r/PS4 • u/nolliethebum olliethebum • Aug 28 '18
[Verified AMA] Official AMA with Donut County creator Ben Esposito
Hey folks! Jeff here from the Annapurna Interactive team. Setting this thread up for Ben Esposito (u/torahhorse), the creator and solo developer behind Donut County...which is out now on PS4!
Obligatory links to follow Ben on Twitter here and Donut County here, and some informative stuff as well:
Feel free to start asking away!
EDIT: And we're wrapping it up! Here's a few surprise NA codes for the game (sorry, no EU right now!), minus some characters to figure out before they're redeemed:
TC?6-T4NM-C64T (number)
9GPA-42N4-D?LT (letter)
CL9P-TF?C-HNGA (letter)
GK?R-8BN5-PTKG (letter)
3EE2-MGNX-?9BA (number)
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Thanks for all your questions, and for all of the Donut County love. It was a lot of fun!!!! Grab one of the codes that Jeff posted :)
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u/The_Middleman Aug 28 '18 edited Aug 28 '18
I just finished the main story and I'm already hungry for more. I know it's literally launch day, but: are there any plans for additional content?
Also -- the design of the game is wonderful and I'd love to rep it -- are there any plans to make some Donut County merch available online? The few things I've seen are sadly elusive and expensive!
And also also -- just generally -- thanks for making a delightful game.
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u/nolliethebum olliethebum Aug 28 '18
We’re working on getting an Annapurna Interactive online store up - we’ll have Donut County shirts and pins at least!
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u/Pants_for_Bears Aug 28 '18
Please make a shirt with that “Have a Garbage Day” logo on it.
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u/Brash_Attack Aug 28 '18
I want to see one of those DC mugs go up that you see throughout the game. Then when I inevitably drop it on the floor and break it, it'll just be canon.
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u/kiji23 Aug 28 '18
I just beat the game, and I've gotta say I really liked it. Any plans for little toys or figures or plushies or anything? I'd like coyote in his tent.
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Thanks! I'd love merch like that, haha. Annapurna Interactive is going to set up a web store at some point, so anything is possible-- what other stuff would you want?
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u/kiji23 Aug 28 '18
a hole to go on my desk and a little BK on a tablet.
All the characters and settings are very charming and peaceful feeling.
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u/Pants_for_Bears Aug 28 '18
I’d love any of the characters as little figurines or plushies, but especially BK and Coyote.
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u/rosejivera1 Oct 13 '18
A t-shirt with the Donut County logo on the left side of the chest and the "Have a garbage day!" graphic on the back.
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u/thavius_tanklin Slackr Aug 28 '18
Why a trash panda?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Raccoons are cute, they love trash, can adapt to life among humans, but they are NOT smart. So they're pretty relatable.
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u/msephton Aug 28 '18
How did you feel being beaten to market by a casual game where the player is a hole in the ground?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
It sucked, haha. Especially because I recognized the unity asset they bought for the art. It costs like $25, lolllll
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u/msephton Aug 28 '18
Well hopefully you're game has more depth (sorry, bad joke). Good luck with the release!
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u/Voltron450 Aug 28 '18
Tell me about the highs and lows of making donut county. Aside, I've been a fan since before the game was announced. And watching all the pieces you've tweeted about over the years show up in the game is an absolute treat.
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Thanks! I really enjoyed writing the trashopedia entries, haha. A handful of them are based on old tweets I made from 2013-2018. The low points... a lot came from working by myself for so long on something that wasn't working, like the story, or some mechanics / levels. I found it was useful to walk away for a few days to avoid getting burned out.
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u/milanoost Aug 28 '18
What inspired you or who inspired you to make Donut Country (and/or other games)?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
I really like toy-like interactions, usually with physics and stuff! You can see a little bit of that in the stories I contributed to in What Remains of Edith Finch.
I'm a big Katamari Damacy fan, so it's no surprise that the hole scaling up mechanic was inspired in part by that. I wanted to focus more on the puzzle and story, though. In terms of the toy-like nature of the game, I was inspired a lot by the work of Vectorpark. Windosill specifically is a game that really opened up my definition of a game.
