Behind The Scenes of Walkabout Mini Golf's New Passport Hollywood Course

Mighty Coconut’s Don Carson and Shane Rhodes take us on a tour of Walkabout’s ode to the golden age of filmmaking.

We previously reported that Walkabout Mini Golf’s new Hollywood DLC, the third in its Passport series, was inspired by Mighty Coconut’s origins working in effects and animation for Hollywood productions. We had a chance to tour the course with Mighty Coconut Senior Art Director Don Carson and 3D modeler Shane Rhodes. That video from our Youtube channel is linked here:

After the tour, I sat down with Don to get more in depth about Passport Hollywood and Walkabout’s overall process for building courses. The following is a full transcription of that discussion:

UploadVR: So, multiple people, yourself included, talked about Mighty Coconut’s background in the film industry, including some people who are still currently on the team have backgrounds working in animations and special effects on Hollywood films. So, given the personal connection that some of the team has, did that make this course easier or harder [to build] because of their personal connections and their backgrounds?

Don Carson: I think easier. I think initially the idea of doing the Hollywood course was it seemed like a kind of an obvious one that was sort of a wish fulfillment location to hang out in. But I think as soon as we started scratching the surface, we realized that we all had sort of deep connections to that business and those places, especially Lucas Martell and Laura Krauss, both of them have had offices on backlots at Hollywood studios in their careers. So everything from the lot cats that wander around and keep the rodents down to the commissary and being able to sort of sneak around and look inside of soundstages. All of that sort of created this long wish list of things we wanted to make sure that we included when we were designing out all the places you visit.

UploadVR: Have you ever had to, in this course or any other, scale back some of the production design specifically because the hole had to be reconfigured?

Don Carson: Yeah, the place often happens before the hole. We usually start in Gravity Sketch as all the design team will meet up in VR and start scribbling to scale. And we have sort of placeholders for all 18 holes. And so we know there’ll be a hole here, but the placeness will start to sort of come together. And then we’ll have to move the furniture around a bit to make sure that the hole fits as opposed to the other way around.

UploadVR: Okay. So, that happens pretty often after you get the okay?

Don Carson: Yeah. Yeah. There’s no room or there’s an opportunity we hadn’t thought of. Like especially on the Hollywood one, we wanted the holes to sort of represent the departments that are part of the film making process. So there’s the model shop and there’s the props department and there’s the the Foley sound department. So, uh, the the places were designed first and then the holes came to sort of support the theme of the places.

UploadVR: Was there an element in the overall design, like music design, art, or whatever, that was easy that came together fairly quickly? And conversely, was there one that was like a pain to get right?

Don Carson: I think the coming up with the style of the we call it a shape language. You know, what’s different not only about the gameplay, but what’s the what what do the borders look like? And I know we wanted to do sort of an art deco look for the the the edges of the holes. So, there was a lot of back and forth trying to get that right. I think we did a good job, but I think it it went through a lot of iterations before we we hit on the style that we have in that course now.

UploadVR: Timeline wise, was this in line with your usual 15 to 18 month turnaround?

Don Carson: I think we came up with this January of last year, so it’s a little over a year to do it.

UploadVR: Wow.

Don Carson: Yeah.

UploadVR: Is there anything that you can say there was an idea that just hit the cutting room floor? Like you really wanted it in or there was like an idea for a hole that just didn’t make it in.

Don Carson: I think we crammed it all in really. I don’t think we missed a thing, which it tends to be true of all the courses that we inevitably have a list that we are constantly pushing the limits as to how many polygons we can get squeezed into an environment and so we rationalize, especially with a course like the Hollywood course, is that luckily a lot of those props exist in a building, so that when you leave the building, we don’t have to render those anymore. So, like the props department is just full of objects that are great when you’re in there, but you don’t want to have to be rendering them all the time.

UploadVR: One of the things that came up when we were taking our tour was we were in the film projector room that’s over the screening room and you said that someone on the team chimed in and said when they saw it, “This looks kind of dull.” And then someone else came back and said, “No, that’s pretty much how this room looks.”

Don Carson: That’s right.

UploadVR: How do you straddle that line between authenticity and still like making it aesthetically pleasing and entertaining?

