The developers of Walkabout are building mini golf courses inspired by the pioneering science fiction works of Jules Verne.
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea launches first in September on Quest and Steam followed in 2023 by Journey to the Center of the Earth and Around the World in Eighty Days. The announcement from developer Mighty Coconut comes shortly after the developer launched its first licensed course inspired by the classic 1980s film Labyrinth. Just last week, the studio teased a first look at its forthcoming Myst course inspired by the landmark 1993 game by Cyan.
In the Labyrinth course, each hole is inspired by a different key scene of the movie while the tweet in the video embedded below show’s how the memorable clock tower puzzle from Myst island is reimagined as a mini golf hole. Mighty Coconut also has a series of paid downloadable courses inspired by “lost cities”, and when it comes to the widely-adapted works of Jules Verne we’re very curious to see how the company’s VR designers are able to realize these classic stories as mini golf theme parks.
Verne was born in 1825 and died in 1905 with his imaginative works widely adapted, like the 1954 film from Disney and the memorable Submarine Voyage ride at Disneyland. The film and ride are just a couple examples of the many ways artists in all mediums have adapted Verne’s stories over the years. With VR allowing players on both PC VR headsets and standalone systems like Quest or Pico to play together wherever they are, though, Mighty Coconut designers – among them an ex-Imagineer – are approaching mini golf “as a format and it happens to be the connective tissue that allows us to create these really big inventive worlds,” as studio head Lucas Martell recently told us.
This past weekend at @MysteriumCon, WMG creator and @LucasMartell, @DJCarson, @statelycoach & @MaskFelix shared a rare peek at a course in progress… Walkabout Mini Golf: Myst out this fall! pic.twitter.com/z8pocE5SEx
— Walkabout Mini Golf VR (@WalkaboutMG) August 15, 2022
Each paid downloadable course in Walkabout is priced $2.99 and the developers support a guest pass feature which allows a player who paid for a course to bring along their friends for free. Courses include an additional hard mode and hidden balls to add replayability, and the developers have told us they’re still working on a version that extends the game to traditional phones.
“We definitely have some other ideas in that public domain space but a big thing for us always is what we can do from both environment and gameplay standpoints,” Martell said in a prepared statement. “Our criteria for public domain and licensed courses are that they need to be insanely fun while allowing for us to do something new and unexpected with it.”
If you haven’t had a chance to play the Labyrinth DLC course yet to see how Mighty’ Coconut’s designers are adapting well-known properties to VR, be sure to check out our recent tour guided by Martell in the video below. And check back with UploadVR as we find details on the upcoming Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea and Myst courses.
