But we live in a world where the most mundane things can get their own simulator games – there’s a thriving, if somewhat niche, market for things like Street Cleaner SimulatorGarbage Truck Simulator and Farming Simulator, after all:

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