Growing My Manhole by SylDev is (unfortunately?) exactly as its title implies: you play a manhole that grows by eating the objects around it. Things start small, with pebbles and stones, but before long you’re consuming cars, buses, and skyscrapers. By the end of the playtest, my manhole had evolved into a gaping, cosmic monstrosity the size of planet Earth.
The game’s simple premise involves swallowing up as many objects as you can before your manhole’s ‘hunger’ meter runs out. Then, it’s off to the upgrade screen to make your hole bigger, move faster, and suck better.
There’s no denying the loop is addictive, a good sign that the developers are on the right track. Before I knew it, an hour had passed and I’d reached the end of the playtest. I went into the game with no strategy but to buy any upgrade I could afford, so assume cleverer gamers will get through the playtest’s content quicker than I did.
If there’s anything to criticize from this early build, it’s that runs feel a bit too short. They rarely last longer than 10 seconds, even after maxing out all available upgrades, so I’d be back at the new run screen before I’d even had to chance to enjoy my last upgrades.
Much like its empty hero, Growing My Manhole started out small. A 40-minute demo of the game first appeared on itch.io in March and became a surprise hit after it a number of indie-focused content creators featured it on their streams. Singapore publisher GearByte Games later picked the game up following its appearance at Indie Jam 2026. From what I can tell, the version currently on Steam is nearly identical to the original itch.io demo.
According to Growing My Manhole’s official Steam app page, the developer plans to launch the full game in Q3 of this year. The release version will have 25 objects of increasing size, with the ultimate goal of eating the universe itself.
