Have a Garbage Day…

Donut County has a cult following on PC and mobile devices. Because of this, many indie fans have been hollering for the game’s release on the Nintendo Switch. After the KFG Showcase, their preyers were finally answered when it was announced that the game would be coming to the Switch on December 18th.

When December 18th came around shortly after the showcase, I decided to find out what all the hype was about. After using some of my gold points I’d been saving, I managed to get Donut County for €3! And honestly it’s the best €3 I’ve ever spent on the Switch!

The Story

You play as BK, a cute but somewhat rude racoon that runs Donut County’s (DC) donut shop. After getting slightly addicted to a donut delivery app, BK manages to accidentally ruin the entire town by opening up huge holes all over the place and toppling the town’s buildings and people into them.

After his friend Mira finds out that BK is behind the disaster in DC, she decides to take matters into her own hands and forces BK to face up to his actions. However, where most of the humour of the game comes from, is that BK really can’t see what he’s done wrong.

BK is a racoon after all, so his ideas and outlook on life are a little different to that of the other quirky and unique townsfolk. Plus, being quite rude, BK downright denies that he caused the holes (even though everyone knows he did) and quite contradictorily, tries to make everyone think he’s done them a favour by destroying the town!

The writing in Donut County is excellent, mixing 21st Century text messaging speech with language that makes you both love and hate BK. BK reminded me of a politician. He doesn’t admit that he does anything wrong but then when caught, tries to spin it so that his mistake were actually a good thing and that you should be thankful for it. This satire was incredibly funny throughout the game and had me chuckling to myself as I played through the game’s 2 hour story. Furthermore, whilst playing through the game you have to read the item descriptions in the Trashepedia, they’re hilarious!

The Game

Mira makes him face the townspeople in a quirky intervention where they retell their experiences with the BK’s holes. In these flashbacks you play as one of BK’s holes and have to gobble everything up on the level.

The best way to describe the gameplay of DC is comparing it to Katamari Damacy (KD). Like KD ball, your holes start small and you can only suck in small objects such as bricks and coffee cups. However, the more items that fall into your hole, the bigger your hole gets, and much like KD, by the end of the level you’ll be able to envelop whole cities!

There are some very simple puzzle aspects to the game. First of all you have to think about what items are small enough to fit in your hole and work your way up to the larger items. Then about half way through the game, your hole gets upgraded with a catapult that lets you fire items into the air to flick switches. The puzzles are all very easy and each level basically repeats itself. However, the word I’d use for this gameplay style is ‘chill’. DC is a perfect game to just kick back and relax to one cold winter’s night. For me, I enjoyed every minute of it, as it was nice to play a shorter game that I didn’t have to think too much about.

Art and Music

The art style is very simple but very colourful. The characters have a polygon look to them that looks good but kind of pointy. Plus, they’re usually not animated, so the stationary character model is often just turned on its axis to show movement. The style of the levels also shared this theme, however, I think it worked better there because the camera was zoomed out, so everything looked colourful and pretty without the sharp edges.

I liked the music in DC especially the theme for the ‘Great Delivery’ screen. In addition, the techno beats in the Trash King’s laboratory were also banging!

Problems

Again we come to the issue of ‘is a two hour game worth €11.99?’ In my opinion yes. DC is a great game with a short but tight story that kept me entertained throughout my play-through. For some people the time-to-dollar ratio might be a turn off, as they’d perhaps rather spend €12 on a game that has a 10 hour story. However, I’d say that if you don’t play DC because of that issue, you’re missing one of the best indie games of the year.

So satisfying watching them all fall in! #NintendoSwitch pic.twitter.com/GLwjEaqifw — Switch Indie Fix (@switchindiefix) December 22, 2018

Summary

Donut County is a great game and I’m so glad I picked it up on the Nintendo Switch. The writing is hilarious and each character is charming and unique. The world looks bright and colourful and even though the gameplay is quite repetitive, I think Donut County is the perfect game to play on one dark, cold Christmas evening.

That’s why I give Donut County by Ben Esposito my rating of

Have you played DC on mobile or PC? What did you think of the game? Let me know over on Twitter or join the Switch Indie Fix Discord Server.

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