For what quickly became one of my favorite mini golf game experiences in the first 90 minutes, easily became such a mixed bag once I tried to explore its additional content.

The main mode - its three various courses going through the "multiple ages of humankind" is amazing. Such a wide variety of art, humor and new mechanics shown throughout the courses, with a decent amount of challenge too. Wanting more however, I decided to delve into the games' Trips content - which became more frustrating than not.

The Trips are the game's method of adding in more levels and mechanics, without having to create a ton of new assets. All of it is creative, whimsical and enjoyable somewhat - but a huge burden when it comes to trying hit precisely due to the isometric view of the game or even its rather zoomed in camera. I found myself becoming so frustrated near the end, despite really appreciating the level design at play. (if admittedly tweaked to a much higher skew of difficulty than I'd prefer)

For the incredible sale price I got it at, it's a no-brainer even for just the main "story" mode. At full price, it's still a very fun golf game - just be content with the very short play time or bashing your head for that 100% completion label.

So, this review is a combination of a game review and my ramblings, thoughts and realization about how achievement, some milestones, design decisions can ruin the experience with games. If you interested only about the game portion, don't read farther than the first paragraph.

Wonderputt Forever is a sequel for Flash game Wonderputt, made by developer Damp Gnat (they also made beautiful ICYCLE: ON THIN ICE). Wonderputt is a mini-golf game within a single diorama, that changes with fancy animations. Pleasing to look, fast to beat (10 mins max), short sweet experience. The sequel, Wonderputt Forever takes that concept and changes scenery more frequently: now instead of single diorama you get multiple scenarios, where leading your golf ball to the hole can expand, change or even destroy previous level. One time you are overcoming obstacles in circus, the next moment you are guiding your ball the the center of Earth's core, destroying statues, delivering bomb through factory complex and etc. Main game is the central appeal, since Wonderputt is all about looking at gorgeous animations and bizarre transformations. There are three chapters with 18 holes each. There are also bonus levels, 400 of them. Each 100 has a special gimmick: going through simple geometry, painting every white obstacle, surviving magma-like landscape and traversing through water levels. They are all plain looking ones, mostly here for enjoying gameplay. You can play optional levels with modifiers: random levels, messed-up precision, bomb-ball limitations, always go under or par and one life. You also can also modify your ball in this optional levels, make it do different sounds and how it looks. Simple game, simple mechanics, great sound and visual design. Depth perception makes some holes harder than it should be. And... achievements/stars. They have some cruel requirements, not necessarily hard ones, just cruel. Overall - OK game!

The whole main game can be completed in an hour, but if you wish to do all optional levels, gather optional collectables from main courses and hunt for achievements, it can take from 5 to 15 hours, that depends on how good you are. And this is where I almost felt into existential crisis and needed to reevaluate how I should perceive certain games. Some of the achievements require you to replay main courses up until necessary stage. And on that stage you are most likely need to do specific thing (do not fall or die, do something in three or less strikes and etc.). You messed up – replay the whole course, which also can take some time. "Under par main courses" – nothing to sneeze, classic in golf games. "Do not die on early levels of optional courses" – cruel, since some of them require precise hits. And as you notices, most of them are solely for replayability and wasting time until you got it. And instead of enjoying a short sweet game for an hour, I spent 9 hours trying to get completely optional achievements to feel completed. Now I'm mildly infuriated with the game and with myself. I convinced myself that completing challenges would make make me feel satisfied, but the opposite happened. Yeah, something like that was in the original Flash game, with (do Albatross on every hole and complete game 50 times. And under 3 minutes). But why do stuff like this are present at all? To waste player's time so he could not refund the game? Or to add some variety for those who liked gameplay part of the Wonderputt? At this point it's hard for me to differentiate one from another.

Most of the time I loved doing optional challenges, doing true endings in games and especially collecting achievements (moslty Steam ones). They are the means to play the game more, and if i like the game, I do not see the reason why I shouldn't go for it. But once in a while I have to pick my battles. I liked Pizza Tower a lot, recently replayed it as a Noise, and yet i had not done P-ranks and secret eyes to full completion, most likely never will. In Disco Elysium I do not particularly care for achievement hunting since the game is not about seeing it all and doing every possibility (debatable, but that's my point at least). Sometimes I think that doing 100% will give me the satisfaction of doing it all, seeing every deliberate design choice will grant me more perception on a game and game designs overall. Sometimes that works and I appreciate game more than just completing it for the first time (Hollow Knight, Neon White, Hades, Dusk, DKC 2 and 3, Wario Land 4 and a lot more), but sometimes it's more detrimental and ruins some perception on games (Wario Land 3, Stray, Limbo, N+ and some others). It mostly comes down to a certain questions. Do I like gameplay enough to play same game/levels/sections without losing my mind? Do challenges, 100% and achievements designed well and satisfying to do? Do they give me enough dopamine to compensate for failure and wasted time? If any of the answers is no, then I should not touch the game after I completed it otherwise I will shoot myself in the foot again. Even if the game is seemingly easy, i must ask myself another question: if the game is about art, music, story, presentation and gameplay is just a means to an end, should I even bother with achievements that are seems completable? I love golf games, but for the sake of my first impressions I should stop myself a little more often. I will still hunt for achievements where I see fitted. Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is almost completed and I love this game so much, achievements and unlocks behind them help me to come back to one of my favorite games. FFXIV's achievement list is never-ending, but I like spending time in FFXIV, no matter what I do, ether it battle content, Triple Triad, levequests, etc. And I will hunt you, the reader, if you have some good achievements. But in a case of Wonderputt and some other small games i must stop myself to perceive the games in a better light, since they deserved it.

Thx for coming to my rambling about stupid videogame's achievements. Oh, and check out Wonderputt Forever, it is sweet little game.

Wonderputt was a classic flash game, and this expands on that in a lot of ways. More levels, more mechanics, more things to unlock. The visuals and how the levels transition are the best part of these games and its still cool here. There are three 18 hole courses and like 4 sets of 100 quick holes. About halfway through the courses the gimmicks they add started to seriously piss me off. I also didn't really like that the newer content was gated by your Rank. If you fuck with minigolf this is probably dope, but minigolf eventually starts to pigg me off.