Goat, Why am I reading this?!

Credit for me describing things as a "Goat" game goes to my friend the wonderful Marpizza. You can find her streaming over at Twitch: The Pizza Parlor, she's wonderful people even if she is slacking massively at creating a website for herself. You should go harass her in stream about it, tell her Goat sent you.

Okay, why are they "Goat" games?

Because I'm me and I am breathlessly excited about stuff like I always am.

I'm a HYPER NERD (this comes as a shock I'm sure) when it comes to video games and I like evangelizing the weird games. I convinced Mar and some other mutual friends who are all relatively normalish people to play Golden Light in co-op with me. Golden Light for those that do not know is a weird game, it's ... um. meaty. Here, look at the trailer.

Welcome back, shit's weird right? Like... meaty. Anyways stuff like Golden Light is why my friend started calling weird games like that "Goat" games. Problem is when you say that people think you mean Goat Simulator. Or Escape Goat. Or Goat of Duty. And to be fair two of those kind of are Goat games (Goat of Duty and Goat Simulator duh... Just kidding, they all are) but like that's not what it means here right? It means that intersection of weird and obscure where things are just special. Plenty of popular mainstream weird stuff is a goat game like The Binding of Isaac but my personal definition edges a bit more to the obscure side of the equation. Super weird games? Those are Goat Games. Super weird, obscure games? Those are the True Kvlt Goat Games.

Here, I made a graphic to explain it:

It's a matrix of games! Actual positions are highly subjective and not to be taken seriously outside of what quadrant they're in.

The animal names are MOSTLY a joke... mostly. But the way this breaks down is you have True KVLT Goat and Mountain Goat games which are the weird kind of indie bullshit game that I love with the difference being how popular they are. Antelope games which are popular and just frankly NOT that weird. And then you have Sheep games which I've elected to not name directly because many are the result of solo devs or small indie studios just trying to grind trends till they get a popular game and they don't need me giving them grief. Think of the thousands of bejeweled clones or countless mid JRPGs: those are Sheep games.

Okay but what's the deal with the names?

Look, my amazing girlfriend suggested it and it made me laugh. If you have a Goat game, you might as well have other animals. So a Goat game but not quite true goat? Something that's a goat but not! Mountain Goats! Okay what's a normal game, well if a Mountain Goat game is between Goat and normal, popular games and it's a Goat-Antelope those normal, popular games must be Antelope games. And Sheep games? Sheep are like the anti-goat. They're also the worst. Yes, I'm sheepist.

Behold! Goat Games:

Cultist Simulator

A totally normal Goat game

Cultist Simulator is a weird game to talk about and I'm going to try to keep this spoiler free. I recommend that anyone reading this who hasn't played it give it a shot. Visually, the game looks like a card game and a particularly gnarly one with cards of vibrant colors and esoteric names all over the place. Mechanically it's actually a narrative adventure game similar to lots of the Interactive Fiction out there and that juxtaposition of one kind of game system hiding in a completely different shell would be enough for me to say this is a Goat game. But there's more: It's a game set in a world that would fit into the Weird Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert W. Chambers (and, more Chambers than Lovecraft I think) about ancient god-like entities, otherworldly locations and the power of knowledge as well as the terrible prices you pay for it. It's deep, convoluted, and rewarding to learn about. I definitely recommend using a wiki sparingly or not at all while playing so that you don't spoil the surprises for yourself.

Vangers

A true KVLT Goat game

An oldie, but a goodie Vangers is... well it's NUTS. Set... I think? after a nuclear war between bug aliens and humans the world is populated by their... mutual descendants?? and Vangers which are spirits (maybe?) bound to their all terrain vehicles. You're a Vanger. Look the first thing you have to know about this game is it has a LOT of backstory, it's absolutely insane, and none of it matters THAT much. It's an extremely open ended sandbox of a game with role-playing and adventure elements wrapped around a racing game core. And weird bugs-aliens, they're definitely structural. The game is incredibly Russian (by which I mean there is no weird like Eastern Bloc weird) and is just this twisted mishmash of concepts, ideas, lore (it literally starts with a multi page info dump about the setting), and raw craziness. Has a prequel in the form of the RTS Perimeter that is about the annihilation war that preceded the setting that is also worth checking out.

Soldak

A Goat game Developer

Take a pound of Diablo 1, mix it with 4 cups of a living and breathing world that doesn't care about you being "THE PLAYER", add in a couple teaspoons of jank and you've got any of Soldak's games. If you get a quest to go to level 4 of the dungeon and stop an orc from raising an army to attack your town with and then you lollygag and don't take care of business one of two things will happen: 1. he's going to invade the town, kill shop keepers, vendors, quest givers etc, and generally ruin your and everyone elses day or 2. he's going to get run down by someone else that wants that quest reward and you get zilch. That is the special sauce that Soldak adds to their games: These are living worlds that will unapologetically ruin your day. And I LOVE them for this. Special shout out to Drox Operative for being a Diablo clone where you're in space, piloting a single ship, and running missions to manipulate galactic politics. Beautiful.