“BE A HOLE.”
August 28, 2018 9:09 AM   Subscribe

Hopi-less: How Kachina Became Donut County [Rock Paper Shotgun] “Five Two years ago, GDC 2013’s Experimental Gameplay Workshop featured a game that had the crowd cheering and applauding in delight. It was Ben Esposito (The Unfinished Swan) with Kachina. This year’s GDC revived an old favourite of the show, the Failure Workshop. This was a chance for developers to share the stories of their disasters, and the good or bad that came from them. And during it, Esposito generously and honestly told an engrossing and humbling tale of how Kachina became Donut County [Official Site], and the hard cultural lessons he learned along the way.” [YouTube][Trailer]

• Donut County, the year’s cutest and most intuitive video game [Vox]
“On its surface, Donut County looks simple — so simple, you’d likely never guess that it’s been more than six years since development on the game began. The game’s premise is delightfully straightforward: All you have to do is move around a little hole in the ground. Some of the objects you find lying around will be small enough to nudge into the hole, and the more objects you consume, the bigger the hole becomes, gradually swallowing people and toppling buildings until there’s nothing left in the landscape. And yet it’s taken four years since Donut County’s release trailer premiered for the game to see the light of day — and even before that, creator Ben Esposito had already been working on the nugget of Donut County for two years. ”
• Donut County lets you become one with nothingness [Ars Technica]
“When you think about it, it's kind of incredible that more games haven't tried to ape the general premise of 2004's Katamari Damacy. There's a unique sense of almost zen calm in gathering up literally everything you see into a big sticky ball, yet there are few games that capture that same feeling, sticky-ball or not. Fourteen years later, here comes Donut County, another game about cleaning up disorder that invites obvious Katamari comparisons. This time, instead of a sticky ball, you control a hole in the ground that can swallow up anything it can slide under. There's a wacky plotline focusing on a racoon with a donut-delivery app that kind of ties the concept together, but really all you need to know is that you are an insatiable hole. Every item that falls into the pit increases the hole's diameter, until you're able to swallow up every single simplistic, cel-shaded 3D object you can see and leave a soothing expanse of nothingness.”
• Donut County Lets You Play As an Ever-Expanding Void [Select/All]
“It’s all very simple, and none of the puzzles are taxing on the brain. In fact, everything happens with such smoothness and grace and deliberate, breezy pacing that the game takes on a Zen-like quality. Every object teeters and tips with what I can only describe as a softness, and the environments are changed and reframed in ways that escalate in absurdity without abandoning the game’s gentle nature. It’s remarkable that a game that calculates physics on the fly based around the concept of finagling trash into a hole could be so calming. And yet it is. [...] In this way, Donut County functions almost like a parody of a video game. I could throw any number of gaming-lingo buzzwords at it — a “dynamic physics-based puzzle game with light narrative and RPG elements” or whatever — and mask what the game actually achieves. That’s a big part of what makes Donut County great. Every piece of the game can be (or already has been) ripped off by lesser imitators, but it’s how they all fit together that sets the game apart.”
• Donut County: It's Time to Make the Donuts (and City-Devouring Holes) [Paste Magazine]
“Other than the art style and character designs, the best thing about Donut County is the writing. It’s snappy and succinct, quickly establishing the unique personalities of a dozen or so characters, and legitimately funny without trying too hard or being obviously impressed by itself. As cute and surprising as the levels are, I found myself sometimes rushing through them in order to get back underground for the next bit of dialogue and the next character introduction. Also, make sure you read every entry in the Trashopedia, where every object you suck up gets a short, hilarious description from a raccoon’s perspective. Short and hilarious actually sums up all of Donut County. It’ll give you a quick, buzzy high, and taste great as you’re chewing on it, but isn’t all that filling. It does take a half-hearted stab at commentary near the end, as you face off with the leader of the raccoons and his very American stance on (late) capitalism, but it’s a little perfunctory and played more for laughs than anything else. If Donut County has contempt for anything, it’s raccoons more than politics—it does not portray our furry, garbage-plundering friends in a positive light. Holes might wreck this town, but the reputation of raccoons suffers the greatest damage.”
• Donut County is the hole in my heart I never want filled [Polygon]
“Despite destroying entire homes and businesses, the chaos is clean. The more successful you are at destruction, the quieter everything becomes. First, you begin as a small hole. A crumpled piece of paper disappears, a few blades of grass, maybe a brick. A few seconds later, a folding chair and then a handful of snakes. Two more minutes pass, and you’ve thoroughly ruined someone’s retirement home. Good job. [...] Disturbingly large voids aside, the writing of Donut County is equal parts charming and endearing. At the end of each stage, you can review the items you’ve collected in something called a Trashopedia. The descriptions are not to be missed, carrying the same kind of inane levity that makes the wolfpupy Twitter account so great. For example, a “Cool Snake” is “alive spaghetti with the ability to hate.” There’s something lovingly relatable watching the characters interact with one another;”
posted by Fizz (10 comments total) 14 users marked this as a favorite
 
