Update: Variety took a closer look into Voodoo’s business practices. We’ve reached out to Voodoo about Esposito’s statement regarding Hole.io and Donut County. Ultimately, Esposito hopes that the “unique charm, sense of humor, and painstakingly handcrafted levels” will make Donut County stand out from its cloned knock-off. “ algorithmic approach to game dev produces successful games for them it also encourages their devs to make quick copies of games like mine,” says Esposito. 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. Few mention its clear inspiration, Donut County.Įsposito says that there is not much he can do about the situation and that he will focus his energy on finishing up Donut County. For example, Hole.io is currently in the number one spot for downloadable arcade games on the App Store and has mostly positive reviews. Voodoo.io has been known to create free-to-play knock-offs of indie games, which sometime surpass the popularity of the original games.

“ Donut County is a story-based puzzle game, and Hole.io combines the premise of Donut County with the ‘.io’ king of the hill formula.” The iOS and Android app is called Hole.io, and unlike Donut County, there’s no storyline or characters, but the gameplay mechanism of being a hole and eating things to get bigger is the same. On Monday, Esposito tweeted about a clone of the game released by a publisher known as Voodoo.io. In the meantime, the satisfying gameplay, quirky storyline and cute graphics have charmed fans - and, apparently, other studios. The premise is simple: You play as a hole, you swallow things, and you get bigger.Īfter five years of development, Esposito is gearing up to release the game later this year on Mac, PC, iOS, and unannounced additional systems. Donut County is an upcoming game by developer Ben Esposito, known for Tattletail and Anamanaguchi’s Capsule Silence XXIV.

Donut county game demo