Hole.io: be the hole, eat the city

Hole.io is a 2018 mobile game by the French studio Voodoo. You steer a hole in the ground through a city, and anything smaller than the hole falls in and makes it bigger. It reached number one on the App Store and Google Play in 2018 and is still on iOS and Android.

How Hole.io plays

You start about the size of a manhole. Cones, benches and people drop in first. A few seconds later you fit cars, then trees, then whole buildings. A bigger hole can also swallow a smaller rival hole, so growing fast is both attack and defense.

The control is one finger: drag to steer. The skill is route choice. Dense streets full of small things grow you faster than one big building you cannot fit yet, and rivals are racing you to the same blocks.

The idea was not new. Some critics called Hole.io a lookalike of Donut County, an indie game about a growing hole that came out the same year, and its creator said the idea was copied.

The three modes

Classic. A two-minute round. Be the biggest hole when the clock runs out.
Battle. No timer. Swallow the rivals and be the last hole standing.
Solo. Two minutes alone. Eat as close to 100% of the city as you can.

Roam hole games to try

If the eat-everything feeling is what you came for, these Roam games build on it. They are separate games, not Hole.io, and each changes one thing.

City Hole. Start small and swallow the whole market. The closest to a classic Hole.io round.
Void Devourer. A black-hole io arena: start as a speck and swallow the block.
EAT THE CITY. Grow from tiny to skyline-sized, with a bit of Katamari in it.
Alien Breakout. A top-down idle devourer about a specimen that will not stay contained.
Cart Sweep. The same idea in a supermarket: scoop the aisles before the clock runs out.

Play it on Roam

Make your own hole game with Roam

On Roam, a free iPhone app, you describe the game and play it. Pick the city, what the hole eats first and who the rivals are. Roam is rated 13+ on the App Store.

Try: "hole in the ground eats my school, starts tiny, two-minute rounds, my friends are the rival holes"

Create it with Roam Pre-register on Android See Roam

Roam ("Roam - Make Games" on the App Store) is an iPhone app where you play games and make your own by describing them or from a photo. It is free to download and play, and making games works without a subscription; optional Spark and Reality plans and credit packs add more creation. Android: pre-register on Google Play.

Questions people ask

Who made Hole.io?

Voodoo, a French mobile game studio, released it in 2018.

Is Hole.io free?

Yes. It is free on iOS and Android, with ads and optional purchases.

What are the modes in Hole.io?

Classic (biggest hole after two minutes), Battle (last hole standing) and Solo (eat as much of the city as you can in two minutes).