Don Carson: Well especially with the passport courses, our first one was Venice, is we desperately wanted to make sure that it fulfilled people’s sort of bucket list idea of what it would be like to go to these places in the world. So for people who haven’t been, it needs to represent what they think it’s going to be like. And for the people who have been and love it, we wanted to make sure we hit all the high points. So they felt like they had “oh you caught everything that I love about Tokyo or or or Venice.” So we did the same thing with Hollywood. We wanted to make sure that we didn’t leave anybody out. And then I think because of our own personal experience and this is true of Venice, Tokyo, and Hollywood. There’s enough people on the team that have have lived in that world that they could make sure that not only were we being honest to the design, but also we were able to put little anecdotes and little personal experiences. Like I mentioned during our walkthrough, I think that Laura really wanted to make sure that the art department was really rich because that was the world she lived in. But also the fact that the art department is usually the unloved cousin who always gets shoved in some, you know, unwanted building. So those two things are represented and I think that really adds a level of sort of human touch to the courses.

UploadVR: Even in that specific room you talked about lowering the ceiling. It was too high. Like no, no art department has had a ceiling this tall. They feel like they’re in a closet basically.

Don Carson: Exactly right. Exactly.

UploadVR: Do you have a specific section that you specifically are proud of? Like you really pushed for an idea and they made it?

Don Carson: Probably my absolute favorite part of the process is the research part and I tend to research by drawing it and so I got to do a lot of research on the sort of vintage equipment that was used. So the editing machinery, the Foley and sound props. That was my favorite bit is the you know what are we going to fill this with? Always with this sort of keeping in mind what the audience is going to experience. You want to give them something that’s going to be interesting. Kind of make them want to go find out more about it, but also you don’t want to to be wrong. You don’t want to foolishly recreate a Venice that doesn’t exist. You want it to be something that people go, “Yeah, that’s how I felt when I was there.”

UploadVR: Did that play into your decision to make it more of an older studio feel as opposed to the more modern digital lots?

Don Carson: We talked about doing sort of silent era. Then we talked about sort of musical era and then we talked about the 70s and the 60s and then we decided we were just going to sort of do our greatest hits of what we remember was wonderful about the uh the Hollywood system and a lot of that’s going away. I mean certainly with the digital content and also the idea that Hollywood is the place where is the only place where movies are made is kind of out the window. They’re being made everywhere.

UploadVR: I’ve got to ask this. Who has the best score on the course right now on the team?

Don Carson: I pretty much would guess it’s Lucas. Lucas and Henning are the are the top players. I’m sort of neck and neck with Emma as the worst players, I think. But I think that the thing is that we’re not doing it for the high score. We’re just doing it for the good conversation.

UploadVR: Do test sessions ever get competitive?

Don Carson: No, no. We’re often willing to sacrifice good shots for just to see what happens if we knock it against that wall and see if it bounces off the ceiling.

UploadVR: What was your first course with the company? You joined in I think it was 2021?

Don Carson: Yes. Yes. About four and a half years now. My first assignment was the nautilus for the first Jules Verne course was working on that. But we simultaneously work like on at seven at the same all at the same time. We’re constantly working on stuff at various stages. So I think I was doing Around The World right next to doing the drawings for the nautilus. I personally love, you know, pile it on just give me more diversity and then I love to draw, but sometimes I love to stop drawing and build stuff and sometimes I want to stop building stuff and go back to drawing. So I get to jump back and forth between those tasks.

UploadVR: Is there a course that kind of precedes your time with Mighty Coconut that you personally looked at and went, “Man, it’d have been really cool to work on that one.

Don Carson: Yeah, it was when Bogeys Bonanza came out and mutual friends it was during Covid we’re playing it and we just saw the connection between our work in the theme park industry and what Mighty Coconut was doing and so we just we had to tell them like you guys are rocking it. There’s something really special happening here. And then I was lucky enough to get hired to get to play with this team. And at the time I think there were six coconuts at the time and we blossomed from there.

UploadVR: From a guest column you wrote on Upload in early 2025, you said, “First impressions matter. Establishing shots set the tone and align with what players expect when they step into a new course.” How quickly did you land on that entryway in the water tower as like the gateway to the Hollywood course? And were there any other ideas that you kind of played around with?

Don Carson: No, that was it. That was we knew that you had to end. You had to There’s always sort of a where am I question as soon as you touch down like okay, where am I? How do I relate to this? And is it fulfilling my expectation? And so someone getting to go to a studio is going to do have any experience that actually anybody’s been to a studio, you’ve got to go through security and security is inevitably beyond a gate. And sort of that that Paramount arch although it’s been replicated in at other studios is the perfect establishing shot for “I get to go into this sort of magical place that not everybody gets to go to.”

