Interview with Lucas Martell - Creator of Walkabout Mini Golf

Dscruffles [00:00:03]:

Welcome to another episode of Rough Talk VR, a weekly podcast with in-depth game reviews, exclusive developer interviews, and the latest Oculus Quest news. We join our hosts Dee Scruffles and Stratus2k1 today as they spend another episode breaking down and discussing the Oculus Quest virtual reality world. Hey everyone, welcome to this episode of Rough Talk VR. We have 1 that we are so excited for. We've been joking the last couple of weeks, maybe even the last couple of months that a couple of months easy. Yeah, I don't know if we can ever get get this 1 back on. You know, we're joined today with Lucas Martel, the creator of walkabout mini golf and the studio behind it mighty coconut, just more than just a mini golf virtual mini golf studio. You know, they have quite the the library of animation titles as well So we were joined with Lucas maybe about a year and a half ago You know a lot's changed in that year and a half for sure. There's been changed. There's been endless DLCs You know what? I want to say that we had him right after the release of Sweet Topia. You're correct. So that sounds right. Numerous DLC send. So Lucas, in case, you know, they've missed our first interview somehow, 1 of our listeners, they haven't played Walkabout mini golf yet. Good chance. Yeah. Right. Not happening. Uh, do you mind to introduce yourself a little bit more and also tell our listeners real quick, briefly what walk about mini golf is? Yeah, totally. Uh, yeah. So I'm Lucas Martel. I'm the creator of walk about mini golf. Uh, walk about started off as a, basically a solo project. It was sort of done. I'd had some work done

Lucas [00:01:36]:

before the pandemic hit. And then when the pandemic hit, I was sort of like, eh, I'm going to finish this thing. And at the time, the Quest 1 had not come out too long ago. And then ended up getting it finished right before the Quest 2 launched. And then since then, we've expanded it, launched with basically just 4 courses, and not a lot of bells and whistles. And since then, we've built it out to, I think, now we're up to 19 courses. We've got 8 base games, 10 or 11 DLCs, depending on exactly when this drops. And yeah, we're just adding more features, adding just more and more new stuff. And the studio, Mighty Coconut, we're based in Austin, but we're a virtual studio. So We have a small office that a few of us go to. But yeah, we're mostly kind of virtual, spread out all over the place. We were actually, like you mentioned, traditionally, we were an animation studio. So I was an animation director, writer director for a long time. And then, yeah, VR has really sort of taken over. And now we are 100% focused on VR games. And almost all that is Walkabout.

Dscruffles [00:02:38]:

Wow. And so no more animation,

Lucas [00:02:41]:

it sounds, or? I still have a couple of projects that are with different studios or producers or anything, but a lot of times an animated. So I'd made a short film called Vision Impossible that was the basis for Spies in Disguise. So just to give you a sense of how slow-moving that world is, it took me 5 years to make the six-minute short film, and then from the time it was finished to actually getting Spies in Disguise made was another 10 years. So it's not uncommon to have like, oh, yeah, that thing that I pitched like 4 years ago that's just been sitting in sort of like, yeah, in sort of like development hell, they call it. Sometimes it gets, sometimes it actually comes out. Sometimes it disappears and never sees the light of day. So who's to say maybe 1 or 2 of those might end up resurfacing at some point. But yeah, it's pretty common in that world for it to just take a really long time, which is 1 of the reasons that I love so much that we're working on Walkabout, because with the release cadence that we're doing and just sort of like how we've got that set up, it's so nice not to have to pitch, not to have to ask for permission. We've got a couple of licensed things, of course, but even those are fairly straightforward compared to the feature world. And just we're able to sort of like do something, get it out there. And we're constantly working on so many different things. It's just a really nice change of pace from that very, very slow moving world of feature animation.

Stratus [00:03:58]:

I had no idea. I knew it was slow, but I didn't know it was that kind of amount of years slow. You know, a decade can go by to make, for that amount of time too. That's,

Lucas [00:04:08]:

that's, no. I think animation in particular tends to be slow. I think largely because in the live, this is kind of my opinion, but in the live action world you do, you pack, you know, you've got your writer, you've got the script, you've got the director, you've usually got talent attached to that, and then that kind of creates, like, everyone has a window that they can go out and they can actually shoot it, and then that sort of, like, really gets the ball going, gets everyone committed. In the animation world, none of that stuff happens. So like Will Smith and Tom Holland didn't even get cast until like, I think less than 18 months before the film came out. So it just wasn't that impetus of, like, when are you going to get him? It's like, OK, we can get him into the booth. Like, they've got a few hours this day. They've got a day next month that they could do it. So it's just really easy to sort of ad hoc, and there's not that sort of ticking clock like you have with live action. So that's my personal opinion. I think that it varies from studio to studio as well. But yeah, feature animation is a particularly slow process.

Stratus [00:05:09]:

So then the ability to shave, I mean, literally 9 years off of something to have a project come to truition, I'm going into the VR world. That's just gotta be absolutely liberating.

Dscruffles [00:05:21]:

Yeah, I mean, you said that this was a pandemic project. I know we probably asked this the first interview, but just as a refresher, once you got the idea, and from phone app version to VR, how long was that entire development process?

Lucas [00:05:34]:

I think that it probably came out to about a year of development. That was probably spread out a little bit longer than that. But as a solo thing, it was probably about a year, kind of piecemeal. It did start off as a phone thing, which as folks saw from the meta gaming showcase yesterday, we've got that coming. We've actually had that sort of like, basically sort of like in there since before the VR version even launched. It started off with that and then the port over to VR just as what really sort of like, it was just sort of a fluke that had already been sort of in development. There was even 1 course that was basically fully functional as a phone game before I did the port over to VR. And that was mostly just because the Quest 1 came along and suddenly it was possible to do mobile VR and we already had a game that was optimized to run on mobile hardware. So it was a fairly easy transition to make. But yeah, so probably about a year all in spread out over the course of 18 months, 2 years, a little bit. But then once the pandemic hit, there was a solid, probably 6 months of, you know, at least 40, 50 hours a week of solid, solid development time. So

Dscruffles [00:06:41]:

sheesh. And, you know, something that I always love with the walk about with walk about Mini Golf is, you know, in our discord, we do a lot of game meetups and Walkabout Mini Golf is 1 of the most popular ones. And the other week there was a session going on with like, I think 8 people and 6 different headsets or something like that. It was some wicked crazy. The crossplay aspect is huge for just being able to get your friends, you know, you all don't have to be on the same headset. And it really functions smooth cross play. And you know, we saw it's going to be cross play with the iOS app. So that's kind of the first flat screen version playing with VR was that a challenge to get it to work cross play without, you know, 1 side having an advantage over the other?

