Mars Garden Field Notes

Over the past year as we’ve quietly worked away on Mars Gardens, which we referred to as Project E.D.E.N., there were many points of inspiration and debate as we settled on what our particular take on the Red Planet would be for Walkabout Mini golf players. 

Mars Garden is sort of spiritual successor to Arizona Modern regarding gameplay with the curved lines and swoops. We definitely got geeky on this one, researching harvesting techniques and growth patterns of the crops we have in the bio-dome and looked at how a 3D printing robot arm system that would build and maintain the structure itself would also be adapted to care for the plant life and other greens. 

Players will note a new “discourse system” on the holographic displays that appear throughout the course. Just a few of the many references and environmental storytelling elements we designed into this DLC. Here are a few of our other touchpoints:

Zaha Hadid 

Lucas Martell, creator of Walkabout Mini Golf, worked on this course especially closely to drive the unique architectural style, and shape language of gameplay for an otherworldly feel. Zaha Hadid (1950 – 2016) was an Iraqi-British architect, artist, and designer, recognized as a key figure in architecture of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. She was described by The Guardian as the "Queen of Curves", who "liberated architectural geometry, giving it a whole new expressive identity". Her major works include the London Aquatics Centre for the 2012 Olympics, the Broad Art Museum, Rome's MAXXI Museum, and the Guangzhou Opera House.

Silent Running

Senior art director, Don Carson, cites the 1972 American environmental-themed science fiction film SILENT RUNNING as influential for Mars Gardens. Directed by Douglas Trumbull (1942 - 2022), and starring Bruce Dern, Cliff Potts, Ron Rifkin, and Jesse Vint, the film tells the story of a future in which all forests on Earth have become extinct from careless environmental exploitation. As many specimens as possible have been preserved in a series of enormous greenhouse-like geodesic domes. Notably, Trumbull also created scenes for 2001: A Space Odyssey, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Blade Runner and The Tree of Life.

Holst, Johannsson, Vangelis, et al.

Mighty Coconut’s resident composer Chris Reyman had many influential composers for his hypnotic score for Mars Gardens. “Some inspired the music, some are just pieces of music that I connect to Mars and the Mars Gardens course.

  • Gustav Holst’s “Mars” from The Planets

  • Johann Johannsson’s “Heptapod B” from Arrival

  • Harry Gregson-Williams’ “Sprouting Potatoes” from The Martian (really the whole soundtrack)

  • Max Richter’s “On the Nature of Daylight”

  • Wendy Carlos’ Theme from Clockwork Orange

  • Vangelis’ “Main Titles” for Blade Runner

Sarah Balman