Hole in Zero?! Designing for the Absurd in Golftacular!

Golftacular! is out today on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and PC, and its core hook is a deliberate inversion of mini-golf logic: the best shot is often the one that breaks the rules. Both Good Games built the game around a “hole in zero” mindset, where items can swap balls, stop them mid-air, launch airstrikes, or let them grow legs and move on their own.

The interesting part for developers is the design loop. The team started by studying mini-golf clichés, then built a toolbox of course elements such as “Thread the Needle,” “Wall Rides,” and “The Mixers.” Those layouts were first prototyped in 2D, then turned into bare-bones playable maps for rapid playtesting. That process exposed friction points like steep slopes that could trap players, which in turn became opportunities for new items.

Items then fed back into level design. Some course geometry was added specifically to block degenerate skips, like a Portal route that could otherwise jump straight to the cup. That back-and-forth between systems and spaces eventually expanded the game into Puzzle Mode, where levels are built around item combinations and hidden solutions rather than standard golf shots.

For teams working on party games or systemic level design, the takeaway is familiar but useful: once you introduce a tool that changes player agency, every course becomes a ruleset to balance against it. Golftacular! embraces that tension instead of smoothing it away, and that’s what gives the game its identity.