Lucas [00:07:21]:

Um, I mean, I think that there's definitely going to be, there's definitely going to be certain things that are going to be easier to do in VR and something that will be even easier to do it in, we're calling it AR, but mobile. So I think that so much of that is because it's mini golf and we're largely sort of like, we're kind of, I mean, we want it to be as, you know, as polished and from a game standpoint, We want it to be as polished, and from a game standpoint, we want it to be as fair as possible. But at the same time, we're also in a space where it feels like we want to let people meet up. We want to let them hang out. If people have 1 headset, but they want to play with, they want to show someone the headset, like having the AR companion app, it's not like it's a competitive shooter that you have to sort of like make sure you have absolute parity between different platforms. So we're kind of taking a little bit more liberty than you likely could with most other games. And that it's in this weird space where it can be competitive if you want it to be. It could be cooperative. A lot of times people get in there and it's just an excuse to hang out. So it's sort of like you can make it

Dscruffles [00:08:28]:

as competitive as you want it to be. So I think we're just in a lucky space with how that works. Yeah. I don't go into walk about mini golf, looking to get the number 1 score. If to be honest with you, I don't think I ever do either. Oh, I do. I'm hyper competitive.

Stratus [00:08:43]:

That's awesome. I think the most competitive we get is really the first time we play a new course. That first round is when we're, for some reason, even though we're discovering everything and trying to experiment,

Dscruffles [00:08:54]:

that's our most, and then the second time we're usually a little more. Yeah, then I'll get in the habit where I'll find a hole where I'm like, I think I can do something crazy on this hole. And I'm willing to sacrifice my score on 1 or 2 rounds just for the job. It's possible. You know?

Lucas [00:09:08]:

Oh, yeah. I mean, I think that there's also something to mini golf seems to be really, really good as well for just sort of like kind of just harassing your friends a little bit. Like it's a really fun, like little trash talk is actually makes it a little bit more entertaining sometimes. So yeah, it's just a, you know, a little, a little bit, you don't want to play with anybody who's like being overly competitive. But yeah, we always, we've made a point that sort of like, okay, when we're doing our play test, like a fair amount of trash talk to be expected

Dscruffles [00:09:40]:

even commended. So. But what's good about this iOS app is it keeps that core integral walkabout value of it's about meeting up with your friends, your family and whatever accessible way possible. And just have fun, you know, keep, keep having a good time. So that's

Lucas [00:09:57]:

awesome. And we'll be very curious to see as well, sort of like if it, we're hoping that it can kind of cross over out of that just only VR, just sort of companion app space, because I think it is actually gonna be a really unique, very novel, just sort of way of doing a mini golf game on mobile, so we're hoping that there's even some folks who aren't necessarily tied into the VR space. Also, about 50% of our games are single player. So there's still a lot of people that are going into VR and just sort of using it as a chill out. You know, it's a great place to sort of like just, yeah, wind down or sort of like we try to maintain that kind of a zen-like quality to a decent number of courses. Not all of them follow that, but hopefully that even crosses over and even with the mobile version, we'll be able to, some folks will just be very happy to just play it by themselves. Yeah, we try to cater to everyone as best as possible. Well, I think you guys have done a great job. And I'm thinking back to like, you know, about a year and a half ago, where, you know, obviously people were talking about, walkabout mini golf. There was a lot of popularity behind it. But from then to now, to me, it just looks like it's just been a constant explosion

Stratus [00:11:09]:

of every time there's a new course coming out, people are all over it, people are constantly posting the hole in 1 shots that they get. Yeah. Obviously as a business owner, and when you look back, you had to have had some sort of like, I want my product to be successful. But did you think you would be in the VR world, like 1 of the leaders of what you do. Top selling, top played, everything.

Lucas [00:11:37]:

I definitely don't think that, that was definitely not 1 of the things that was expected. And because up until releasing Walkabout, I slash we had only really released 2 fairly small mobile games. And so our experience in the gaming world was fairly limited to the point that we felt like we didn't have very high expectations. Like, okay, mini golf, people love it. We thought it was super fun. And I, I will admit that I did go into thinking like, man, it would be so cool if we were able to keep doing courses or maybe even someday to like, to do licensed courses. So even that idea was something that was sort of like, was kind of thought through in advance, but it wasn't until we've really reached this point that it's like, okay, now, yeah, that this is actually viable and this is something that we can keep developing for the foreseeable future because, because yeah, you never know quite how that's going to go, but also we're so kind of tied into the fate of VR. And at the time, you know, VR was still sort of struggling a little bit. It wasn't until the Quest 2 came along that it really sort of reached a wider audience. So, yeah, so we're just sort of happy that we sort of landed when it did and just thrilled that we're able to ride this train. And yeah, the fact that it has become a staple of a lot of people's VR experience is just, yeah, just it's thrilling.

Stratus [00:13:00]:

Not to mention the whole role model aspect. We know developers who seek out to try to get that walk about vibe in their product. And if it openly admitted it, that it's like what you, what you've done, you've done well, and other people want to try to emulate that as the best they can. Yeah, definitely a leader in social VR. And in that MetaQuest

Dscruffles [00:13:21]:

trailer, we saw a whole bunch of DLCs in the works,

Stratus [00:13:25]:

way more than- Speaking of licensing.

Dscruffles [00:13:27]:

Yeah, I mean, how many DLCs are you able to say how many you have in total in the works, actively in development, let alone on a whiteboard? We always joke about that whiteboard.

Lucas [00:13:37]:

So I can give you a little insight to sort of our process. So because coming from the animation world, we've kind of set up production kind of like you would like a series on TV. So the idea is that at any given time, you're in the writer's room, you're in production on a couple of things, you've got a couple in post, you've got something that's done, but it's getting ready for release. So at any given time, we have about 12 courses that are in active, that are in sort of like some phase of the development. And then usually about half of those are actively being worked on. And then we try to make it so that each phase of the process has a little bit of a window so that something, when it wraps up the design phase, it goes into a bit of a holding pattern for a little bit. That way, the modeling team isn't waiting to sort of grab the 1 straight from that. So it kind of gives us a little bit of time to get in there. Sometimes there's little tweaks that we need to make or that I need to go in and just sort of like I want to finesse or play with something that was difficult to do with the whole team. So there's about 6 steps to how we have our pipeline laid out, and then 6 sort of in-between steps. So that means that we're actually kind of already working on courses that won't even be out until the second half of 2024. But I mean, that's that sort of like, at any given time, you've got a lot of people that are all working on different stuff. And then you just try to maintain that, because it is a lot of different things sort of happening at any given time. But that's also what it works out really nicely because then sort of like, oh, someone is, you know, oh, this particular course is having a bit of trouble. Or sort of like, we need to rethink something. It's like, OK, you've got room to do that. You've got time to sort of like be thinking on something and really work out all those details, like the mechanics and doing play tests and all that sort of stuff. So that's kind of loosely sort of like how we have it set up.

