Donut County
Year: 2018
Rating: E
Time Played: ~2 hours
Most indie games these days make up for their limitations with stylized visuals and tongue-in-cheek humor. One of the current visual styles favored by developers is the cel-shaded look that gives us games like Untitled Goose Game, What the Golf? and Donut County. While Donut County predates those two other games, it definitely has its moments of humor that likely inspired its predecessors. It might be a bit goofy at times, but Donut County is fun for a few hours of gameplay. There’s not much to keep you playing past the end credits, though.
The basic gameplay premise of Donut County is similar to Katamari Damacy, wherein you have to make a hole big enough to swallow up larger and larger objects until nothing is left. There’s a bit of a puzzle element to some of the levels, where you have to use consumed items to trigger other parts of the level so you can swallow everything with your hole. Unfortunately, some of the later levels needed some precision that was frustrating enough to make me pause my play-through for a day or two.
On the Switch, Donut County uses the touchscreen for its controls, making it feel a bit like a mobile game (of which there are a few free ones out there with a similar gimmick). And while there was a loose plot tying everything together, I generally glazed over those cut scenes between levels, especially early on. Fortunately, skipping those sections didn’t affect the gameplay. My biggest gripe, though, is that there are only a few hours of content here. For a game that’s $13, this feels a little too expensive for how much I got out of it, and I even managed to snag it on sale (likely around $6.50). I definitely wouldn’t pay $60 for the physical version.
A cute indie game that’s perhaps a little too pricey, I give Donut County 3.0 stars out of 5.
