gaming
Goat Simulator devs reflect on how they “accidentally ragdolled into gaming history” with the rise of meme games, and they’re not done “milking goat sim” for all its worth
Discussion
So I got onto the hype train of goat simulator 1 way back in the day. It was fun for a meme but not quite worth $20. But goat simulator 3 is actually an incredible game with tons of details and love built into it. Got it for my kid as a cheap game for his steam deck and it's really something special. Fully fleshed out open world , couch coop, lots of fun quests and mini games, and even an epic boss fight at the end.
My 6 year old absolutely lives for Goat Simulator 3. He enjoyed 1, but 3 is on another level.
Yeah same my 8 year old loves it.
My daughter completed GS3 and moved to Little Kitty Big City. Highly recommend!
Goat Sim 3 is my 3 year olds introduction to video games. He’s been having a blast watching the goat shenanigans (I play while he sits on my lap). I get asked almost daily for “goat games”
What did you tell them when they asked you to buy them Goat Simulator 2?
He thought it was very funny. I think the rest of the game had primed him for that sort of ‘meta’ joke even though a lot of the pop culture references are lost on him.
My fav quest is saving Steve from drowning. You get into a big ass pool, full of people and you need to lick them out of the water until you find Steve.
>! Steve is a fish chilling in a separate pool nearby !<
Dammit, now I'm curious about Goat Simulator 3.
If you like that, definitely try Goat Simulator 2.
its actually really good. low stakes. kinda hilarious
holy shit there are 3??
literally just tried 1 on my deck yesterday looking through my library of things i hadn't played. it was silly for like 10 minutes but really didn't feel like much more than that
holy shit there are 3??
Hahahahaha!
That's what we all asked when Goat Sim 3 was announced. And no, the answer is that there isn't a Goat Sim 2. Well, there is, but it has the number 3 in the title.
They named it 3 because they made a bid deal years ago about how they wouldn't make a second one.
Back in 2013, there were talks of a sequel to Spaceballs that would be called "Spaceballs 3: The Search for Spaceballs 2".
Since you're not in on the joke, Goat Sim 3 is the second game because that's the devs sense of humor. Hoping for a 5th at some point.
If they make another it will be called "Goat Simulator ONE" or something
Goat Simulator 360 before that
gosh forbid they jump on Mortal Kombat's naming conventions. Tons of people have played all except 4 and still couldn't tell you how many games there were in the main series.
well that's only slightly less believable lol
Yeah, Goat Sim 2 is the best of the bunch imo and I highly suggest it
The DLC was superb too.
I started playing Coffee Stain games with Sanctum. It has been fantastic seeing their success. So many of my favourite devs die after one game.
I got it on steam deck for my son as well and was really surprised by the quality. I'd always assumed it was just a silly meme game. It feels like the spiritual successor to the Tony Hawk's Underground games in a lot of ways and I fucked with that game hard in high school / middle school.
...the... the goat sim game is a skateboarding game....?????
Same. My son loves this game and has unlocked almost everything all on his own. Pretty proud
I also love how you can connect PlayStation controllers dock it and do coop without any hassle. I couldn't believe that little handheld could handle 3 players
Finished Goat Simulator 3 with my 3 year old on the lap watching me play the game. She always told me what to do in between missions. Ride that car, change into that costume...
I think the whole "meme game" genre is way more aimed towards streamers to keep their audiences engaged more than anything.
Like, i follow a few good streamers who can make any game LOOK fun as hell, but thats because they are itterally paid for it and often have friends or other streamers that share the same mindset and are able to make it look fun.
Personally, i get bored of the shtick after like an hour on those games...
Meme games are really fun to play with young kids, as a parent. My daughter loves Goose Game.
I spent an evening playing Octodad with my roommate and his niece(9) and nephew(12). Genuinely, it was one of the best times I've ever had playing video games.
Octodad with other people is just a delight.
Although I'd say Octodad is a genuinely good game even if it does have some meme-y qualities. It has things to say about imposter syndrome and fear of becoming a parent.