Stratus [00:15:27]:

Now, but everybody's always got something they're able to work on then. Because again, you're not waiting for somebody to finish their thing. So you can

Lucas [00:15:35]:

know that's pretty cool. Yeah, yeah. But that's a lot like how animated, like an animated series as well. So like, oh yeah, you're writing, you're in boards, you're in layout, you're in animation, then you're in lighting, then effects, and then lighting and compositing and all that sort of stuff. So it's, you know, very different. It's a totally different thing, but it still loosely sort of follows the same structure. So, and then you've got that roll and delivery where there's just always, you know, even the marketing team is always sort of like working on that next thing that's just coming up. And they know as soon as that 1 ships, that they'll start working on the next 1.

Dscruffles [00:16:09]:

And we always use Mighty Coconut as an example of a studio that crushes it with licensing.

Stratus [00:16:16]:

When labyrinth came through, that was it for me. I'm like, you know, there's nothing that I don't think they can get now.

Dscruffles [00:16:23]:

Yeah, the door has been opened. And since then, we've seen even more. So I mean, geez, I don't want to ask you know, what else is in the works? But do you have a dream course that you would love to see? I always talk about Star Wars for licensing and stuff like that. Is there 1 franchise that you would love more than all or have you already even done that actually?

Lucas [00:16:45]:

So we do have a pretty long, we have a long list of courses that are just ours that we want to do. So we've got, you know, we've got ideas. We've got probably got like 30 or 40 that's like we're going to do that. It's just a question. Sometimes it also becomes like well, maybe there's this licensing thing And if it works to license that, then we've got our own sort of like, that's not affiliated with anything that we could always do. And then if the license works out great, there's, I mean, I'd love to do some of the bigger ones. I will admit that it's been a bit of a VR is kind of, it's still small. And because of the way that we're structuring stuff with DLCs, it's just not big enough to sort of like really, really go after the sort of like a multi-million dollar sort of licensing thing. Is this not big enough? But so we've got those, we hope that we can kind of work up to that. But I feel really lucky that we're in the state that whenever we're talking to a licensor, we tend to sort of, we're able to sort of like find people who we want to work with and who want to be part of the process. And so that's been fantastic that if something doesn't quite fit or if there's something really big that we would love to do but we just can't afford it, It's like, well, we've got a lot of our own stuff as well. So luckily, we're in a spot where we're not beholden to only doing licensed courses. And that's, that's just a really lucky spot to be in. And with 40 courses, potentially,

Dscruffles [00:18:13]:

you know, in the, you know, on paper, conceptually, how do you pick which 1 that you're going to do next? Do you throw darts at it and whatever it lands on, that's what you do next? Or is it like, hey, we think the technology can support that. How do you decide which 1 to actually pursue?

Lucas [00:18:29]:

I think that we definitely do. And this is going back to sort of like the film background, we definitely think of it kind of like a slate a little bit, just like a feature studio would, that we know we've got, so right now we're hitting about the 6 week mark, So we know that we've got basically 8 or 9 courses that are gonna be coming out in a year. So that gives us sort of like, okay, that's your release slots. You can only do 8 or 9. And so we try to generally find a balance in terms of like different styles of gameplay, different styles of environment, because we want them to be as different as possible. And we also are finding that Upside Town was a great example of 1 that was like, that was not everyone's cup of tea, but for some people that was like hands down their favorite course ever. And so we want to have room to do a couple of those that are maybe a bit more experimental, but then we also want to counter that with something like, so having Upside Town followed immediately by ZerZera was very much sort of like, oh, we know that Upside Town wasn't going to be for everyone. Zerzura was that classic mini-golf with a new twist and still something you haven't seen before. But even Zerzura had that very zen quality to it and very, very different than Upside Town, which was made more experimental. So that's a lot of what we think about, is sort of like balancing mechanics, types of gameplay, types of environments, and just generally trying to get a good spread of that so you've got something for everybody. Wow.

Stratus [00:20:03]:

I enjoyed upside town. Yeah. We can call it upside downtown, but

Dscruffles [00:20:08]:

just flowed. Yeah. But I did see some, uh, you know, there was probably the only time I ever saw constructive criticism from the online communities of walkabout, you know, usually it's nothing but glorious, glorious feedback. And I was like, Well, I think it's maybe people want a, an old school classic mechanic. Mini golf course, not even so much the actual course itself. You know, I think it was just a couple of courses and released in a row of different mechanics, more so than again, the actual course itself. Yeah. But with this many courses out now, I mean, it's probably hard to pick a favorite of all of your children. But you know, Do you have a favorite course?

Lucas [00:20:47]:

Hmm, let's see. I think I still always go back to Kiyote Valley. It's just sort of like a good, like that felt like it was a, like just visually it's a place that I want to hang out in and just stay in for a long time. But it also just helps, I think, with time. Because whenever we're getting ready to release a course, we end up playing it so much that by the time it comes out, we're a little tired of it. So I think it's also kind of 1 of those things that you kind of have to let things sort of age back into favor a little bit just because you get burned out on them a little bit. But yeah, I like all of them for different reasons. And I think that 1 of the other things that we've, 1 of the things that we have to keep reminding ourselves of is that there's a tendency to like, once you do something in 1 course, there's a tendency to think like, oh, well, we have to do that in every single course. And I think what we've found is that it's way better to focus on let's do something new or something visually different or gameplay wise, like Upside Town, like something that is different and sort of make that the focus and really pull that element, but then it can be different. You know, we don't have to do the crazy mechanic of Upside Town in every single thing. We don't necessarily have to do, Like the wind mechanic in Coyote Valley was sort of like the intro to that, where we were playing around with it to see how people would respond to it. And people loved it so much, they were like, we're starting to do that more. But at the same time, not every single course is going to be a new mechanic, because some people want the more classic experience. And yeah, so that's kind of how we think about that and sort of like, yeah, balance the slate. And even going back to something that you had just said, that I think that the way we have it set up and being able to do 8 or 9 courses per year means that we can also, you know, you don't want to just do something crazy like a few in a row, but like we kind of consider like, okay, every year we get to do 1 that we get to sort of like, okay, let's go up our sleeves and do the thing that we always wanted to do. And maybe some, again, it's something that some people are going to absolutely love it. It might not be for someone else. But it seemed like people got it that once you launch ZerZera, they're like, oh, yeah. It's not like they're, you know, they haven't changed direction. It's just that they're also just expanding the palette maybe a little bit is the best way of thinking about it and trying to, yeah, just not doing the same thing every time because you want to keep it fresh.

Stratus [00:23:11]:

Oh, no, I've never, I can't think of any 2 courses that are The same at all. And a lot of that has to do with the background too. I mean, for all I know, there could be 3 courses that have the same whole, but I would never know because the background changes it up. And it kind of speaks volumes to how new this territory in VR still is. You know, you're kind of, you guys are 1 of the leaders in doing consistent DLCs. There's not exactly the ironed out science like flat screen gaming of here's how you should do a DLC

Dscruffles [00:23:39]:

release schedule and balance difficulties of each 1. It's kind of you guys figuring it out on your own. And it's cool that you're like, all right,

Stratus [00:23:47]:

don't go crazy with each 1, lesson learned, you know, we'll control ourselves. And the DLC prices, that's always something we've ranted and raved about. A cup of coffee. Yeah, a medium cup of coffee and you can own a DLC.

