Jolly Putt – Mini Golf & Arcade

A fun little tycoon game with some deceptive depth!
Rating: 7/10
Overall: It teeters on the edge of being great or terrible, but ultimately is 100% worth it for fans of tycoon style games, and it earns some bonus points for the ability to play your own courses!
What I like: Building a mini golf course and arcade is just good clean fun! There is quite a bit to unlock, you're able to play on the courses you build or just walk around and take in your hard work.
What I don't like: The game clearly needs some polish in terms of U/I, QoL, and AI. There are some staples of game control missing from the game (e.g., the esc key doesn't pull up the options menu), some of the controls are a little clunky, and the AI can be a bit brain dead (i.e., I had to delete all benches as guest constantly got stuck in a walk animation near them).

Only 6 hours in but this is a great little game. I did encounter a bug early on in the play through but informed the dev and a response and fix for the issue was released that squished the bug. Impressive response time, especially over the holiday period and I look forward to getting plenty more hours out of the game
Being able to walk around your park and play your own courses is great. This is something that you are required to do to progress, but I would do it even if that wasn't the case

Today I'm gonna be taking a look at Jolly Putt Mini Golf & Arcade. A mini golf slash lite tycoon management game. You'll take an abandoned warehouse & make it into a mecca of entertainment for family fun, where you can build your own mini golf courses & arcade but also participate by golfing yourself, taking on patrons or hosting tournaments (if you meet the requirements, like creative or long holes.) But is it any good? Let's find out.
//Sound, Graphics & Artstyle//
Switching between management mode & first person manager mode is fun. It may sound cliche to say, but putting you into your creations really make them seem a lot more beautiful, even if it is a retro pixelated style. The sounds are just okay.
//Gameplay//
Going into this I didn't realize how more involved I would be in golfing that's why I mentioned it in the description. It's a mini golfing game first, and tycoon game second.
See you're given an empty warehouse, where you'll go through a lite tutorial to get you sorted. The objective is to get money & fill in your arcade with a golf course, arcade, food court but also decorate. You'll have a prizes corner like most of these places do. But the star of this, truly is the golf course making mechanic, see at first you get simple little mini golfing parts. But it's when you bully your patrons & challenge them to duels when you get stars to unlock more items, items that can become available if you host tournaments. So while I was sorta like "this is it?" when it came to the catalog, t even a restaurant, more prizes and parts for your courses.
Try to attract customers to become members of your club to get more money & attract VIP guests by hosting tournaments or having good word of mouth. Then buy off more pieces of "land" to expand your arcade.
//Price//
9.99 USD
//How Many Hours Estimated//
I'm about 6 hours into this & I've seen enough to make my judgement, I can honestly see myself sinking another 14-20 hours into this
////Is it Playable on Steamdeck?//
Yes it is, although I tweaked a few of the controls to make it more accessible but I've made a separate save file on my SD
//Final Thoughts//
Jolly Putt- Mini Golf & Arcade is a fun game. It's relaxing but frustrating enough. Like how sometimes when I bully my patrons to a duel, they pull off absolutely amazing shots & I get a bad stroke because my hands are shaky. At first I wasn't really paying attention so I made some straight up ridiculous courses and it was only then that I realized that I would have to play in those courses to advance in the game that I decided, well maybe i should start over
Again met with the tutorial- I tried to just go as fast as possible. Then I was taken back to a time in my childhood at Golf & Stuff in Norwalk, CA. That I just felt, inspired to make courses & an arcade worthy. And while I couldn't make castles that would act as obstacles, I still had fun making wacky courses (that sometimes made the fictional world's TOP Golf Mini Golf courses in the country with a cash prize & they would receive nicknames, which again added to my immersion). I'm only up to the fourth tournament (I lost the first one but won the next two), but I'm just waiting on 30 months to pass since my last tourney so I can prepare.
Which is where one of my first gripes came, as I started focusing more on my mini golfing and just hired a bunch of people to repair & clean my arcade- I would still receive complaints that either my place was too dirty or that my prizes were lame. So 50-70 customers became 10-22 customers. Even upon fixing stuff, lowering the prize cost, I still had complaints and little to no customers... Yet I was still in the green due to memberships i'm assuming? Setting up tourneys & winning them has sure helped as well. It feels like I should be failing but I'm up 15k. I wish there was a little more balance there, and sometimes customers would leave trash in places that my custodians couldn't get to but if I saved my file under a different name. Quit & loaded the differently names one, suddenly the trash dissipated. I really hate that when you're golfing, you can't really move your camera to see where your ball is going you just teleport to your ball's new location. Can't walk on courses when you're facing someone either, I get it's supposed to be immersion & high up courses are transparent in some colors but I'd love to have at least a camera showing me where they are, instead I just wander my arcade & keep an eye on the notebook keeping score. The golfing sometimes doesn't work either, I try to be as precise as possible but unless I'm also looking down and don't move the mouse at all, he ball at floor vision and having vision not just in front of me could have me beasting it even more.
I'd love to see more variation in customers, I don't think I've seen children in the game that I can remember? But the same like 5 people & Santa.
More rugs, carpets or different terrain as well. Singular drink stands or kebab stands.
All little nitpicks but at the end of the day, I am having loads of fun & taking the barren warehouse & having my little themes within my park for certain holes has made me really happy, playing my courses so i can best my patrons made me want to play more minigolf & the catalog has me wanting to unlock everything, all in all for $10 this game is a hidden gem & I want more people to know about it. Is Jolly Putt worth a buy? Yep 100%.
Buy it Now!

An adorable tycoon where you manage a Mini Golf and Arcade business. After setting up the course you get to play through it in different tournaments to unlock more parts to build an even better course.
Gameplay -