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Donut County is a dream-like physics toy set in the American Southwest

Like Katamari in reverse

Donut County is a dream-like physics toy set in the American Southwest
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| Donut County

A teaser trailer for Ben Esposito's Donut County has been released, revealing the game's dreamy landscapes and strange, physics-based mechanics that made its prototype, originally titled Kachina, stand out so strongly during its earliest reveals.

Donut County will be headed to "home computers" and "touch devices," but Esposito has not yet specified which ones.

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In Donut County, players control a magical hole in the ground, sweeping seamlessly across the landscape of a frosting-colored American Southwest. The more artifacts from the environment the hole consumes, the larger it gets.

Some have compared this to Katamari Damacy's accumulation mechanic, only done in reverse, an exploration of negative space instead.

Donut County

Unlike its prototype Kachina, shown at several festivals during 2013 including GDC's Experimental Gameplay Workshop, Donut County's narrative is much more evident.

It is one of space, displacement, and erasure, both physical and political, all told against the backdrop of a fictional, Los Angeles-based county and a girl who runs a donut shop.

You can read more about Esposito's inspirations for Donut County in this Venus Patrol feature.

Chloi Rad
Chloi Rad
Chloi games, and Chloi writes, and at some point she made the dangerous decision of merging the two. Now she spends her time formulating words about weird games she finds, playing Dark Souls, and also playing Dark Souls.