Dscruffles [00:24:00]:

So credit's deserved for keeping the price low for the consumer. I don't know how much coffee costs in Austin, but yeah, I get coffee in Massachusetts over here. That's more expensive than a walkabout.

Lucas [00:24:11]:

Yeah. Oh yeah. No, if you, if you get a super fancy, a latte or something that's a little bit more even than that, but yeah, that's also been kind of, I mean, again, a lot of this comes from not necessarily coming from the games world so I think that even some people have ported some ideas over from you know mobile monetization models and all that I think that we're just in a boat that we don't quite VR is such a unique space that we're kind of trying to see what works. Also what works for our game, we're very lucky that each course, you can almost consider it like a level because it is content, like there's a decent bit of content in each 1. But because each level or course is so standalone, it gives us a thing that we can actually build something that's a sizable chunk, but it's also not as big as 1 of the massive expansion packs that other games would do. So I think it also just varies very much from game to game in terms of how you can even set that up. So the way that we've set it up works very well for Walkabout. But even if we were to do another game, I don't know that that model would particularly work that well. So it's very specific to what we're doing, it feels like.

Dscruffles [00:25:17]:

Absolutely. I don't see people ever getting sick of DLC courses with Walkabout, to be honest with you. No, I see. We hope not, because we've got a lot that we want to do.

Stratus [00:25:26]:

We see a lot of pre-take my money. You can have my money now.

Dscruffles [00:25:30]:

It'll be there when it drops. Well, you you see it in our discord. It's 1 of the most popular games that. And that's just not even in our. That's like everywhere. Yeah, that's on the stats list for steam, for, you know, the MetaQuest store. And now you guys are on PlayStation VR, too. I'm sure going to dominate those charts as well. So, you know, the results speak for themselves. So sometimes I'm dying to know because we last had you on a year and a half ago. I mean, so much as it has grown and changed. How big is the studio? These days? Yeah, I had that 1. We've had the pleasure of talking with, you know, like Don Carson and, and Edward Felix, you know, definitely seems like Walkabout or Mighty Coconut goes with a quality over quantity mentality. You know, everybody that that we've talked to is, is unique. They all bring something special to the team. So yeah, what's the total team size these days? I think we're about it. I think is it 27

Lucas [00:26:22]:

right now. So we're like, we're sizable, but it's still very much sort of like this is still sort of like a, I mean, it's still very indie. I would also say that some of that, we've probably had the most growth actually on the side that you might not think of as much because we are self-publishing. So a decent bit of that is also just like QA, even just like we have a course coming out every 6 weeks, that means that we have to be generating trailers and assets. So like having an in-house video person to capture all that sort of stuff. Also just all the back and forth with the platforms releases like every time we release a course, it's got to go through alpha and beta, and just like having someone actually manage that entire process. So there's a pretty significant chunk of that that is not even what you would necessarily think of in terms of like making the exact thing that you're going to see on screen. But because we're sort of self-publishing and we're at such a cadence that we're kind of constantly releasing that next new thing, there's a lot of support that we've added for that, as well as just general support, just answering people's questions, answering bugs that come up, reporting them, getting it back to the tech team. So it feels like we're kind of, yeah, just learning by kind of going through it and finding what, finding what we, what we need for this particular game. And a lot of that is finally, yeah, kind of like adding those things that a more traditional publisher we even have in-house.

Dscruffles [00:27:47]:

And is that something you anticipated before you decided to self-publish? Or was that something that you kind of like, oh damn, maybe we should have grabbed a publisher?

Lucas [00:27:57]:

You know, I think it was 1 of those things that at the time, it totally made sense and it was actually great how it was done. I think now it's actually really good and lucky that we self-published because most publishers just the way that they would work, it's more focused on that big release and it's more about building the kind of the hyping up that 1 big release. But because we are on this cadence of every 6 weeks, it's sort of like, it's not sort of like, not every release makes this flash that like, you know, it's not like we're launching, you know, Zelda every 6 weeks. It's a much, much smaller thing, but it's this constant thing that we're always doing. And I think that if we were trying to do that with an outside publisher, that would be a bit of a nightmare just because we need to stay fairly close to the metal. We need to be able to release quickly. And if something breaks on, especially with as many platforms as we're on, something happens on 1 particular platform, we need to be able to find out about it quickly and either get a patch up or find a workaround that we can get out to people really, really quickly. So yeah, so I think it's actually really, really lucky. And I don't know that the model that we're using would even work if we weren't self-publishing.

Stratus [00:29:08]:

No. I think that it makes total sense, especially with the amount of content being, I'm trying to think of it from the other person's perspective, and not to mention the ever-changing

Dscruffles [00:29:18]:

changes that might, you know, get made. And yeah, that's a lot. Yeah. And like you said, 6 week release schedule, you know, you don't have anybody to answer to if you guys want to do something. Instant communication chain. Yep. No, no thumbs up from, you know, the boss man or anything. That's you, you know, that's, that's, you guys can do whatever you want. So I do think that freedom probably

Lucas [00:29:39]:

was the best way to go in the end. Yeah. It lets, it lets us move pretty quickly. I don't, yeah. I think that if we were, If we were a more traditional studio, I think we would probably have to have quite a few more people and I think there would just be more bureaucracy that we would be dealing with. Although even at 27, we're starting to realize, okay, we need to do a few things a bit more like a more small to mid-sized studio just because we've got enough people that we could just you know open the lines of communication make sure that every everybody's working together as best as we can.

Stratus [00:30:08]:

I'll say this, 27 employees but everybody we've spoke to when you get into their background before they were doing VR It's like you have literally hired the best of the best from all sorts of industries.

Dscruffles [00:30:20]:

Disney Imagineer. Don Carson's a gem. And then Edward Felix had quite a good, quite a great story as well. That's why I said before, quality over quantity. I have a feeling if you went into each person at Mighty Coconut story, it's something, something unique and something

Stratus [00:30:35]:

valuable to the table. Well, the enthusiasm too. It oozed. You all are doing something very magical with your company and it's cool to see it growing and continuing to get more popular. It just, I don't know if there's ever a slowdown with it.

Lucas [00:30:52]:

And something that hopefully not.