Untitled Goose Game isn't just a meme though, it's a cute and goofy low-stakes puzzle game.
cute and goosey*
I put powerwash simulator, goat game and goose game on my steamdeck so I can get my 90 year old grandmother to play them at family holidays.
Cool grandma. My 85 year old grandma would never touch a video game. She doesn't understand it and has zero interest in trying to understand.
Untitled goose game was a legitimately good game though.
My daughter (4) and I play Goat Sim 3 every day
Definitely. We had the original Goat Simulator when my oldest 2 were younger, my youngest played it then wanted 3 when it came out. We’ve completed everything in both of them now. My oldest bought Goose Game but didn’t care for it so me and my youngest played it.
that's not a meme game.
For Goat Sim specficially, it's obviously a "joke" game. So, how much you enjoy it comes down to how much you like the joke. If the joke isn't particularly funny to you, then it will probably get old quickly.
It's kind of in the direction of some of the wacky Gradius-likes from years ago.
I really liked the MMO section of the original Goat Sim. It felt like I was legitimately playing some long lost MMO in a digestible form that I could be done with in a few hours, complete with a fake world chat and everything!
My sibling has never had such a visceral negative response to a game until I had them ret goat simulator 3. They didn't get the joke and decided it was a trash game.
Such a bummer because my kid and me had such a blast.
same with squirrel with a gun.
Yeah same
Gave goat sim a stab after enjoying watching some let's play stuff on it.... Absolutely nothing to get involved in I found.
If I want a game to mess around with mates, the rise of hangout games like lethal company are way better. If I wanna be goofy, I'd rather be goofy in real life lol. Not using someone else's rule set of goof.
You can launch 30 feet into the air off a trampoline while your 5 foot tongue is latched onto random objects in real life?
School sports day activity that...
But the point is goofiness is about creativity for me. It's hard to use a confined set of mechanics and feel like it's creative for me.
I mean, the universe is set within a confined ruleset for physics too :P
I suppose it just comes down to what you find fun/funny/goofy.
These meme games are great with friends, not so much when played alone. Someone falling is usually funny to people, but in the real world people falling can mean they can get hurt. I like that I can see my friends fall and mess up without any real world implications.
than
fixed ty
Yo! I love your name, fellow spelling corrector.
I love the Goat Sim games as a kid, spent hours on them.
In the end, it’s the same way I played games that were not funny sandbox sims. The awesome thing is these games were built to be funny sandboxes.
i think thats just a you thing meme games are a blast to play with friends
Probably an us thing I totally have the same sentiment
i dont see why we need to make this a streamer thing or an american thing this is just personal preference no??
Personally, i get bored of the shtick after like an hour on those games...
I too would get bored with visual novel, jrpg, or 80+ hours story game, simply because that's just not my thing. It's the same case. Meme games is just not your thing. Nothing to do with being aimed at streamer.
You should look at the original trailers that lead to Goat Sim. If you liked it then it's for you.
Yeah that makes total sense. Those games are basically designed to create highlight moments for content rather than being genuinely engaging to play solo for hours
My kids love it.
Ehhh, personally I think they are aimed at children more than streamers but ofc multiple markets is always the real goal.
My kids love Goat Sim 3 and will spend hooooooours and hours in it havin a blast. My youngest will spend that entire time within a few city blocks, not even exploring the map, because he has so much fun just wreaking havoc with the abilities and tools we have already unlocked.
Totally Reliable Delivery Service, Wobbly Life, Gang Beasts, Human Fall Flat - all of these silly games are super popular with children. Whenever we entered voice chat with Human Fall Flat it was always other very young children playing.
Agreed. I have zero desire to play this series. The only meme game I can think of that I enjoyed was Goose Game and tbf that's more of a legitimately good game that just happens to work as a meme game when streamed.
cries in sanctum 3
One day, friend. One day.
God please let this game exist in the future. A modern sanctum would be SOOOOO good
I want this so bad, but last time I heard anything from Coffee Stain about a new Sanctum it was some something like "Super Sanctum TD didn't really sell well or get very good reviews so probably not gonna happen". Can't tell if they're fucking with us or not at this point.
