SPRING 2025
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The Anatomy of a Putt Hole
How to Get Through Smash Putt’s Space-Time Continuum BY MEGAN SELING
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eattle Makers, a crew of creatives with a workspace in Interbay, were given almost no parameters when asked to build the mini golf hole of their dreams for Smash Putt. “It was intimidating at first, but then really exciting,” says Lilia Deering, the co-creator of the hole called Quantum Putt. “We all
wanted to make something that felt really interactive, rather than something where you putt the ball and let it do its thing. We wanted the person to get really involved.” The goal of the vaporwave-themed game is to reach the black hole at the end, but once your ball hits the space-time fabric, it will be pushed and pulled in every direction as the
fabric shifts into peaks and valleys. Along the way, your ball might get lured into a planet’s orbit, sucked into a wormhole, or trapped by a binary star. “My advice would be to test out the buttons and the levers and the wheels to see how they affect the fabric of space-time,” says Deering. But be aware of your own strength!
Yes, it’s called Smash Putt. But please don’t smash the art. “Drunk people are really hard on the mechanisms. We’ve already had to make some replacements and reinforce and over-engineer some of the aspects.” Below, Deering offers a few more hints to help make the most of the vaporwave fantasy come true.
Don’t be fooled: While the 1 wormhole launcher will
definitely release your ball from the grips of the dreaded wormhole, your ball still isn’t guaranteed safety. “You can sort of aim,” says Deering. “But a lot is left up to chance.” So watch out for planets and binary stars!
binary star system is 2 “The really fun,” says Deering.
Two balls rotate around each other, and your ball might get caught in their orbit. In order to get your ball out, you have to use a knob on the control panel to adjust the speed of the rotation to fling your ball to freedom. “We’re playing with real concepts in physics.”
No! This is the Dark Energy Nexus, the mysterious gravitational anomaly 3 Butthole? Smash Putt players use to push and pull their ball across the fabric of space-time.
The surface of the Quantum Putt is made of a flexible Lycra fabric that players can manipulate with the game’s control panel. No surface is flat—the ball is always moving, whether it’s getting pulled into gravity holes or safely soaring past, riding on the suddenly appearing peaks and valleys you create.
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Here’s a really big 5 hint: Your ball will
always, eventually, make it to the black hole at the end. How it gets there, though, is different every time. Good luck, Space Cadet!