Hole-In-One Miniature Golf Deluxe!

Hole-In-One Miniature Golf Deluxe! is a computer minigolf game from 1992 — an expanded edition of an older title that added extra courses, bringing the package to eight 18-hole courses, 144 holes in all. That portion alone tells you what this is: a program built for long family evenings rather than one quick round.

Everything is controlled with the mouse — you aim and measure out the strength of each putt with a click, then watch the ball ricochet off the rails and hazards. Up to four players can compete at one computer, taking turns hole by hole, and that is the arrangement in which the game works best: gloating over a rival's tenth attempt is half the fun.

The courses range from honest classic minigolf to outright madness — the later grounds throw in teleports and altered gravity that make the ball behave however it pleases. The designers clearly had a sense of humour and were not afraid to build it straight into the holes, so discovering the next course becomes a motivation in itself.

The criticism writes itself: the physics are simple, there is little to keep a solo player coming back, and a few of the joke holes are more about luck than skill. But minigolf is precisely the genre that simplicity suits. As an undemanding game for the whole family — ideally with loud commentary from the next chair over — the Deluxe edition still holds up today.

You can play it on oldgame.cz straight in the browser, nothing to install.