Oh man I came here to write a blistering message about how offensive the idea of using kachina in a videogame is. Glad to read the first article first, and that the game developer came to that conclusion too, and found a way to make his game using a different cultural inspiration. It's hard for someone to back down and admit a mistake on something like this, good for Ben Esposito.

(Kachina are really cool though, and quite beautiful. But, well, not all cultures are available for appropriation.)
posted by Nelson at 9:42 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


I have to confess to being underwhelmed by this, given all the hype. The cut scenes were annoying and slow to get through and whilst the game play itself was OK, ultimately it just got to be a bit samey. I didn't find the story or characters engaging - I just wanted to move the hole around and get on with it. (I am not, however, by any means a gamer)
posted by bifurcated at 9:44 AM on August 28, 2018


Oh man I came here to write a blistering message about how offensive the idea of using kachina in a videogame is. Glad to read the first article first, and that the game developer came to that conclusion too, and found a way to make his game using a different cultural inspiration. It's hard for someone to back down and admit a mistake on something like this, good for Ben Esposito.

Agreed, but here I was about to write a blistering message about the game designer skipping from Hopi/Kachina appropriation straight into the southwestern Native American tribes' diabetes epidemic.
posted by carsonb at 10:01 AM on August 28, 2018


I have to confess to being underwhelmed by this, given all the hype. The cut scenes were annoying and slow to get through and whilst the game play itself was OK, ultimately it just got to be a bit samey.

(I am not, however, by any means a gamer)


Well, you've had the experience of playing something that looked neat before you bought it, had a lot of hype behind it, but turned out to be way too padded with not enough going on. That's a pretty iconic gamer experience.
posted by Merus at 10:05 AM on August 28, 2018 [6 favorites]


“As you ramble on through life, Brother,
Whatever be your goal,
Keep your eye upon the doughnut,
And not upon the hole.”
posted by SPrintF at 10:57 AM on August 28, 2018 [1 favorite]


Many years ago I took a trip, starting at 6am, from Oakland to the California White Mountains. I woke up groggily somewhere along the way, in front of a shop window sign proclaiming DONUT NATION. So this game fits nicely into my donut designated geo-political atlas.
posted by oneirodynia at 2:14 PM on August 28, 2018 [3 favorites]


That first article is the primary jumping off point for this post, the reason I cobbled the links together. The game looks fun and light-hearted and we all deserve to have something colourful and fun in our lives.

But, I was mostly wanting to share something positive about the gaming industry, that someone made a mistake, checked themselves, let others step into a space that was rightfully theirs to speak on and then learned from that and made an impactful change.

That so rarely happens, not just in gaming, but in life. So I was super pleased with how this game evolved. I haven't played it but I might pick it up on sale. I love donuts and I like holes.
posted by Fizz at 2:51 PM on August 28, 2018 [7 favorites]


I got this last night and I think it's delightful (if a little easy). I'm pacing myself so I don't finish it all at once. It's less Arcane Kids-y than, like, Capsule Silence XXIV but still pretty oddball for something getting such a big release.
posted by theodolite at 3:03 PM on August 28, 2018


This game looks delightful and the story behind its creation and re-imagining is a rare video game tale of personal reflection and positive change. Still, I think RPS should have gone with the title: "Be a Hole, Not an A-Hole"
posted by subocoyne at 11:18 AM on August 30, 2018 [1 favorite]


I had been looking for it because I saw a bunch of chatter that Hole.io, an online "eat everything as a giant growing hole" game, was a giant ripoff of Donut County. In my opinion, not at all--the only commonality is "make stuff fall into a hole." The only tragedy of Hole.io is that the other players turn out to be simulated, and half the fun was eating an annoying other player. Now, not so much...

The posted article was interesting, mostly because of the "person actually behaves honorably" hook. A real man-bites-dog in this era.
posted by Gilgamesh's Chauffeur at 4:01 PM on September 8, 2018


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