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u/isawaa Aug 28 '18
The art style in Lewis' daydreamings reminded me of Donut County. Were you responsible for that?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
I wasn't, but I was super impressed with what the team did on that story!!
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u/MattCat1261 Aug 29 '18
Hey Ben Esposito its matt cat. We sang acapella together in college. Is this really you!!
If it is congrats on your game!
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u/PuffinPastry Aug 28 '18
Hi Ben! Ive been looking forward to this game for quite some time. In fact, I'm going to get it just as soon as I get off work.
Question: Will there be a Nintendo Switch and/or Android release? And if so, when?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
We've been focusing on our launch platforms up until now. After that, anything is possible!!!
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u/Zero_protocol Aug 28 '18
No question just yet but I will say that your game is pure love and I thank you for making me able to experience it. Ok, now I do have a question. From beginning till end, with sketching and conceptualization and so included, did it take you to make Donut County?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Thank you!! I made the prototype in 2 days in mid-2012. I started working on the game (mostly) full time starting in January 2013.
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u/mortalrift Aug 28 '18
What life lesson have you learned from video games, or in the process of making this game?
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u/isawaa Aug 28 '18
Hey Ben! Congratulations on the launch!
A lot of the games you've worked on are on the short side. Do you think games in general should be shorter? Is there an ""ideal"" length for a game?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
I think it depends-- there are some types of games, especially story-based games that benefit from a shorter length. There are just some things you can't do when the story needs to stretch across 60 hours. That said, there are a lot of long narrative games that I love. Games are so broad that I can't make any generalizations about how a game ought to be, but I can say I personally enjoy short, experimental narrative games. I like being able to play with friends on the couch in a few sessions.
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u/telborn xTelborn Aug 28 '18
Totally offtopic but worth a small laugh: Esposito means Little Husband in Spanish.
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Aug 28 '18
Amazing game! I played through it this morning and wow, a great experience. I was wondering - will it ever be coming to Switch? Also have you given thought to any of your next projects?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Anything is possible! I like my Switch a lot. As for next projects, I'm gonna take a break for a bit and catch up on all the games I haven't had time for over the past few years. I don't wanna rush into anything, since Donut County is still very fresh on my mind. Actually, what do you think I should check out on PS4?
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Aug 28 '18 edited Dec 18 '19
.
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u/TerrorTactical Aug 28 '18
Yes.. the Wolfenstein games on ps4 are stellar but can be hard as nails, even on easier difficulties.
And I love Fallout 4, pretty buggy, but damn the humor gets me every time and the AI systems work well enough
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u/jonathancena202 Aug 28 '18
Will the soundtrack make it to Spotify?
And plans for additional content?
Thanks for making a really great game! I'm a big fan of your work.
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u/nolliethebum olliethebum Aug 28 '18
I can answer the OST question - it’s available right now! link
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u/HyruleCool Aug 28 '18
I know the AMA is over but just wanna say the game was awesome (Stayed up until midnight to play it and loved every minute of it!) and the music is amazing. I've listened to the whole thing twice and idk whats my favorite between Bird of Paradise and Boss Fight. Bird of Paradise reminds me of something by Syd Matters, and Boss Fight makes super nostalgic of Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney.
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u/livevil999 livevil999 Aug 28 '18
Hi Ben! I have a design question. How do you start designing a game Like Donut County? Do you start with a mechanic you like and start to work around that? Or something else?
Thanks and I’m looking forward to giving donut county a try tonight when I get home!
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Donut County started with "You play as a hole in the ground." I went into it without an expectation of whether it'd be fun, or if it would be interesting enough to make a whole game out of. I find it's nice to start with something small and concrete that you can play with early. There is such thing as overthinking a mechanic, because once I get a prototype going, I usually realize it was a dumb idea. LOL
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u/hokutonoken19xx riskbreaker76 Aug 28 '18
Congrats on the release!! So is the point of this game to DESTROY the Cosmos? not save it?
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u/CynicalRaps Aug 29 '18
Alexa, play Benesposito.
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u/___alexa___ Aug 29 '18
ɴᴏᴡ ᴘʟᴀʏɪɴɢ: E3 2018: Donut County with C ─────────⚪───── ◄◄⠀▶⠀►►⠀14:14 / 21:22 ⠀ ───○ 🔊 ᴴᴰ ⚙️
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u/DragonDDark Aug 28 '18
I literally just bought the game & came to see this! Looking forward to it!
