There were a few reasons I went with everyone's favorite absurdist hircine-based paean to pointlessness for this week's Indie Game of the Week. I wanted something without a whole lot of rules and systems to memorize after the complicated rigors of May Maturity entries like Jagged Alliance 2 and I was curious to see if this laptop could even run it (it can, with some notable caveats), but mostly it's because I've been intrigued by this game since it came out. Not so much for its capacity for some mindless hoots n' hollers but to see if there was an actual game to be found buried underneath its physics silliness. Well, there is and there isn't.

Goat Simulator began as the accidental tinkering with the Unreal Engine's physics tools during a gamejam, the story goes, with its coders and designers opting to turn the resulting lunacy into its own standalone Indie game built for the spirit of playful tomfoolery, since the wayward physics couldn't really be used for anything more serious. It chose the noble goat for its star, given it's about as ridiculous as any other animal (and very good for puns, it turns out), and filled a rough-looking suburban open-world map with ridiculously-named human NPCs, multiple objects that could be thrown around or sent flying into others, various little secrets and Easter eggs, and a massive amount of potential for harmless mischief. It sort of reminds me of the maps some games - especially physics-y ones - employ as a practice mode, like the one that used to be in Gang Beasts with all the ropes and pulleys and seesaws. There's not really a narrative to speak of, but there are a set of goals to pursue if the player's so inclined. These range from tutorials for the goat's repertoire of moves - there's a headbutt, an extremely adhesive lick, an utterly useless bleat, the ability to spin in mid-air for tricks, a "manual" that uses the same controls as THPS, and so on - to various milestones like vertical height reached or the amount of mayhem caused as quantified the game's combo points system. There's also a few obtuse hints to what else the map has in store, like becoming Queen of the Goats and sacrificing your brethren for demonic telekinetic powers. Honestly, though, these targets exist purely for the sake of those unimaginative grown-ups like myself who need goals and guidelines for their fun: it's apparent that the game would prefer if you sought out your own jollies within the large sandbox it's created for you.

I'm mildly invested in pursuing more of the game's many achievements and secrets, or trying out any of the DLC campaigns that came with the complete "GOATY" edition that was recently given away in a Humble Bundle (which is where I got it - it's still active as of writing, in fact!), but only mildly so. Goat Simulator was originally presented as part of a wave of satirical "Simulators" in the wake of the inexplicably popular and usually German hyper-realistic sims like Farming Simulator and Euro Truck Simulator, and was easily the funniest and most successful of a saturated market of zero-effort parodies. The DLCs take the spirit of that further, with spoofs on grindy MMOs, DayZ zombie survival games, and aimless space exploration simulators like No Man's Sky. There's also a cross-promotion thing with Payday 2, but it seems like it'd be less fun if the other developers are in on the joke.

However, Goat Simulator definitely feels like a "little goes a long way" sort of affair, especially after you've seen most of the game's hoofed goofs. I'd like to say it has more than a few hours of gameplay in it but I'm skeptical it'll keep my interest for even that long, unless I decide to collect the 30 golden goat trophies the game has hidden around its map (though I can't shake the feeling that pursuing a bunch of useless collectibles makes me the butt of a joke). There's also the fact that, while the game does just about run on this Win 8 office laptop with its integrated HD graphics card, it's a little rough. Draw distance for objects and framerates definitely take a hit when the physics are in full effect, and while a slow-motion mode makes controlling the goat substantially easier there are times when its deliberately awkward movement can be vexing if I'm trying to platformer my way up to a tricky ledge to headbutt a man to his death, or use a waterslide, or hang out with deadmau5 or any number of similar everyday goat activities. I appreciate what the game is, and the purity of its mission in providing simple frivolity to those who don't want a game that takes itself at all seriously or requires much investment, but it's not what I'm looking for.

Rating: 3 out of 5.