Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/08/29/you-are-an-adorably-malevolent.html
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I played it for about an hour last night. I’ve heard it’s short, so I’m trying not to rush through it.
When I saw the preview, I got the same Katamari Damacy vibe, as well.
I’m quite enjoying it so far.
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I was largely disappointed by this one.
There’s not really much to the game outside of swallowing the increasingly larger objects on screen. There are a few puzzle elements scattered throughout some of the levels, but for me they were simplistic and too few and too far in between. The unskippable and painfully long cut-scenes were irritating.
I think there’s definitely something there to be built off of, but ultimately the game as it is felt incomplete. Ah well.
This is a nice video of Ben Esposito, the game dev behind Donut County, walking through his first attempt at this game which was based on the Hopi American Indian tribe’s Kachinas. He ultimately walked away from that for the right reasons, though I agree with him that the design of Kachinas would look beautiful as video game characters.
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It does look like fun. I’m surprised to see this one isn’t from Japan. It’s stylized very much like Katamari.
This is a copy of hole.io. The idea is pretty much the same, but on a competitive .io style game. You can even get to eat other holes, while swallowing an entire city. Larger hole beats the game.
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Fair point. I’ve also been enjoying the humor; the descriptions for each of the items your hole swallowed, etc. And the absurdity also appeals to me. And like I said, I’m taking it slow because I know it won’t last long.
It also reminds me of a series of games whose name escapes me, where you start out as a tiny blob, and you eat the smaller things while avoiding the larger until you are large enough to eat them.
It’s just that this lacks the “avoiding” penalty of that game (the name is right there Ah! Tasty Planet) so while playing I try to find a path to the next thing my hole can swallow without passing under something it can’t.
Yes, I would like to see this expanded upon. The addition of the catapult was interesting, but there wasn’t a lot to it, and I expect the replayability of this will be lacking.
But it was under $20, so I’m not complaining.
Sharing mechanics doesn’t make it a copy.
I just tried hole.io for a few minutes. It sure isn’t smooth when trying to swallow something. If Donut County got inspiration from this, it really smoothed it out and prettied it up.
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your timelines/accusations are a little off there, bud
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When is Offworld coming back, darn it?!
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You are an adorably malevolent all-consuming hole…
Hey! Don’t talk about my… oh… Oh, it’s a video game.
[Roseannaroseannadanna voice] NEVER MIND!
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Telling:
Voodoo.io has been known to create free-to-play knock-offs of indie games, which sometime surpass the popularity of the original games. For example, Hole.io is currently in the number one spot for downloadable arcade games on the App Store and has mostly positive reviews. Few mention its clear inspiration, Donut County .
Esposito says that there is not much he can do about the situation and that he will focus his energy on finishing up Donut County . Initially, he wasn’t going to draw attention to Hole.io , but since Voodoo.io recently received a $200 million investment from Goldman Sachs, Esposito wanted to make a statement; “We’re probably gonna see a lot more situations like this,” he thinks.
Just awesome.
A Voodoo spokesperson told Variety that “there can be an infinite amount of interpretations and executions [of gameplay mechanics].”
Awesome.
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If you’re just waiting for the cut scenes to end, clicking through with out reading the text, and not reading the Trashapedia, you are literally missing out on half of the content and entertainment. I literally have LOLed several times with the dialog and the Trashapedia.
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I got hole.io as sort of a methadone dose waiting for Donut Country to come out. It is like Slither.io or any of those other style games. It is short, repetitive, but replayable due to the human element (maybe you will win this time?) It lacks the charm and detail of this game. Also, no story.
To recap my previous comments on this game:
Pros:
Funny as heck. I mean the humor is right up my alley
Fun, enjoyable story
Fun puzzles
great music
great art and atmosphere
fun mechanic
Cons:
Relatively short, though I’ve spend more on movies which lasted as long and not as enjoyable.
Puzzles aren’t really that hard, if hard is your thing
Could include more things that reward experimentation
probably limited replayability, but I will be playing it again with my kiddo
Also, I’d like to think my couple posts caught Marks attention to make a formal post, but it looks like I wasn’t the only one waiting for this game.
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Nope, I preordered it as soon as I saw it available on the PS4.
Although I wasn’t talking about it, so your posts are more likely to have helped than my utter silence.
But…but…but…The more you put into a hole, the SMALLER it’s going to get!
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I was sooooo close to mentioning one of the first horrid memes as a counter example. But, like the big baddie in Harry Potter, it’s best to leave that one nameless.
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How many Albert Halls does it take to fill a hole?
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So, Donut County is in Florida?
Not the one I was thinking of; I realized a bit further on I was thinking of Tasty Planet.
But yes, Osmos is great too. Especially the way you propel yourself around the screen. I need to load that back onto my iPad and play it some more…if it still runs.
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