GameSkinny’s sister site Guild Launch is once again awarding various groups from around the video game community for their contribution of content to gamers in the Dragon Slayer Awards. Among the group of five titles nominated for 2014’s best new indie game includes Goat Simulator.
Coffee Stain Studios is behind creating the third-person simulation satire video game featuring a dopey looking goat with the ability to trick out like a skateboarding game, except the mammal causes destruction while doing so. The indie development company stepped outside their comfort zone of creating their Sanctum science fiction first-person tower defense series to produce a purposely sarcastic title.
This shift in creative direction, though, was welcomed by Coffee Stain Studios PR Manager and game designer Armin Ibrisagic.
“It was by far the most fun I’ve ever had developing a game,” He said. “At the start, we didn’t know if Valve would even let us release the game on Steam, but I’m really glad they did. One of the main reasons we recently released the 1.1 free expansion was simply because it’s so damn fun to work on the game so we wanted to do it some more.”
The open world experience of Goat City Bay includes goat parkour-ing throughout the map, running along walls and on top of bikes while AI humans have the capability to ride on the featured mammal. In addition to racking up points by traveling throughout the city, the goat can send humans flying off treadmills into exploding cars in slow motion, headbutt semi-trailer trucks 30 feet into the air while making goat sounds, and even goat lick humans, to increase the score.
The drastic surprises that come with destroying this peacefully tiny town help bring together the dense combinations of items possible to cause demolition. This devastation intensifies the level of outrageousness already laced throughout this game. The overdramatized physics and quirky bugs makes Goat Simulator mindlessly fun, earning an 8.0 out of 10 review by IGN.
IGN executive editor Dan Stapleton wrote about the game. “
It’s a clever interactive spoof of all the broken game physics we’ve seen in open worlds. Almost like a greatest hits album of all the ridiculous bugs that pop up in serious games like Skyrim or Assassin’s Creed, except embraced and celebrated in a world that’s made to be broken.
Despite Coffee Stain offering the disclaimer that Goat Simulator “is a completely stupid game” and instead reccomends people to spend money on other items such s a “hula hoop” or “pile of bricks,” gamers have downloaded the title and YouTubers such as PewDiePie and KSIOlajidebt have made Let’s Play videos.
This community recognition is something that Ibrisagic honors, calling the following who has played the game “goats.” “We have hundreds of thousands of insane goats backing us, ready to stampede everyone and everything,” he said. “I hope our fans will vote for us! I still get pictures tweeted to me of people cosplaying as goats in public.”
Voting is open for all categories under the promotion tab at Guild Launch’s support section of the site.