Dscruffles [00:30:55]:

And something that I was kicking myself for not bringing up last time we had you on when we first started the podcast, we were playing with 1 of our listeners, a gentleman named Josh, who also has a podcast called Imperial Scrolls of Honor. He he hypes out walk about mini golf a bunch as well. Huge fan. And he's a beast at the game. We went in there and he was just schooling us. I go, you're gonna ask yeah, I can't believe we didn't bring this up last time. And he goes, I don't know if this is true, but somebody told me if you see those dots on the ground, there's some sort of indication of a proper angle to hit it at or a proper spot to hit. And every course I go in, I see these dots on each hole, even in the new DLCs. What's the deal with the dots? Is there any truth to it? Is it guidance? Or are they just grid dots? So

Lucas [00:31:41]:

it's yes and no. So in the first version of the game, there was sort of just this little noise to sort of make the, just this little bit of noise to give it sort of the grass texture and everything. And then at a certain point, we did make the effort to add in these extra larger dots, mostly so that people have a reference point. So that is kind of why they are added in there, just that you would, on any real life course, you would have little, you know, oh, this little tiny rock or this little tiny, you know, smudge on the carpet or something like that. However, we don't go through and actually place those for any particular thing. So it's kind of both. It is in there to help for people to have some guidance, But the general idea is that there's enough little spots that are all over the place that whatever line you want to pick, this is how you would do it on a real life course. You've always got something that you could aim at or something that can help give you a little bit of bearing.

Stratus [00:32:46]:

All right. I'm happy and sad at the same time because I always wanted to think that well, 1 of these, if I go through 1 of those dots, I'm guaranteed a hole in 1. I mean, that's just the, we were convinced of it. Yeah. You should have just messed with us and started a complete, uh, just a complete lie. 1 of those dots will get you the hole in 1 every day. Yeah. If we, in fact, now I'm thinking of all of the terrible April Fool's jokes. I feel like if we just moved the T like half a centimeter

Lucas [00:33:10]:

in any direction just to sort of start, because there are some people who really do have that dialed in, And they just know if I hit it this speed, like right at this particular spot. It's actually made it a little bit difficult from the development side of things, because there's a few times where we want to sort of like, we find a little imperfection in the physics system. But if we change anything about how the physics works, like it changes previous courses. And that bounce off of a particular surface might be just like 2% less than it was previously, or it rolls like ever so slightly slower. But it's enough for people to notice, especially those pro players. Like, what did you change? It's like, Oh my God, we can't change it. We can't. Yeah. It's difficult to go in and you know, when we're adding new mechanics, we need to be able to fix some of those things, but we've got to do it in a very surgical way so we never change anything about how the old course is played. Oh man, I never even thought like it would be that much of a problem, but it would be. Cause if you honed your skills and you know the hole and you know exactly what, and it doesn't work, yeah, something's wrong. Oh yeah, those hole in 1 lines where I know like, oh, if my ball rolls right up there, it'll roll straight into the hole. And then if friction changes the slightest little bit and suddenly it skips out or something. I mean, the people who are really serious are way better than anyone that we have on the team. So we have found that we just kind of lean on the beta testers a bit more to sort of like help call those out because some of those are so infinitesimal that I don't know that anyone on our team would even pick up on them.

Dscruffles [00:34:41]:

Well, and physics are bigger in some games or higher importance in some games and others. I play gods of gravity and I'm not about the physics in that game, but you mess with the physics. Golf, yes. Yeah, come on, that's the whole game too. So it's a very sensitive part of the engine, I'm sure, to mess with.

Lucas [00:35:00]:

Yeah, yeah. And even upgrading systems under the hood, we have to be super careful that we don't upgrade our system to get better graphics or better performance or something, and then end up that, oh, they just happen to also introduce a new change that we didn't realize.

Stratus [00:35:15]:

I want to give a shout out to your sound score department. Because it's an area that gets overlooked a lot in gaming. Just background sounds, ambient noises, actual gameplay sounds, music. But definitely always a soothing environment.

Dscruffles [00:35:32]:

Never had anxiety.

Lucas [00:35:34]:

So I was actually a music major in school. I'm a sax player. And so Chris Raymond, who does the score, we were roommates in college and as he was doing his graduate program here at UT. But so yeah, so music has always been something that we thought about and it's great working with him and we just have a great sense of sort of like, he knows what I like, but it also I think gives him a lot of room that sort of like every time he does a course he gets to do a totally new different style of music with instruments that he would never have you know many other reasons to touch and again it's kind of like us doing the courses he gets to sort of like this like inhabit this new weird thing for a little bit and then move on to the next 1 to do another weird, crazy thing. So I know he has a great time. And then, yeah, the sound design, just because, yeah, my history was music. And I ran a small recording studio for a little while there. So yeah, I get a lot of fun about going in there and doing all of the atmospheric. It's really easy to overlook, but it adds so much production value. It just makes a space feel real or bigger or more alive than you can do with visuals alone.

Dscruffles [00:36:43]:

Yeah, I think that

Stratus [00:36:45]:

the sound score in any game is often. Yeah, like the past year we've really been laying heavy on it. When you, cause some to me, when it's like a theatrical performance in your ears, as you're doing something, it's like, wow, yeah, this is an area. I just don't see enough credit being given. It sets the tone for feel just as much as anything you see visually.

Lucas [00:37:04]:

So for... 1 other thing that I also have to give Chris Raven major props for is that it's really hard to write a piece of music that can loop for sometimes people will be in there for an hour if they're in a multiplayer room and something that it has to like, it has to be distinct and it has to feel good, but it also needs to be something that doesn't start to get too earwormy or too stuck in your head. Every once in a while, we will have something that will be a melody that is just sort of like, that's too good. It's like it's too catchy. It just gets in there and it's sort of like, and then it like, it'll start to inhabit. There is actually 1, in this case it's a good 1, but 1 of the tracks that he just did for 1 of the upcoming courses, I just caught myself humming it 3 days after he sent it to me. It's like, OK, but I'm not annoyed by it. I'm just sort of like, oh, wow, it's that memorable. So yeah, he does an amazing job of walking that very fine line of being really, really good, but not overly drawing too much attention to it. It's funny, you have to hold yourself back from writing something that's

Stratus [00:38:09]:

too memorable.

Lucas [00:38:11]:

Wow. Okay. Yeah, too catchy or too, or just, yeah, tonal. If the feel of it changes too drastically, too quickly, it will really sort of like draw attention to itself. So yeah,

Stratus [00:38:24]:

it's a very delicate balance. Well, and everything also flows hole to hole. So it's, to have that balancing act of 18 holes and your music or sounds have to coincide with everything you're on so it doesn't feel like it doesn't belong.

Dscruffles [00:38:39]:

You can't design the music for hole 7 and hope that they're going to be at hole 7 by this point. It Doesn't work like that. Yeah.

Lucas [00:38:47]:

Yeah, no, when we're talking, we usually break it down more. Like, usually there's a couple of pieces of reference, but also just sort of like styles and music. We usually talk a lot about instrumentation and usually just an overall vibe. But it's something that fits the environment more than it's designed to fit a specific hole. For the most part, who knows if we end up changing that at some point.

Dscruffles [00:39:09]:

And with an iOS version coming, is there plans to go to Android as well, or is it a technical limitation in that regard? So there's a, yes, we want to.