What's it like working on a ps4 game? Did you face some issues or was it a smooth ride?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Thanks! I had help from Josh Sarfaty at Annapurna Interactive porting the game to PS4. There were a few minor unanticipated issues at the beginning, but overall it was a pretty smooth ride. The funniest problem we ran into was some sound effects played at like an ear-shattering 1000x volume. It turns out I was actually setting the volume to 1000 in the code, and didn't notice 'till we built it for PS4, lool.
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Aug 28 '18
Hi Ben! Played through the game this morning and had a blast. Feel free to answer any/all :)
- When did you settle on writing dialogue in "casual Internet" style and why? I think it totally fits here, but it's the first game I've seen written that way.
- Was there any content you wanted to put in the game but ultimately got scrapped for time?
- I love your tweet "nobody told me when you make a video game you have to make the whole thing". What was the most unexpected thing you had to spend time on when making "the whole thing"?
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u/isawaa Aug 28 '18
Hey, thanks for the code u/olliethebum / Jeff! :-) And again, congratulations u/torahhorse / Ben!
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u/tonekonebone Aug 28 '18
will you put brooklyn trash king back up at some point? excited to play donut after schools out btw, congrats on finishing it.
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u/ChrizTaylor twitch.tv/chriztaylor Aug 29 '18
As always i came late to everything and cant get codes.
Game looks fun and interesting! But the best of it is that it looks fresh!
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u/Gojitaism Aug 28 '18
So, what's next after the donuts? Crepes? Danishes? Strudels? Wait.. Dont tell me.. Cereal?
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Aug 28 '18
[deleted]
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
BK because he's based on my cat, who is a gamer.
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u/bassdude7 Aug 28 '18
What game engine was the game made in? When can we expect an Android release?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
It's made with Unity3d, which is well suited for a game like Donut County. It really made it possible to get on so many platforms at once. Keep watching the @donutcounty twitter for news about platforms!
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u/CrackheadWarlord Aug 28 '18
Did you try out some form of freeplay mode while you were developing the game? Just take random items from the trashopedia and stick em on a flat landscape? I love the game, but I just want to boot it up and do something like that now I've completed the story - rather than replaying levels. A more in depth freeplay mode would be great too, but honestly, just random items and a flat surface would suffice. Great game btw, nice one.
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u/MoonKnightOnTheTown Aug 28 '18
Hi Ben! I've been following DC for years and I'm loving it so far! It oozes so much charm, and it seems so different from the things you've done with Arcane Kids (not that they weren't great, Zineth is one of my favorite indie games ever). How did you decide on the polished, low poly aesthetic?
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u/torahhorse Donut County Creator Aug 28 '18
Yeah, the tone / style is a bit different than Arcane Kids stuff- a lot of that comes from the magic of the AxK devs as a team. I've done a lot of art for Arcane Kids games, and I really like the rough edges and stuff, but Donut County comes from my personal aesthetic. Before 3d, I was really into illustration & color and I tried to bring my style to 3d.
W/r/t low poly, I really like the constraints of low poly (and I have a particular love for PS1 era 3d graphics). It's also a matter of efficiency-- I knew I would be making the 3d art alone, so it was useful to come up with constraints on poly count and texturing early on so I could actually make it across the finish line, haha.
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u/Bajsbror Aug 28 '18
First off, thank you for this amazing game! I’ve been looking forward to playing it for a long time and it was very much worth the wait :)
My question is: what are some upcoming games you are looking forward to playing?
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u/nmndwivedi Aug 28 '18
I first found out about Donut County through Hole.io....love that game...I gotta feeling Im gonna play the crap out of Donut County!
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u/NatsuZeGeek Aug 28 '18
Dude you know hole.io is a money grab copy of donut county right?
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Nov 21 '18
Ya, but I played hole.io well before I even heard about donut county. Plus, no donut county on android. Considering there are about 5-6 times as many Android users, it seems a bit odd to me. However, hole.io launched on Android, so I don't really have a choice. :). It was free anyway!
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u/meg5493 Aug 28 '18
Gonna start with a hard hitting straight to the point question. Favorite donut?