Austin, TX (July 5, 2022) – Mighty Coconut—the entertainment studio behind the best-rated multiplayer game on the Meta Quest: Walkabout Mini Golf—in partnership with the Jim Henson Company, will launch the expansive “Walkabout Mini Golf: Labyrinth” course on Thursday, July 28. Set in the world of Jim Henson’s 1986 classic fantasy film LABYRINTH, the 18-hole easy course and 18-hole hard course will not only feature the family-friendly gameplay with realistic physics the game is known for… it will also feature animated creatures from the story, nine Labyrinth-themed avatar features allowing players to dress up as key characters and even select creatures, a new original soundtrack, and an expansion of the multiplayer capabilities from five simultaneous players in a game to as many as eight. The course is an add-on DLC to the base game priced at just $2.99 USD.
“Later this month, we’ll be inviting Labyrinth fans to meet in this fantastical world and play. We are so pleased to celebrate the forthcoming opening of ‘Walkabout Mini Golf: Labyrinth’—a transportive and immersive virtual reality course designed to bring to life the magical world Jim Henson and his team of artists created,” said Melissa Segal, head of Consumer Products for The Jim Henson Company. “The course was crafted by Mighty Coconut, who are true fans of Labyrinth, and the work of Brian Froud. And it captures the feeling of the film, allowing you to not only inhabit the Labyrinth—and play some really fun mini golf—but also to meet up with people you know.”
As shown in a behind-the-scenes video released today “Walkabout Mini Golf: Labyrinth” is designed to be vivid, challenging, character-filled, and richly realized course for players where they can escape, explore, and play solo or rendezvous with up to seven other players—complete with iconic LABYRINTH creatures including Ludo, Hoggle, Sir Didymus, scenes, props, and obstacles. The course also features 18 themed lost golf balls to collect and a “fox hunt” scavenger expedition as well as expansive mazes and gardens to explore. This is the largest and most complex Walkabout Mini Golf course to date.
“What we’ve been able to create with The Jim Henson Company not only stays true to the original LABYRINTH, they’ve allowed us to show parts you’ve never seen and have inspired us to push the limits of the technology to create something bigger and more diverse than we’ve ever attempted,” said Lucas Martell, executive producer and head of Mighty Coconut.
Planned celebrations include:
Mighty Coconut is an independent studio based in Austin, Texas and has quickly risen in the virtual reality ecosystem, with Walkabout Mini Golf now the top-rated multiplayer game on the Meta Quest platform, the 3rd best-rated title on that platform altogether, the 2nd best-rated on Steam VR, and a gamer favorite.
Enjoyed by hundreds of thousands of players of all ages in over 40 countries, Walkabout Mini Golf has received critical and player praise for its lush environments, true-to-life physics, and curated social experience with a self-paced, intergenerational appeal to advanced and novice players alike. The New York Times called Walkabout Mini Golf “an adorable mini-golf game that is unexpectedly convincing” and the Washington Post’s review heralded the title as “A magnificent collection of challenging holes set in fantasy locations”. A Wall Street Journal feature postulated that the game might be “the future of socializing at work.”
Notably, the game has earned a nearly perfect five-star rating with over 7,500 reviews on Meta Quest—the marketplace leader—and player engagement boasts a 2-Hour Usage Rate for more than 50% of users (around 10 times the standard), meaning they play Walkabout Mini Golf until their battery runs out. The Meta Quest 2 has been named one of “Oprah’s 2021 Favorite Things” and Meta has just passed the 10 million headsets sold benchmark, according to Qualcomm as of November 16, 2021.
About Mighty Coconut
Founded in 2014 on the heels of Lucas Martell’s award-winning animated short film THE OCEANMAKER, Mighty Coconut is an Austin-based entertainment studio specializing in immersive virtual and augmented reality games and animation. Led by a creative team of animation and game design industry veterans with a passion for combining stunning visuals and well-crafted mechanics, the studio has found success in VR game development and has the best-rated multiplayer game on the Meta Quest (formerly Oculus) platform: Walkabout Mini Golf, building on previous released games 57° North, Lazer Mazer as well as narrative series KINGS OF ATLANTIS (YouTube Red). Executive producer and head of Mighty Coconut, Lucas Martell is the co-creator of SPIES IN DISGUISE, the Fox/Blue Sky animated feature starring Will Smith and Tom Holland. The original short film PIGEON: IMPOSSIBLE as well as THE OCEANMAKER have been seen more than 30-million times online and screened at over 350 festivals in 63 different countries.
About The Jim Henson Company
The award-winning Jim Henson Company has remained an established leader in family entertainment for over 60 years and is recognized as an innovator in puppetry, animatronics, and digital animation. Best known as creators of the world-famous Muppets, Henson is currently in production on Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio for Netflix and the feature film The Portable Door. Henson’s most recent television credits include the acclaimed reboot Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock and the animated series Harriet the Spy, both for Apple TV+, as well as Duff’s Happy Fun Bake Time for discovery+, Earth to Ned for Disney+, Fraggle Rock: Rock On! for Apple TV+, the Emmy-winning Netflix Original series The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance, Word Party (Netflix) and the Emmy®-nominated Dinosaur Train (PBS). Previous TV productions include Sid the Science Kid (PBS), Splash and Bubbles (PBS), and Julie’s Greenroom (Netflix), as well as Fraggle Rock, The Storyteller, and the sci-fi series Farscape. Feature film credits include The Star(Sony Pictures Animation), Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (Disney), and the groundbreaking fantasy classics The Dark Crystal, and Labyrinth.
With additional locations in New York and London, The Jim Henson Company is headquartered in Los Angeles on the historic Charlie Chaplin lot, complete with soundstage and post-production facilities. The Company is home to Jim Henson’s Creature Shop™, a pre-eminent character-building and visual effects group with international film, television, theme park and advertising clients, as well as Henson Recording Studios, one of the music industry’s top recording facilities known for its world-class blend of state-of-the-art and vintage equipment. The Company’s Henson Alternative credits include The Curious Creations of Christine McConnell (Netflix), the feature film The Happytime Murders and the popular live puppet improvisational show Puppet-Up! – Uncensored.
Contacts
The Jim Henson Company:
Nicole Goldman
ngoldman@henson.com
323.802-1608
Mighty Coconut:
David Wyatt
david@mightycoconut.com
512-450-4395