Lucas [00:39:22]:

We have, having released a couple of games on Android, it is a, because of how we're using just like the, it's ARKit on iOS, it's ARCore on Android, but there are so many different devices that are so much more drastically different that it's honestly a bit of just like a QA nightmare. So we want to, but we just need the tech and the devices to stabilize a bit more. And it was kind of 1 of those things that we were looking at and we're like, well, either we can come to iOS this summer, or we could also come to Android maybe at some point in the next year, just because of how much more, you know, just like there's all, you have to test on every single device. It's just like, there's this massive amount of extra behind the scenes stuff that has to happen with Android is really what it comes down to.

Dscruffles [00:40:19]:

And, you know, I'd be hard. I have to ask this, you know, if you're going to the phone, you know, obviously the Android is something you'd like to do, but I get what you're saying. It's like PC hardware components on steroids with diversity. Yeah. Is there ever plans for a console edition? You know, much in the way that we see DMO on, on PlayStation, you know, would you ever have plans to go to a computer, flat screen, Xbox, PlayStation, et cetera, switch, you know, Quite

Lucas [00:40:47]:

possibly. We don't have any solid plans for that, but it's an interesting idea, and it's definitely something that we feel like we're going to see how mobile does, and we're also, we're just entering kind of like some early alpha and beta stages of that and starting to get, you know, ideas about how it's working and maybe even making a couple of tweaks under the hood. So it's possible that some of those tweaks that we're making might allow a different type version to be done in more of a flat console thing. So it's quite possible, but we don't have any solid plans 1 way or another.

Dscruffles [00:41:24]:

Yeah, I think Walkabout's 1 of those games that on any system, because the core concept of getting people in together and playing, I think as long as they have it in their hands and they're able to meet up with their friends, it's probably going to

Lucas [00:41:38]:

be a damn good time. Yeah. I will say that 1 of the things that we have set as 1 of our rules though is that We don't want any platform, in this case, specifically mobile. We don't want that to change how we're designing courses, because we're very much considering it a VR first thing. And so we even know that there might be maybe a couple of hole designs that just don't work particularly well when you're not in the headset able to peek around a corner or be quite as nimble with how you are in VR. And we've already sort of said, OK, we want to polish AR, but we want to bring that mobile version up to as good as we can. We don't want to water down the VR version to focus on mobile. So we've already kind of laid that, put that line in the sand.

Stratus [00:42:27]:

I just think it's awesome. We're in a time now where you're seeing VR games going to, you know, like you asking, any chance, you know, PlayStation or Xbox? Yeah, versus- Where it's usually, you know, port that over from flat screen to VR. Yeah, no, that's awesome to see.

Dscruffles [00:42:44]:

And so we had a couple of Patreon questions, you know, sometimes we like to throw out for our, our Patreon supporters, you know, Hey, if we talk to this person, any, any questions that you'd like to ask, so you're going back at this 1. Yeah. So we, we had 1 person ask, you know, Golf Plus is doing some amazing thing with stats, you know longest pot rounds played best front and back 9 Are there any plans to expand the statistics and walkabout for enthusiasts?

Lucas [00:43:11]:

Yeah, we're definitely planning to do a decent bit of you know stats leaderboards all that sort of stuff I mean, I don't know if we've actually even formally announced it, but we also don't have an exact timeline. So much of this is also just coming down to, with as often as we're putting out new courses, that kind of takes precedence. So a lot of the other tech features that we've been gradually adding in. A lot of that has been focused on just the most important thing that we need to first. And so it's definitely on the roadmap that we're going to be adding more of that sort of stuff. It's just, yeah, we've got to just, there's been a handful of under the hood stuff that we had to get done. I will also say it was very interesting going, again, not as a, you know, I've done a couple of small mobile games, but basically just like anywhere from like 1 to 3 or 4 people. So always very, very small. There's definitely been a little bit of a learning curve with taking what I had written for the core release, the first version of the game that was released, and now getting that up to Snuff so that a team can be working on it. So just a lot of things that I would just hack some stuff together that was totally fine when it was just me. We've spent a decent bit of time just sort of like kind of getting the base version of the game updated to the point where that now that sort of like the larger team can really be efficient on it and scrapping old systems that I had put in place and putting more versatile things in place. So there's been a good bit of that and it feels like we're just now reaching the point that okay, we've got that new foundation laid and now we can really start doing more stuff on top of it. So I expect people are gonna be pretty happy to see just some of the new features that are gonna be coming out over the, you know, over the next stretch of time.

Stratus [00:44:54]:

Oh yeah, that great answer there. And I get excited every time I see a teaser. Oh my gosh,

Dscruffles [00:45:01]:

good stuff's coming. Well, there's yet to be a single bad thing from

Stratus [00:45:05]:

the Mighty Coconut team for me. Every time we play a new course, it literally is what we say. And then sometimes we'll play 1 and be like, I didn't think they'd ever be able to outdo my experience on, you know, I won't name any course so people come to their own conclusions. But you can have your own favorite and be like. Yeah.

Lucas [00:45:24]:

And again, that probably goes back to kind of what I was saying earlier, too. And it's sort of like, yeah, where Certain courses, it's all about the visual. Certain courses, it's all about the gameplay. And so like, find that thing that's going to make it really unique. And as opposed to try to make, you just can't possibly polish every single aspect of every single course within an inch of its life. So find the thing that's going to make it cool and unique. And make that the best version of like the visuals in Atlantis, where I think 1 of the best that we've ever hit. And we want to do more like that, but at the same time knowing that that was largely because it was an underwater environment and you could have fish swimming all around you. Like not every course is going to have that. So find that next thing that's going to be as, you know, that's people are going to want to talk about are going to have such a great time with, but focus on that and really sort of like let each course sort of like shine in its own way.

Dscruffles [00:46:18]:

That's awesome. And so the next question submitted was, the most shots I miss are when a ball is up against a wall, barrier or object, because I can't see my putter during the shot due to barrier appearing solid. The putter can be transparent, but is there any plans to make those objects or barriers temporarily transparent during your shot through them?

Lucas [00:46:38]:

Oh, interesting.

Dscruffles [00:46:40]:

So a little bit of a bug question, almost. Not bug, but quality of life.

Lucas [00:46:44]:

Yeah, So the basic thought is sort of like yeah, because currently the putter goes sort of x-ray So you can still see where your putter is that right when it's up against it and Obviously something you couldn't do in real life and realize you just have to kick your ball out I think basically is the technical rule. But yeah, it would be, we've definitely thought about a couple of different things and trying to find the most non-invasive way of doing it. Right now, the way that we're doing it, allowing you to swing right through the barriers has been 1 of those nice sort of like VR only things. So I will say that we do also try to solve a decent number of those issues in the course design itself. And a lot of that does come down to sort of like, kind of like trying to make sure that you're not commonly going to get stuck in those areas or that especially that you have room to stand. So just like a real course like we don't ever want the you know if you've got a big wall right there you don't want ever you don't ever want the ball sitting right up next to the wall because then when you go to address the ball to put it that way your head's gonna be inside of a wall. So there's a lot of that that we also think of to try to keep the, you know, just to, from the course design, try to keep you out of those positions. But it will happen obviously on occasion.

