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[Update] Gamescom '14 Quick Pick - Goat Simulator brings the original ungulate accident simulator to iOS

Checking in from Cologne (Now with video)

[Update] Gamescom '14 Quick Pick - Goat Simulator brings the original ungulate accident simulator to iOS
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iOS
| Goat Simulator

This week, members of the Pocket Gamer and AppSpy crew are at Gamescom in Cologne. Between eating our collective body weight in sausages, we'll be bringing you quick-fire impressions of our favourite games on show.

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Goat Simulator was never really supposed to come out. It was a jokey prototype, made during a one-month game jam at the studios of Sanctum developer Coffee Stain Studios.

But then the 'trailer' (which features a goat head-butting people, getting knocked over by cars, and catapulting high into the air like an open-toed ungulate version of Jackass) blew up on YouTube. So Coffee Stain decided to release the game.

It has since gone on to sell over a million copies on Steam.

Goat Simulator

It's a patently silly game about trying to rack up as much damage as possible. You'll get bonus points for crashing into an angry protest or a marriage proposal or a pool party, and performing stunts.

The game's also full of bugs and glitches that have purposefully been left in place. So if your goat contorts like a crazy rag-doll after he gets his tongue stuck to a passing lorry that's not a bug that's a feature, god dammit.

You can also change your goat on the fly (a feature exclusive to the iOS build, says lead developer Armin Ibrisagic) into a penguin or ostrich or giraffe. You're getting four animal simulators for the price of one, basically.

Or you could equip your goat with a jetpack. Or turn it into a devil goat that can rain down goat corpses or create a vortex that sucks in all nearby props.

Goat Simulator

Goat Simulator is quite broken, it's barely a game, and it's undeniably stupid. But there's just something fun about trying to make a goat trampoline it's way into moving traffic or fire off a treadmill into a stack of barrels.

And it's much better than the reams of clones that have cropped up on the App Store. But the original, one-and-only Goat Simulator is coming to iOS (and Xbox One, weirdly) when it's finished. We'll let you know.

Screenshots from the PC version
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer