CURSED TO GOLF

Jonson: Yes hi there, my name is Kyle T. Johnson. I’m with Thunderful Publishing and we are publishing Cursed to Golf and Fire Girl. 

Sam: Give us a small summary of Cursed to Golf. 

Jonson: So Cursed to Golf is a golf-like, as we’ve lovingly dubbed it, developed by Chuhai Labs from Kyoto, Japan. It is a roguelike platforming golf game in 2D, and essentially you are navigating, as the protagonist, golf purgatory. 

Sam: OK, that is different. 

Jonson: [laughs] It is, yeah, most certainly. 

Sam: What would you say inspired you in the game? 

Jonson: So the primary brain behind the game is Liam Edwards with Chuhai Labs, and they’ve just been fantastic partners. And as he tells it, when he was a kid, he used to play golf when he was designing his games and playing around with physics and making dungeons, he started off just kind of using a ball to get around, which brought him eventually back to back to golf, and then it just kind of developed from there. I mean, it’s such a very unique idea. I think the name itself inspires a lot of intrigue. But yeah, as far as his passion behind it, he’s brought nothing but great energy. 

Sam: Calling it Cursed to Golf, that that will get a lot of people’s eyes, like, “What is this game even?”

Jonson: [laughs] Most definitely. 

Sam: With the development of the game, again, a lot of ups and downs might happen. If you could go back and change anything, what would you change, if anything? 

Jonson: Quite honestly, because the game is still under development (we’re expecting it early 2022, it’ll be releasing on the PC and Switch), and from a publishing standpoint, I would honestly say that Chuhai Labs has been terrific. I mean, I haven’t seen any missteps or any kind of miscommunications in the game. And from its reception here at PAX West, I’ve got nothing but praise for the team. I think they’ve done phenomenally. 

Sam: What’s been your favorite part of the development so far? 

Jonson: Goodness, definitely getting to play it. [laughs] Yeah, from the first time where I sat down and just kind of gave it go and saw what we were working with, because Liam actually had a previous build (let’s call it the pre-alpha on itch.io) [I could see] it was a bit of a passion project early on. Playing that just immediately, I remember thinking like, “Something about this is so strange, but to quote Todd Howard, ‘It just works.’”

Sam: Yeah man.

Jonson: It’s oddly rewarding whenever you hear people walk by the booth and just whisper under their breath like, “Cursed to Golf…” [laughs]

Sam: [laughs] Because again, it brings intrigue. It’s like, “a golf-like?”

Jonson: Right, just the concept alone is like, huh? 

Sam: Is there anything else you would like us to know about your game? 

Jonson: Yeah, again, it’s releasing early 2022. [We’re] pushing January, but I mean obviously it’ll be ready when it’s ready. For PC and Switch. Shout out again to Chuhai Labs and a special thank you to Kenzie here, Kenzie Burke who is a producer of the game and actually here as well representing us at the booth, who is a bit displaced from the Kyoto team at the moment. But yeah, the whole squad, they’ve been phenomenal to work with and I mean, it’s a dream as a publisher to be a part of a project like that.