During the fall of 2020, when I was doing college from home over Zoom, I decided to treat myself and get an Oculus Quest 2. The pandemic had everyone inside, so I thought it would be fun to explore different worlds in a virtual capacity.

When I first got Quest 2, I downloaded all the free games first (as one does), and then moved on to see what else the Quest had to offer.

One of the first games that caught my eye was “Walkabout Mini Golf.”

It was relatively inexpensive, only around 15 dollars. I downloaded it and was blown away by how amazing the game was.

The first virtual mini golf course the game starts you out on is essentially a pirate-y island. The physics of the game are really good, and it is exceptionally immersive.

“Walkabout Mini Golf” ranks very high on my favorite games of all time.

The developers of the game have kept making new courses since the game was released. What started out as five courses has turned into sixteen, with no sign of slowing down.

My favorite part of this game is how it has helped me stay connected to friends from high school. After graduation, two of my best friends and I all split off to different colleges across the state, but we have played “Walkabout Mini Golf” on a semi-regular basis since that time.

It is an absolutely perfect game to be social while playing. Depending on our moods, my friends and I are either super competitive with minimal talking, or we spend most of our time chatting and joking with the score being a second priority. We have had some truly insane trick shots and more than a few big laughs while playing this game together.

In the last year, new courses inspired by famous books and movies have been licensed by the developers and put into the game, my favorite being “Labyrinth.”

Through 18 holes of mini golf, the story of the David Bowie cult classic movie is told. I hadn’t seen the movie before playing the course, so going back and watching the movie after was a really cool experience.

The course is able to tell the story of the movie very well without forcing the plot too much.

Another cool part of “Walkabout Mini Golf” is the in-game activities you can do on top of the actual golfing. Every course has two modes, easy and hard.

On the easy courses, there is one golf ball hidden in/around every hole for you to discover.

Once you find a “lost ball” you can then equip that ball to be the one you use going forward.

In the hard mode, there is a thing called a “fox hunt,” where you search around the various courses for clues and are rewarded with a unique putter inspired by the course you found it on.

Seeing the progression of this game since I started playing in 2020 has been a really cool experience, each course has gotten more immersive and detailed than the last, and new features and mechanics are always being added into the game.

It’s fun to be able to play mini golf when rain or snow is pouring down outside, and I am transported to Shangri-La with my buddies to play some golf.

Playing a game with very low stakes is very nice, most games now can be really intense or stressful and being able to slow down and hit the links is really relaxing.

On the note of relaxing, a lot of virtual reality games can come with pretty bad motion sickness. “Walkabout Mini Golf” has almost none, which comes as a big relief.

As I am writing this, a new course, “Atlantis” has been released. I haven’t gotten around to playing it yet but am really excited to do so. “Walkabout Mini Golf” is a game that everyone should try, whether you have an Oculus Quest or a friend does. It is a game that truly is worth playing.