Dscruffles [00:47:57]:

Nope, makes sense. And then 2 more Patreon questions. So the next question is, each course is obviously finely crafted with intention. And while a course creator may be way too intention ambitious What about a way to move pin placement for each hole? Is there any talk about options to customize a course in any way to expand gameplay?

Lucas [00:48:16]:

Yes, so that's like they still want a course creator. Well, I mean, and that is sort of like even a specific sort of like kind of a variation within that, where you could basically just move the whole or move the starting position. So That's something that we want to do. We don't have the exact roadmap. But I will say that, as I was talking a little bit earlier about some of the new foundation that we're adding, some of that system is to allow us to add more of those modifiers, to introduce different game modes, to allow people to make some of those customizations for a specific course. So I'm not promising that that exact thing is going to happen, but it's definitely something that we're looking at. And we want to get that sort of thing to be more possible and to get people a bit more control, because it absolutely is Something we want to be doing as much as we can

Dscruffles [00:49:07]:

That's awesome. I think so tentative. Yes. Yeah, I think they'll love that answer And then the last patreon question we had was uh who designs the special putters for each course and how do they decide how to do them?

Lucas [00:49:18]:

So the design, so Zach Alexander, 1 of our concept artists usually does sort of an initial, just a 2D pass on those. And then Edward Felix does the actual models of them. And usually they do change a little bit within that. And it's not uncommon for us to have something that visually looks good in 2D, but then when you actually go to play with it, something's just weird. Something sticks out at an angle that's distracting. Or just like the scale needs to change to make it feel like it's comfortable in the palm of your hand sort of thing. But yeah, that's where a lot of those come from. And the nice thing being the team that we are, and most of our team is fairly experienced as well, We do kind of give a pretty decent amount of slack for people to just kind of come up with a lot of those things on their own. And while I'll sort of glance at stuff, I very, very rarely will ever say no to something unless there's a very like clear reason like, oh, we can't do that because we don't have a way to do moving objects on the putters or, you know, some various different things like that. But yeah, so that's, that's pretty much yeah, Zach and, And Edward with some input from the wider team

Dscruffles [00:50:33]:

Yeah, when we interviewed Edward we had quite a bit of fun talking with him about his ball placement and the bottom back log he has with them and There's even someone he was like who a little devious with how difficult he made them to find and everything like that. So kind of on to that of you give people freedom of like what they want to do and stuff. What's your role in everything at this point? You know, are you in the weeds, writing code at this point? Have you taken more of like an overseeing, final approval position?

Lucas [00:51:05]:

It is my role is more of the overseeing, but I still get into the weeds on a couple of things. I very rarely write code, mostly just because I kind of got kicked out of the kitchen on that 1 in a good way. But again, I'm self-taught, so I could jump in there and do some really, really messy stuff. But I think at a certain point, they're just like, you know what? We got this. Just sort of like, give us the spatula. And so in general, I get less into the code stuff. I do still get more hands-on with some of the upfront design and there's also I'd say at this point a fairly decent bit that comes in more of like that kind of that tech art space of you know getting a lot of things pulled together. A lot of times we'll have ideas that have been in there from the beginning, but even the figure out exactly how we're going to do that, like for Journey to the Center of the Earth, there's a couple of things that will be not exact. I guess they're technically new mechanics, but a couple of little elements like that that kind of require a bit more thought in terms of how we're going to do this new thing. So that's where a lot of my focus is. It's more sort of like in the figuring out how we're going to do something, or maybe just sort of like pulling the final threads together to make it cohesive. It's kind of the little moments that I get to still sort of get my hands into the weeds.

Stratus [00:52:23]:

And haven't we heard the frame, it's not walkabout enough? I can't remember who mentioned that to us.

Lucas [00:52:29]:

I think that We've definitely used that. That sounds like something that Henning, our lead course designer, would say. We have some internal rules that we use for stuff, but there's definitely a couple of other ones that are sort of like a feeling. A good example, a lot of times when people use the internal, when we use the term like walkabout-y, a lot of times we're talking about just like that flow from hole to hole. And a lot of times it comes like, oh, it's just like, oh, yeah, you have to go into this weird side path. It doesn't feel like you're moving forward the whole time. So sometimes we'll use little things like that, but it can apply to a lot of other things in terms of, yeah, just sort of like making it, kind of capturing that feeling that a lot of the courses have.

Dscruffles [00:53:14]:

That's awesome. I love the phrase, I walk about enough. And so in terms of, expanding to different platforms and stuff, you know, you recently released on PlayStation VR and what's that reception been like? We were joking that, you know, from what I've read, really exciting for the PlayStation VR players. Yeah. I mean, I was joking we're going to see you at the top of the charts inevitably, but jokes aside, yeah, what's the feedback been like from the PlayStation players? It's been really good.

Lucas [00:53:40]:

It's so interesting because every headset that you go to has such a different audience. And so we were actually very curious because, you know, we had often, you know, we've always kind of thought of the PlayStation, this audience as a bit more hardcore than our typical user base. But I think that also kind of worked really well because there's not a whole lot else that's on PlayStation VR that is like this, that is more social and it is a bit more casual. And it's been super great to see sort of like the audience getting that. I think that's also helped though because we've got so many people. I would actually even bet that a decent number of people who have purchased it on PlayStation VR 2 probably might have already played it on Quest or might already have a Quest. It seems like a lot of those early adopters or people in the VR space, that's not probably their very first headset in many cases. So it seems like a decent number of people had it. And it's like, oh, now I've got it on PlayStation VR, too. Now I can have, when I've got a friend over, we can both play at the same time. Or I can loan out my quest to somebody if we want to, if they're going on a trip and we can play together or something like that. So I wish that there was a way that we would actually know that empirically, but it's just sort of reading the tea leaves at the moment.

Stratus [00:54:55]:

I know if we had PS5s in the VR attachment,

Dscruffles [00:55:00]:

We'd be owning it as well. Probably all the same in that category, for sure. Probably all the same courses that we own in the meta quest too. So, uh, you know, obviously I doubt what you've tried it or anything. And if you have, you can't obviously say anything, but it's quite the hype recently with a plethora of contradictory rumors and such with the Apple headset supposed to be announced, you know, coming up in the next week, theoretically. Are you an Apple fan? You know, the game's going on iOS first before Android, you know, what's your thoughts on all the Apple rumors and what might come out? So I don't really have any insider information, I would say that I,

Lucas [00:55:43]:

I've definitely been kind of paying attention to it, but at the same time, I've also kind of like, we're going to like, it's pretty clear that their focus is going to be first party stuff, at least for that initial launch. So there's not, I don't know of anyone who's been able to actually sort of get their hands on it or see anything about it. So I think at a certain point, just like, OK, glance at the rumors, but I was like, we'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. And then I think that there's definitely, we want to be able to support it and come out to that when it launches. At the same time, we're also still waiting to see exactly what it is. And a good example would be like, if it's hand tracking only, that's pretty difficult to do with a golf game. So that's 1 of the rumors that it would be entirely hand tracking. So I think that that's where we're sort of like, we're just like everybody else. We're very much in a wait and see what they do with it, because I have a feeling that they're aiming to disrupt a lot of other things and they're not necessarily thinking of it as a gaming first headset.

