Crafting Virtual Worlds Walkabout Mini Golf’s Design Journey

Wed November 12, 2025 04:00 am CET

How do you build beloved worlds that run beautifully on everyday headsets? The Mighty Coconut team shares five years of insights from creating 36+ Walkabout Mini Golf courses. In this session you receive a masterclass in VR world-building, performance optimization, and community-driven design. After the talk, join an open Ask Me Anything (AMA) round with “the Coconuts” followed by optional breakout rooms and a relaxed “walk and talk” inside “Walkabout” itself. (requires that you own Walkabout Mini Golf or that you subscribe via Horizons+). 
 
www.mightycoconut.com/minigolf 

Format

Talk

App

VRChat

Location

AREA X

Duration

44 min

Presenter

Sarah Balman
Community Manager at Mighty Coconut

(she/her)

Sarah Balman knows the Walkabout Mini Golf community inside and out. As Community Manager at Mighty Coconut for over three years, she’s hosted livestreams, attended meetups, and built lasting connections with players—all to better advocate for their voices in the game’s development. When she’s not working with games, she’s playing them. Her favorites include Mass Effect 2, Baldur’s Gate 3, and Coral Island. You can catch her on Twitch as Sandwichartista or tune into her podcast, ShouJoe.

Ellie Sizemore
Technical artist at Mighty Coconut

(Xe/Xyr)

Ryan Sizemore is a technical artist with 7 years of experience in the VR/XR industry. Having worked on projects for Mighty Coconut, Komatsu, Sloan, WB, etc. Having worked on a variety of VR headsets and AR platforms, specializing in FX, material creation, modeling, animation, and programming.

Henning Koczy 
Lead Level Designer at Mighty Coconut

(he/him)

Hiya! I’m Henning. I was born in Germany, grew up in Oregon, went to college in Minneapolis, and worked in commercial animation in New York City for the larger part of my professional life. It was here I met Lucas and followed him to Belize to help make one of his animated shorts, The Oceanmaker. I moved back to Oregon when I got married and now design minigolf courses for Walkabout. I also like hobby game dev. I made a game called Foxhunt, and currently am making one about baking pies.

Don Carson
Sr. Art Director at Mighty Coconut

(he/him)

Don Carson was trained as a commercial illustrator, his work has branched out to focus on the design of physical and virtual spaces. Working as a Senior Show Designer, and freelance contributor to Walt Disney Imagineering, Don’s job is to communicate design through conceptual sketches and 3D models. This work has expanded to include everything from designing entire lands for the Disney parks to guiding teams of designers as they build 3D environments in virtual worlds and 3D games. Don is currently the Sr. Art Director at Mighty Coconut, creating attractions to be experienced in VR.

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