Donut County

THOUGHTS

Have you been looking for a game that will cause your friends to raise their eyebrows in a confused manner when explaining the premise? Have you always wanted to experience the feeling of being an ever-growing hole that swallows up everything in a town, from junk, to plants, to adorable animals and people? Have you felt the longing pang of not having a game with a spammable rubber duck emoji in the text messaging sequences? Donut County is for you! 

Weirdly enough, although Donut County is definitely singular as a total package, the individual elements here might feel somewhat familiar. The hole swallowing everything up mechanic that forms the basis of the gameplay segments has been done a few times to varying degrees of success in flash and indie games in the past, while more than a few pundits have pointed to similarities with the 'roll everything up into a ball' Katamari series. 

It's an odd game, and a short one. All of the levels start with you as a small hole (controlled via an app on a raccoon's phone, who considers everything he's swallowing to be trash) which grows larger every time you swallow an object, throwing a couple of extra abilities and light puzzling in the mix as the game goes on. The experience clocks in somewhere around the two hour mark, with nothing beyond the most rudimentary of difficulty increases as you go along. Donut County is more in the 'relax and vibe with the mood and aesthetic' sphere of indie puzzlers, with much of the games enjoyment coming from the presentation, dialogue and the wonderful 'Trashopedia', which details the objects you've swallowed from the viewpoint of a raccoon named BK (with such tidbits as '99% of seagulls are criminals'). 

It's a fun, quirky experience. The story veers between contextually coherent and nonsenical, always leaning on the side of humour rather than readability. It's also, for lack of a better word, a very 'light' experience - light on gameplay, light on variety, light on replayability. It looks good, sounds good, plays well and will probably leave your memory as quickly as it enters.  

Plus/Minus

+ Great sense of style, great music
+ Fun concept supported by appropriately odd characters and dialogue
+ Duck emoji
+ Trashopedia
+ Doesn't outstay its welcome...

- ...but it's pretty pricey for what you get
- Gameplay is very one note 
- Hard to see any replay value, especially with the low difficulty

Overall

Donut County has received a bit of buzz for being weird and well-made, and that's cool to see. Ben Esposito is clearly a very talented individual, with this vibrant and bizarre little offering having the ability to stand out of a packed indie release market. If you want to chill out, laugh a few times and watch some stuff fall into a hole, you'll have a good time. If you're on the fence, wait for a sale (or let it fall into a hole, either or). 

6/10

Technical Stuff: Played on a PS4. Copy purchased by myself. One full playthrough and a bit of tinkering, approximately 2.5 hours spent.