UploadVR: You said building the course start to finish takes anywhere from 15 to 18 months. Recently, unfortunately Mighty Coconut went through a staff reduction. We, of course, wish everyone affected well in their future endeavors. One of the notes in that announcement was that there was going to be a reduction in courses from seven down to six. Is that just to give each course a little bit more breathing room because of the tightly compacted schedule?

Don Carson: Well, yes, that’s one of them. I mean, unlike a game company where you’re in crunch mode until the the game ships, ours, we ship seven times a year. So, we’re constantly crunching. So we are good about our own personal time, but when we’re working, we’re it’s nose to the grindstone all year long. I think the other thing too is that we wanted to make sure that people weren’t going crazy, but at the same time, we wanted to make sure that we had the luxury to be able to to go through what we call the icing phase, which is for all intents and purposes, everything is done except wouldn’t it be great if we could add this one extra detail or this one extra effect. And I think that sometimes those little extra bits uh get left behind if you’re completely slammed to get something done. And when when they are added often those are the things that the players notice as being the kind of magical like “I can’t believe you went so far as to add this detail because it just makes it for me.”

UploadVR: Have you ever worked on your part of a course and thought “I don’t know if this going to work.” And then when you see the finished product with the sound design and everything coming together, you’re like, oh, okay, now now it’s magical?

Don Carson: Yeah. I think every every single course is like that because I tend to work on the front end. So I’m doing the drawings and building the first versions of things. Then it’s handed to the art team and I think we mentioned is as part of the conversation um after our walkthrough that it’s always better than you expected it because it’s gone through so many hands and each of them have been sort of anointed with the permission to make it as good as they want to make it and so everybody brings their own perspective and so I’d say that the final bake where the shadows are all baked in and everything’s come together happens at the 11th hour, so even a couple of weeks before we launch, wandering through it, I’ll go this is nice, you know, this is good. I think it’s a good example of what we can do. And then we release it and it’s like, oh boy, like, oh, this is way better. And it’s all those pieces coming together. The tech art team is especially good at making sure that we cross all the Ts and dot all the Is to make sure that we’re producing the best possible finished product.

UploadVR: That’s got to be a great feeling though, because you put this thing to bed, you’re working on, like you said, six or seven other courses, then you come back to this thing you worked on months ago and you’re like, “Oh, wow.”

Don Carson: Yeah. Yeah. This really came together. Also there’s another thing and I’m sure this is true of all of us at the on the team is that you’ll go well this one little thing isn’t isn’t working for me, but do I make a fuss about it or do I trust that it will get it will get seen to sort of magically as that quote from Shakespeare In Love is that you know it’s a mystery. I don’t know how it all comes together, but you go in and sure enough someone came in and not only did they do the thing you hope would happen. They did it better than you thought it could have been done. Then when you walk around when it releases, you just go, I am just so proud of the collective choices that were made that made this as nice as it is.

UploadVR: Last one. We’ll end on a lighter note. Are there any Easter eggs or hints you want to give to the players to look out for while they’re playing through the course?

Don Carson: So whenever we work on a new course, we understand there’s going to be a specific heavy lift for that course. Like when we knew we were going to do Tiki Coco, we knew it was going to be populated with lots of animated characters. We knew that animation job was going to be a hefty job, but it was worth it because we felt that the whole the success of the level was going to be based upon how charming those characters are. And so when it came to doing the Hollywood course, we thought this will be a piece of cake because we’ll just use all the stuff we already have to populate, you know, like the prop room is all stuff from our other courses. We ended up, of course, building a whole bunch of stuff. Shane, who was part of the walkthrough, built a lot of the vehicles and a lot of the hero props. It is packed full of things from um, past courses, but there are a couple things from future courses in there, too. Things we haven’t announced yet.

UploadVR: That’s a nice little hint for the future. All right. Anything you want to say to the audience as we wrap up?

Don Carson: Well, thank you for continuing to play it. Each DLC purchase allows us to build the next DLC. So we are really really dependent upon delivering the best we possibly can, but in the end it’s people voting with their with their dollars. We’re really lucky because people love the courses, not just for the courses, but also our main intent is to create a place for people to be together in. And I think that people acknowledge that that some of the quality time they have with friends and family have been happening inside the courses we produce. And that’s just makes getting up in the morning and doing more of them all the better.

Walkabout Mini Golf is available on Steam, PSVR2, Quest, Pico, Samsung Galaxy XR, and Apple App Store. The game is also available as part of Meta’s Horizon+ subscription service. The Passport Hollywood course is available now for $4.99.