Stratus [00:56:39]:

Understood. That's what I keep hearing. Gaming is the last thing it'll be used for. But yeah, but then I get kind of reference contradictory rumors. You know, I've heard

Dscruffles [00:56:48]:

the hand tracking and then I've heard like the whole battery on the outside thing and then the sales expectation and sales expectations and all these crazy things. But I have your exact mentality of let's see what actually is announced.

Lucas [00:57:01]:

Yeah. And I mean, I think that even for us, like, okay, even stuff that is more of like a business, we want to support as many devices and make them all cross-play as possible. There's even a surprise, like something I never anticipated was the number of people who do business meetings in Walkabout. Like they'll do, you know, they'll do their sort of like weekly one-on-ones, like, oh yeah, we'll just hop into there. Like, oh, we got to like brainstorm these things. Like, yeah, we can do a Google Meet or a Zoom link or something. But like, oh, well, we'll just hop in Walkabout. We don't need to be like typing on a computer while we do it. It's like, it's kind of like being in the same room with people. So I could even see that we would want to support that even from a business standpoint, because that's likely will be 1 of the main focuses for that, that particular device. So, so yeah. So again, we're just waiting and seeing just like everybody else.

Dscruffles [00:57:49]:

Walkabout Mini Golf, the premier social VR app. That's the, um, it's the 1 big business meeting I'd probably never run from, you know, be like, yeah, I'll be there. Just give me 2 seconds. That's awesome. And, uh, kind of to that, are you able to see, you know, where your audience size is split on device? Like example, is meta, the meta quest like 80%? Is it split down the middle? Or,

Lucas [00:58:14]:

you know, no, no real, no real idea. I don't even have exact numbers. I can definitely say that the Quest 2 is by far the you know, the majority of all that. I know we still have a few people on Quest 1 PlayStation has picked up Steam is also a you know, there's a there's a sizable number of people on Steam. But yeah, but Quest 2 is very much the dominant. I mean, every VR developer is sort of like, if you're making a VR game and unless you have funding from, For instance, like PlayStation, you still have to focus on Quest, at least for now, because that's the largest audience by several orders of magnitude.

Dscruffles [00:58:56]:

That makes total sense. Lucas is a busy man, clearly, a thousand things on the plate. So, you know, we're hitting that hour point, which is usually the point I pull the plug and everything like that. But before we let Lucas go, is there anything else that you wanted to ask him? No, I'm just grateful that

Stratus [00:59:16]:

Lucas was kind enough to take time out of his busy schedule, which at this point, to me, they got 1 of the most successful VR studios that we know of. We put them in the AAA studio for what they do. I got more questions than I probably even had. I got more answers to questions I didn't even have. So I'm just excited to continue to watch this grow. I mean, it's always a positive experience. The users love it. Every single employee we've ever talked to don't care what they do, they're excited, They're loving life. Bringing something unique to the table as well as something special. And I never would have thought in full honesty that mini golf would get me so jazzed up and excited, but it does. I'm right there with you. I never really thought that I'd, yeah.

Lucas [01:00:06]:

Who would have thought that mini golf would be the thing that I spent the last, you know, 2 and a half years now, sort of like focusing almost 100% of my time on. So yeah, I'm right there with you. No 1 quite expected it to blow up, especially to this extent.

Dscruffles [01:00:20]:

So it's just been awesome to see. Well, you feel it when you go in, there's something magic about it. And I've used that same feeling to describe other games like bocce time. You go in and it has that walk about mini golf magic feel. And there's, you know, if you tell somebody about walking my mini golf and they look at you like how could mini golf be 1 of the best games? Put them in and within 30 seconds,

Lucas [01:00:41]:

they're gonna have that feel. Yeah. I love that though. I like people going in and it's like, ah, why would it ever be? Like, I'm trying to remember the, there was a quote that I, that we glommed onto, it was just in a review that someone had left. It's sort of like, like this is, like why is mini golf the thing? Like, this is stupid, I love it. Like, yeah. Yeah. That's awesome. Like, I'm fine with that. Like, yeah, just go in with low expectations and then be just constantly surprised is what we love.

Dscruffles [01:01:14]:

So 1 last thing I gotta ask before we let you go. With all the headsets on the market now, what headset do you use when you're in work meetings or gaming even?

Lucas [01:01:27]:

I mean, so mostly Quest 2, But a lot of that is also just because we are doing everything within Unity. And Quest 2, you can test standalone. You can take it out. You can play other games. You can do anything. But then also, we can plug it into our laptops or PCs or whatever. We actually use it in the editor. So just the ease and the flexibility of that has proven to be really, really good. But we've got different folks on the teams that are on the team who are using different stuff. Some people playing on PlayStation more regularly, Pico, but for me, yeah, just the portability and that, yeah, that Quest 2 is sort of the benchmark that we test most stuff on.

Dscruffles [01:02:02]:

And have you been playing VR games as well, or is it pretty much development and then dude, I'm done? No, no headset.

Lucas [01:02:09]:

Well, I also have a 3 year old and an 8 year old. So it's pretty much at this point, it's the sort of like, it's pretty much development. I haven't, I've gotten little opportunities to play stuff. I'm actually hoping that as things calm down, I'll be able to, or just, you know, as we get things into more of a routine that I'll be able to play a few more because I'm definitely pretty far behind on just playing all the other games that are out there. Well, for good reason though, 3 and 8, you know. Company just gonna continue to grow. Yeah.

Stratus [01:02:37]:

The downside to running a very successful business.

Dscruffles [01:02:42]:

Yes, the amount of hours in the day don't increase as success increases. In fact, it sometimes feels like it goes the opposite way, if anything. So Lucas, before we let you go, is there anything else you wanna say to our listeners? You know, maybe remind them where to find Walkabout Mini Golf on social media and stuff like that. Yeah, totally. I mean, best place is just walkaboutminigolf.com.

Lucas [01:03:04]:

That'll take you right to our page. We've got links to all the socials, all of our different store pages. And yeah, we've got really excited about Journey to the Center of the Earth coming out and LaserLair

Dscruffles [01:03:17]:

not too far behind it. So that's gonna be a super fun 1. Can't wait. Yeah, didn't even get too much into laser layer. I had some questions about the mechanics of that, but if anything, sometimes- Can't wait for that 1 to drop.

Lucas [01:03:27]:

Yeah, sometimes it's better to find out organically as well. We'll do it again in another year and we can.

Dscruffles [01:03:33]:

Sounds good. All right. So thank you again for joining us, Lucas, and for our listeners, you know, subscribe, rate us 5 stars, check out our discord, check out our Patreon and up into that walk about mini golf. Yep. Play sessions and we'll check you out next week. Ciao, ciao.