I hope sanctum 3 is like sanctum 1 and not like sanctum 2.
I hope Sanctum 3 is.
Hi Sanctum 3 I'm dad
My daughter was like 12 when Goat MMO Simulator came out.
After about two hours playing, she bursts into the room:
"MOM I'VE BEEN TROLLED"
Goat MMO Simulator is a single player game, and there are fake NPC's running around, doing silly stuff, questing, talking in chat. The chat was elaborate enough that it took two hours for the dialog to repeat.
Funniest shit ever. Doubly so if you are a World of Warcraft player, because they copied a lot of WoW behavior, right down to a goat "player" dancing on the mailbox in Goatwind.
Yes! I posted about this in another thread, but the MMO piece was my favorite part of the original game. I've never played much WOW, but I still got a ton of second-hand nostalgia by playing their parody of it...such a cool tribute.
Good, goat sim is great and I can't wait for more
I feel like there's too little appreciation for how well the levels are done.
It really feels like the golden years of Tony Hawk games, where every level had a bunch of secret areas and easter eggs to find.
I will say I did find the levels and humours better in goatsim3 base game then in the dlc
The only bad thing about the DLC I found is that it had less quests than the base map (or it felt like that) and it left me wanting for more, but I considered it well designed. Sysiphus quest that gives you shitty sandals at the end was hilarious
Legitimately one of the most fun games to get all the achievements in. It had just enough whimsy that the gameplay didn't get lost. It was so much fun
Goat Simulator Royale!
Proud of them for taking the money and using it to make the factory building game of their dreams. I'm gonna fucking riot if Embracer starts dismantling them.
Satisfactory is so damn good, and they are still updating it. Just added elevators and controller support.
Wait the devs of Goat Sim are the ones who made Satisfactory? Huh had no idea. I might look at goat sim 3 lol
I still need to finish my first playthrough, I really do hope they add a lot more content though. Factorio Space Age is the big ambition, that one added hundreds of hours of gameplay.
I've already put over 100 nearly 1000 hours in, and I bought it at release.
This game single handedly became one of my hobbies.
EDIT: I said "over 100 hours" when what I meant to say was "nearly 1000 hours" because I think my brain was trying to protect me from the truth.
Holy shit how did I only just realize that the devs behind fricking Goat Simulator made Deep Rock Galactic, Valheim and Satisfactory!!??
Coffee Stain Studios is different from Coffee Stain Publishing. Deep Rock Galactic is developed by Ghost Ship Games and Valheim is developed by Iron Gate Studio.
Ah I see my bad I just clicked on their name on steam and saw all of these games and assumed it was the same studio
Next DLC is "milking goat sim" but they took it literally
I was like 13 or 14 when Goat Simulator came out, and that was the peak age to enjoy it I think. I played that shit so much until I saw all the easter eggs and then never touched it again. I hope 13 and 14 year olds everywhere can keep enjoying goat simulator
I hope they do. They're the funniest games I have e er played. They're also perfect for my young son who is a new gamer, because you can't die. The whole thing is a comical sandbox.
Would be very meme-worthy if they released a goat sim game made with UE 5 and all the bells and whistles turned on. Path traced, hyper realistic goat, but everything else looks the same.
I would have never played it if it wasn't on Game Pass.
Now it's my kids' favorite game.
My 5 and 3 year olds play together on it almost every day. My 3 year old is learning how to use a controller and is in love with jumping on the purple platforms in the Multiverse of Madness dlc. He really impresses me with the way he's learned to control the goat and jump from platform to platform successfully.
4 player split screen games also seem to be pretty few and far between nowadays so that elevates this game even higher. Whenever we have company with kids, it's always great fun to break out goat simulator and let the kids mess around.
I was there when this game was created. I remember the thread talking about how ridiculous sim games were getting and where someone suggested goat simulator and well, this is the result.
I wish they’d make sanctum 3 though
Sometimes I feel like I'm the only person who absolutely loaths euro jank games. Watching things ragdoll around the game world and having shitty buggy games isn't my idea of fun gameplay. It's not funny, it's just bad programming.
A lot of the "Bugs" of Goat sim is intentional, at least in 3. They recreated some bugs in 3 that people enjoyed in the first game. Similar to how lots of mechanics in competitive games began as bugs that people liked. The game is actually very polished.
I'm with you. I don't get any particular enjoyment from that kind of game. It's just not for us, I think.
The difference being the game understands the bugs. The dev keeps the "funny" bugs while fixing the "unfunny" gamebreaking bugs.
If portal has ragdol bug, it won't be funny since the setting is so serious. Goat sim on the other hand is so whimsical, ragdoll bug is just funny. It is the kind of funny like tom&jerry skit, not sitcom funny.
It's not for me, but I can get the appeal. Sometimes it's fun to have a playground where the challenge is to figure out all the entertaining ways you can break shit.
Goat simulator is pretty hilarious though. Especially when you start messing with the mutators.
I thought that too until I actually played Goat Simulator. From outside looking in it looks like janky game, but there's a ton of work put into it to make it fun. Goat Simulator 3 is actually a pretty well made game with lots of Easter eggs that tie into pop culture and events.
It's intended to be a funny, mess around game that doesn't take itself too serious so you can create your own fun in a lot of different ways.
And ragdolling is another essence of that, which they let you do at the press of a button. And they've built set pieces that incorporate you ragdolling, like water slides you can "ragdoll" down and get launched into the air.
My favorite thing to do in the original was get the demon mask which would make things kind of hover in front of your face, and then latch onto a moving car. It would make you zip into the sky and fling you across the entire map and I never saw anyone do it in a let's play at the time. Was my little secret
I thought I was going crazy, I get that it's jank on purpose but goat sim games are to me the Skibidi Toilet for gaming, I get that it's hilarious if you're a child or have the mind of, but to me most of it is just cringe
On a positive side, the devs made Satisfactory, so all is good.
I couldn't give any less of a shit about something like "GOAT Simulator" and consider it bottom of the barrel trash for streamers and very young kids.
You're such a cool gamer bro
The payday 2 dlc collaboration was funny
Silly games are needed
Honestly, can’t blame them if the goat’s still printing money, why not? Just hope they keep evolving it, not just squeezing it until its dry. Gamers can smell stale content fast.
The game is so much fun haha :D
Next game titled goats milk
You haven’t lived until you’ve electrified a pond and then knocked dozens of people in to it.
I really hope we'll get a Sanctum 3 at some point. Such a great tower defense game.
I played the original shortly after it came out and it was a good, silly time for a couple of hours. Just this week I tried Goat Simulator 3 and it's even more fun. It reminds me of a cross between Tony Hawk Pro Skater 4 and Saints Row 3. A solid few hours of gameplay and lots more if you want to be a completionist about it. I'm all for a 5th game.
Goat Simulator 3 is actually a fun game imo, more than just meme. not for long, but solid 6-8 hours of fun, especially play with friends
Also goat sim saves them money on fixing bugs (Yes I know the only bugs they fix are the crashes)
Goat Simulator was actually pretty fun.
Powerwash Simulator vs Goat Simulator. High pressure nozzle vs goat stuff.
People underestimate meme games,if they done right you get small simple funny games like the Goose Game.
Or amazing chaos experience with your friends like Goat Simulator.
Yes some times you think it's cheap but when it's good it's really good,they feel like an Adam Sandler movie,you know it's not a masterpiece but you know you gonna love it alone or with friends for the stupidity of it.
My 6 year old absolutely loves 3. She would lose her mind if they released a new one.
Still won’t forgive them for being Epic exclusive after they made their mark on Steam.
I hate that this game is downplayed by the description of "meme game." It is a legitimately fun physics sandbox game, a genre that is starved for content. The meme glaze over top is just for laughs, but the actual game is good. If playing it wasn't fun, it wouldn't have gotten the notoriety that it has now. They made a fun game, let's not deny that.
