Oh my god. You guys. Donut County is SO good.
Like really really good.
I’m kind of pissed that no one told me how good it is.
This is a game that’s been on my radar but at the peripheral edge of it. I first heard about Donut County from my friend Danielle Harmon, an artist and animator who draws comics and does freelance commissions. She dressed up as the main character Mira for a convention.
She’s the one who did my Twitter logo and business card art. You know, the one that makes me look really pretty? You can follow her at (@DharmonDraws) on Twitter and check out her portfolio at Dharmon Portfoliobox. Her art is really good too. Go give her money and she’ll make you some.
That’s when I first became aware of it. Then I watched Pushing Up Roses’ video on 10 Video Games I Play to Reduce Stress and Depression Symptoms. By the way Pushing Up Roses is one of my favorite YouTubers, you should go follow her right now.
Gameplay – Environmental puzzles that operate on Earthbound logic
Donut County is a pretty minimalist game. I think the best way to describe it is with the sensations I get from playing it.
You know how satisfying it is to pop a sheet of bubble wrap? Just bursting one bubble at a time just makes you go “Aaaaaaaaah…” every time you press down on it with your thumb?
Or those silly putty balls executives keep by their desk when they’re about to burst an artery and so they don’t have to strangle the incompetent intern who keeps messing up their morning coffee order.
Or you know how you absent-mindedly squeeze and dingle a fidget cube, and how each surface gives your hands something new to do and all of them are fun and you can do it while you’re concentrating on something else?
That’s basically what Donut County is. It’s “Stress toy: The Video Game.”
This is a game you play when you want something to make you feel better when you’ve had a tough day. Or something to play as you sip your tea on a rainy Sunday afternoon while listening to the drops fall on the window panes. Or a game you play when you hunker down in a winter cabin, sit by the fireplace and drape yourself in a weighted blanket.
Or for that matter, a game to make you forget that we can’t leave our homes due to the biggest global pandemic in a century.
That’s the kind of game this is.
The gameplay is you make a hole move around with the mouse and you make things fall down in it. The hole gets bigger the more stuff you put into it, and incrementally larger the bigger the items are. You start with trash, traffic cones, scraps of food, and work your way up to people and entire buildings.
As the game goes on Donut County presents you with puzzles that make you have to have to use your hole creatively to get things to fit down it.
Fit it under cages to get the animals trapped inside. Follow a recipe for soup you see and feed it to a bird. Plug your hole with a giant carrot and use it to lure a bunny out of a cage by leading it up a dirt pile, then watch as the bunnies…do what they do and watch hundreds of tiny bunnies shoot out of the hole.
The scenarios start there and only get more surreal. But it’s a cute kind of surreal, not a weird kind of surreal.
Donut County is aware of the silliness of its own humor but it somehow makes sense within the logic of its own universe.
I’ll give you an example. As you collect items you have an in-game encyclopedia of all the stuff you collect.
Here are some examples:
Cardboard box: “It’s a free house. Don’t get it wet.”
Cave: “Go in here if you want to get yelled at by coyotes.”
Coffee Mug: “Coffee rules. It burns your tounge and makes you want to go to the bathroom.”
Which I mean…well they’re not the first thing of when you describe them…but they’re technically true? Kinda.
Imagine if Katamari Damacy had a plot written by the same people who made EarthBound for the SNES? That’s basically the vibe I get from Donut County.
Soundtrack
I’m seriously gonna get this on vinyl, I’m not joking
The soundtrack is another thing that makes Donut County so ridiculously that it makes me angry that I didn’t play it sooner.
You know all those lofi hiphop streams that dominate YouTube and that follow you in your Suggested Videos feed everywhere you go?
Like this one, my personal favorite.
And this one. Study girl all day.
That’s also this game. Chill beats and repetitive loops of instrumental ambient music with a smooth rhythm. Even before I came across Donut County I listen to music like this during most of my waking and many of my sleeping hours.
It flows through my ears and turns my brain into a happy little pile of wriggling jello.
The melodies are more acoustic than electronic though. Wind chimes. Ukelele strumming. All played in a loop. I’ve since been playing the soundtrack on repeat while I make dinner, do my writing and just hang out in my room reading a book.
Go listen to it on Spotify here.
They also have a vinyl soundtrack. I plan on getting it and so should you.
Basically what I’m saying is that you should go listen to the soundtrack right now.
Art and Story
I won’t spend too much time on this one.
The art style of Donut County uses a lot of blocky figures and angular shapes with smooth textures.
Apart from the one human character most of the cast are animals. Your best friend and coworker is a racoon. You share a neighborhood with dogs, a possum hacker who lives in an abandoned house, a cat who owns a dirty hole in the wall restaurant, and a talking salt and pepper shaker who live in a trailer among others.
Donut County also makes use of a lot of primary colors and pastel shades to add to the game’s feeling of youthfulness.
Here’s the story. Mira, the one human character, works at a donut shop with her friend BK, a racoon. BK gets a new mobile app where you create giant holes in the ground that you can drive around, and he’s trying to score enough points on the app to get a quadcopter.
Mira finds out that he’s been using the holes to swallow entire neighborhoods and towns. When she gets the townspeople together to confront him he denies doing anything wrong and tries to make himself out to be the hero. Mira smashes his quadcopter and sucks the both of them down into the hole to teach him a lesson.
Then it turns out, the whole thing was a scheme by the Trash King, the leader of the racoons, to get everyone’s trash. The Trash King also has his hand stuck in a pickle jar because he won’t let go of it.
Basically what I’m saying is that you should never trust racoons because they wear little bandit masks like Zorro.
And what I’m also saying is that Donut County is cute and looks really good.
Recommendation
Donut County is only a couple of hours long too, you can play through it in an afternoon. The game is a joy that is simple and uncomplicated.
Go play Donut County. Don’t make the same mistake I made.
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