Incidence review - Minimalist golf that's unfortunately under par

Incidence is essentially a super condensed game of golf. Imagine if, in the world of Monument Valley, there were videogames. Well, this would be the best-selling golf sim.

You've got a set number of shots to get a ball into a hole. The ball will bounce six times after you've hit it. Go over par and the ball explodes. Which is a bad thing.

Everything is presented in angular, simple graphics. There's no story or window dressing. Just hit the ball and get it into the hole. That's it.

The controls are simple. You drag back on your ball to set the power and angle of your shot. A guide extends from it, and you'll get a marker that shows the direction of your first bounce.

The levels get increasingly more difficult as you play. There are traps you need to angle your ball around, and getting stuck in them means you've got almost no chance of getting to the hole.

And that can lead to a bit of frustration. Because there's no such thing as over par here, when you do get stuck on a challenge you're going to be bashing your head against it until you've figured out the solution.

You could argue that this adds a challenge to things, but it also diminished the progression you feel. You end up a little bit trapped, and while it's nice to smash through a level you've been stuck on, everything before that isn't that interesting.

And so the game ends up losing a lot of that minimalist shine that endeared you to it in the first place. Which is a shame.

I really did want to like Incidence. I wanted it to show that shiny lights and swooshy graphics don't make for the best golf games.

But it just doesn't. Instead it shows that slightly wonky design can lead a player down a path of frustration that they're not capable of getting out of.

There are moments of brilliance here, but they're just that - moments. And all too often they're followed by an agonising and far from entertaining slog.