My kids really like goat simulator 3 lol it's just a funny game to play together
i just put 20m into that yesterday on my Deck. that's the longest i've been able to put into it since i bought it all those years ago.
then i played toejam & earl back in the groove for 30 but really just for the music.
Because of them the App Store is full of thousands of reskinned animal simulator clones. Wow awesome.
I remember when this gsme out i thought it was so silly and fun. I havent thought about it in so long though i thought it was done with
Need a Prepotente Simulator DLC pack asap.
My son absolutely loves this game.
Say what you want about this series but the way they've leaned into it and capitalised off it is kinda genius
Goat Simulator 3 gives me that old school gaming feel. When things were a little more irreverent and just focused on having fun. There’s tons of unlockables and it doesn’t seem like they’re always trying to sell me something.
I don’t mind the goat simulator games, they’re silly and fun. I just wanted Sanctum 3.
I find that goat simulator is a very good game, it is made to play with lots of bugs and it is super fun even if it bugs you are not angry because in fact this game is made to bug
My 5 year old has over 120 hours in goat sim 3's base game. I bought him the expansion for Xmas, but he didn't like it as much. The base game is basicly gta for kids. The exp is more of a theme park with different themed biomes. I played a lot of it with him, including the base games boss at the end.
He still randomly likes to load the game up and run around punching people and hijacking vehicles to drive around and crash.
just crazy game
I played goat simulator for a few hours when it came out and it was fun but the world really didn't need more of it
They also made satisfactory. All hail coffee stain
GOAT sim 3 is really fun! I downloaded it first on gamepass for the kids and after some days I was hooked myself lol… played couch coop so often since then with the whole family, had some great laughs
Goat simulator is super fun, though, and I think this sorta misrepresents the devs. They put a lot of care and thought into a lot of parts of the games imo.
I thought it was pretty much done after the 1st one lol
The first one seemed like a hit & many people enjoyed it, but after that I've heard practically nothing. So it's a bit of surprise to read this & that apparently it's successful enough for the company to continue the series and sustain themselves. Good for them, honestly.
Terrible
I will never understand how these games make so much money, I played the first game at a house party for about 5 minutes and that was enough to see everything it had to offer.
I went to school with one of the devs, not that they'd remember me, and they did bully me so theres that 😂
Milk goats all you want, but please give me Sanctum 3 (and make it more like Sanctum 1 rather than Sanctum 2)
Not worth too much , it is a silly series , but good for them .
it’s the same thing every year unfortunately. i think this is as far as sporting sims can go
This game series is legit brilliant and fun! And packed with content
Idk if that game is necessary
Would be a great april fool's joke.
"You asked when we'll stop milking the goats.
We won't.
Introducing: goat milking simulator."
Now with GTA6 trailer visuals.
Hard mode is a ram.
Implying that won't be the most popular mode for some.
And it's VR only.
"Calf Life: Alyx"
"Kid* Life: Alyx"
right but that's not the joke
and Calf Life: Alyx presumably contains various farm animals. the ram is just Hard Mode
I guess, but calf for a farm pretty much only covers bovine, or types of deer, elephants and whales have calves too..
But the base game and the game all of this is talking about is GOAT SIM, if you were tasked with "milking" a ram... you'd end up with a KID
But like it's whatever and I'm just being pedantic lol
Hard mode literally eats your RAM
Does my PC need more ram for hard mode?
Cheese DLC incoming
you need the prequel to goat cheese sim
An actual goat farm simulator as a April fools joke. Why not?
It is- an for an unexpected reason. Goat milk tastes distinctly "goaty" in a way that's really hard to describe, but impossible to mistake; I've heard people trying it say "Is this goat milk?" who had never even seen a goat.
Goat milk cheese is great though. Love me some chevre
How do you know they'd never seen a goat? This is the most curious part of your reply to me
They said as much. I suppose they could've been lying; there's really no way I could check it.
That could just be DLC
Where's your sense of adventure?