Goat Simulator is a third-person perspective action video game developed and published by Coffee Stain Studios. It was released for Microsoft Windows in April 2014, and ports for Linux and OS X were released in June 2014. Mobile versions for Android and iOS were released in September 2014. Versions for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One were released in April 2015, and for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4 in August 2015; these ports were developed by Double Eleven. A Nintendo Switch version containing the base game and all previous DLC was released in January 2019.
The game has been compared by the developer to skateboarding games, but where the player controls a goat aimed at doing as much damage as possible around an open world map, without any other larger goals. The game, initially developed as a joke prototype from an internal game jam and shown in an early alpha state in YouTube videos, was met with excitement and attention, prompting the studio to build the game into a releasable state while still retaining various non-breaking bugs and glitches to maintain the game's entertainment value.
The game received mixed reviews; some reviewers praised the title for providing a humorous sandbox interface to experiment with, while others criticized the game's reliance on social media to popularize what was otherwise a simple and buggy product.
Gameplay
Goat Simulator is an open-ended third-person perspective game in which the player controls a goat. The player is free to explore the game's world — a suburban setting — as a goat, and jump, run, bash things, and lick objects. Licking objects attaches the goat's tongue to the object and lets the player drag the object around until they let go. At any time, the player can let the goat drop into a ragdoll model, allowing the game's physics to take over, and another control makes the game run in slow-motion. A number of environmental features allow the player to manipulate the goat into stunts such as bouncing off trampolines or launching the goat into the air through large fans. The game features a scoring system similar to skateboarding games like Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, whereby doing tricks or other actions earns points, while chaining such tricks together in sequence helps build a multiplier that applies to the total score of the tricks done in the sequence. Various in-game goals, such as achieving a certain height, completing flips, or destroying certain objects, are given to the player, but the player is not required to follow these instructions.
Small gold goat statues are hidden in the game's world. Collecting this allows the goat to restart the game with various modifiers in play, such as changing the goat model to a demon goat, a giraffe, or an ostrich, or adding a jetpack to the goat that can be activated at any time. Various easter eggs are scattered about the sandbox, such as a castle where one can become the Queen of all Goats, or where the goat character gains a move similar to Sonic the Hedgehog's spin attack. The game's lead developer Armin Ibrisagic noted after release that the game's setting is a parody of the concept of Purgatory, having left references to Heaven and Hell that were later found by fans. Ibrisagic also noted the inclusion of some elements based on the 2014 Ukrainian revolution (in-game this was actually a small protest of people holding nonsensical or obscene signs).
Development
Goat Simulator started as a joke prototype from an internal one-month game jam held by Coffee Stain Studios in January 2014, after completing work for their game Sanctum 2. The game was described by the lead developer Armin Ibrisagic as "an old school skating game, except instead of being a skater, you're a goat, and instead of doing tricks, you wreck stuff". The idea followed after originally pitching the game as a variation of QWOP, where the player would control the individual limbs of the goat separately with various keyboard keys; this concept was rejected in favor of the more Tony Hawk's Pro Skater-type of gameplay the final game presents. Ibrisagic had focused on goats after jokingly trying to convince his coworkers that goats would achieve viral attention on the Internet in much the same way that cats presently do.
The prototype used Nvidia PhysX and an Apex physics engine with ragdoll physics for the goat and human models within the Unreal Engine 3, a game engine they were familiar with from the Sanctum series. In-game assets were purchased from third-party vendors instead of developed in-house, such as the original goat model which the studio acquired for use for less than $20. The prototype was meant to be a parody of various other "weirdly successful" Simulation games presently available, such as Euro Truck Simulator. Ibrisagic had no intention of this becoming a full title, instead only offering the prototype for him and other developers to learn the Unreal Engine alongside other developers that were developing prototypes in more earnest.
Footage of the game in its alpha state was posted to YouTube by Coffee Stain, where it received more than a million views in two days and a large response from fans requesting a full release of the game in part due to various glitches in the prototype's engine. The appeal of the video was also picked up by the agricultural magazine Modern Farmer. Some journalists suggested that the title be developed into a full game even knowing it was meant as a joking title; GameSpot editor Danny O'Dwyer supported the full release of the game arguing that "games should be dumb once in a while".
The large positive response to the alpha footage convinced the studio to develop Goat Simulator as a full title to Steam, putting more people on the title. The team, having no plans for a full release, debated on whether to approach a large publisher to receive funding to help make the title into something like Grand Theft Auto, but decided to stay with a small, inexpensive title that would be truer to the teaser video. Recognizing that the glitching was part of the game's appeal, Ibrisagic only sought to fix software bugs that might cause the game to crash, leaving in the other glitches and bugs associated with the physics engine as the results from these were "really hilarious". They limited themselves to a short development time of four weeks without significant management oversight as to set an urgent but realistic goal to bring the game to a playable state. Ibrisagic felt it was important for the game to be supported on Steam, but initially feared that Valve Corporation would not accept the quirky title. He instead found Valve to be welcoming of the title, including a joking response from the company that stated "Valve's marketing manager DJ Powers has started wearing a goat costume to work he’s so excited about this game". As part of its release, Coffee Stain added support for Steam Workshop which would let players modify the game, aware that players would likely create levels and scenarios that will glitch and crash the game for humorous results. While the physics engine allows for spectacular rendering of destruction of the game environment, which is a main feature of the game, Coffee Stain acknowledged the downside of this as "it would synchronise terribly in multiplayer". They estimated that adding multiplayer would remove "90 percent of the physics" and many other features, and left the game as a single player title at launch. The studio considered that it only spent a couple months to complete the Windows version, and opted to outsource versions for OS X and Linux, with Ryan Gordon handling the porting.
