author: Aleksandra Sokolska
Games Now! 7 Hits Developed in Days
Sometimes you don't need a budget and eight years of work to make a hit. Some people only need a few dozen hours, four packs of energy and a pizza. Impossible? At game jams, it's the rule of the day...
Table of Contents
- Games Now! 7 Hits Developed in Days
- Celeste
- Don’t Starve
- Goat Simulator
- Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
- Surgeon Simulator
- SUPERHOT
Goat Simulator
- Release date: 2014
- Genre: simulator
- Platforms: PC, iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4
After finishing work on Sanctum 2, Swedish studio Coffee Stain organized a monthly intra-company game jam. The concept for Goat Simulator was created as a joke. One of the inspirations was QWOP, another comic-book game in which the player attempts to complete a 100-meter run with a heavily inert runner, controlling thighs and calves separately. The second inspiration was the famous Tony Hawk Pro Skater series. However, the studio's lead developer, Armin Ibrisagic, summed up Goat Simulator as follows: "It's an old-school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you're a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff."
The developers did not assume that the project, which is more of a sandbox joke, would ever get to stores. That all changed when a clip from a bugged Alpha version, which went viral and gamers began yearning for the game with a destructive goat. To date, the video has been watched by more than 4.5 million people on YT – you can find it here:
Goat Simulator debuted in April 2014, and in January 2015 the creators announced that sales had reached 2.5 million copies. The game proved to be mediocre, but its market power was large – after all, players love watching glitches, and this game also allowed them to realize the craziest ideas. It owes its success primarily to its memic potential. May the one, who haven't watched a single gameplay from this game be the first to cast the stone. On the other hand, playing ragdoll combined with destroying everything in its path is fun, but it gets boring quickly. Currently, the developers admit their motto has become "try not to try too hard," but there are also opinions that games such as Goat Simulator legitimize half-baked, glitchy releases.
