Donut County

 PC
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 14 out of 20
  2. Mixed: 6 out of 20
  3. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. New Game Network
    Sep 10, 2018
    73
    Donut County isn't going to challenge your wits, but it does provide a relaxing experience that's bound to make you laugh.
  2. Twinfinite
    Sep 15, 2018
    70
    For everything it brings to the table, it still left me wanting just a bit more.
  3. Edge Magazine
    Sep 13, 2018
    70
    A wonderfully honest game that points out how important it is to acknowledge the hole, but reminds us that, at the end of the day, it's what's - and who's - around it that counts. [Nov 2018, p.121]
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  5. IGN Italia
    Sep 3, 2018
    62
    Donut County sports a rich and lovable cast, but its whole gameplay idea is too shallow.
  6. CD-Action
    Jan 9, 2019
    60
    Core gameplay becomes wearisome with time, but fortunately the game is short (3 hours tops) and the developer tried to vary the levels with additional mechanics. If you need something to make you smile and want to escape from your responsibilities by focusing on simple tasks, this little indie game can be fun. [11/2018, p.72]
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  7. GameSpot
    Aug 27, 2018
    60
    Like a donut, it's sweet and satisfying, but you're acutely aware that there's a hole in the middle of it.
This publication does not provide a score for their reviews.
This publication has not posted a final review score yet.
These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation.

In Progress & Unscored

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  1. Ars Technica
    Aug 27, 2018
    As it stands, Donut County makes for a light, airy snack of a game—it's a tight circle of satisfying, empty calories. But like a real donut, finishing one often just means you want another.
  2. Mashable
    Aug 27, 2018
    The weirder your tastes run, the more you'll find to love here. Good comedy is a rarity in video games, and the simple-yet-engaging puzzles are crucial to sewing this ridiculous story together. Donut County makes you laugh, loudly and repeatedly. That's all it really needs.
  3. Rock, Paper, Shotgun
    Aug 28, 2018
    A very middling execution of an extremely lovely idea.

Awards & Rankings

92
#92 Best PC Game of 2018
78
#78 Most Discussed PC Game of 2018
44
#44 Most Shared PC Game of 2018

User Reviews

All reviews »
User Score
7.4

Mixed or average reviews- based on 99 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 46 out of 99
  2. Mixed: 47 out of 99
  3. Negative: 6 out of 99
  1. mno
    Sep 25, 2018
    6
    It's fun to play the hole and to swallow stuff. Sadly the unique idea isn't utilized to its potential. The puzzles in the themed levels areIt's fun to play the hole and to swallow stuff. Sadly the unique idea isn't utilized to its potential. The puzzles in the themed levels are very easy and the game is rather short. The music is nice. Characters and story are annoying. The game performs badly and in a rare cases the physics engine goes nuts, so, that you need to restart a level.… Full Review »
  2. Napieracz
    Sep 6, 2018
    9
    Donut county tells a cute and funny story. The puzzles are not hard and it took me about two hours to beat it. I don't think that's wrong.Donut county tells a cute and funny story. The puzzles are not hard and it took me about two hours to beat it. I don't think that's wrong. It's like going to a cinema, you pay for the single experience. There is a cut scene after every level which allows characters to be more fleshed out and I warmed up to them. Even tough it's a short story, I really felt something after these two hours. The music and the artstyle really add to the whole experience.… Full Review »
  3. TitaniumDragon
    Jul 6, 2020
    4
    Donut County is one of those cutesy indie game with a very limited scope. You control a hole, and you move the hole around to make objectsDonut County is one of those cutesy indie game with a very limited scope. You control a hole, and you move the hole around to make objects fall into it. As objects fall into it, the hole gets bigger, allowing you to grab up even larger objects. For most of the game, the gameplay loop is nearly identical – you start out as a small hole in someone’s yard, go around hoovering up increasingly large objects, and then eventually suck down their house. Rinse repeat for 10+ levels.

    You wouldn’t think that a two hour long game would have issues with repetition, but somehow, Donut County does.

    And this is the main flaw of this game. I don’t have anything against very short games – The Stanley Parable is one of my favorite games, and it is very brief.

    The issue here is that the game doesn’t really have much substance to it.

    Almost all of the game consists of doing the exact same thing, over and over again. There’s a couple of mechanics which sort of vaguely mix things up a little:

    • You get a catapult that lets you shoot stuff back up out of the hole, which makes it a bit smaller but lets you knock stuff down or otherwise interact with the environment. This sounds neat, but only appears in a few levels, and is mostly used for the same purpose repeatedly, so doesn’t manage to mix up gameplay all that much until the very end.

    • You bring down a snake, whose tail can be used to whack stuff in the environment as it sticks out of the hole.

    • You suck down a fire, which can set stuff on fire in the environment to make them easier to suck down or launch off fireworks that you have sucked in.

    • You grab a carrot, that you use to attract other stuff with.

    This all sounds neat and all, but this is literally all of the gameplay variety there is, and there isn’t really a whole lot done with most of these mechanics. Two of them appear only once or twice, and none of them are ever used all that creatively.

    The game only really involves any degree of puzzle solving at the very end of the game, as the last few areas demand that the player solve some fairly simple tasks to progress. And then at the very end of the game, there’s an actual boss fight, using the mechanics you’ve got to do something fairly clever.

    And then the game ends.

    This is the real issue with the game – it doesn’t really aspire to be very much. Most of it is the same thing over and over again, and the few moments of cleverness make up less than 15% of the game’s length.

    I would have really liked to see this game actually try to do more than it did with the mechanic – a two hour long game is totally fine, but the point of making a super short game is to completely avoid repetition. This game somehow is short *and* repetitive.

    Outside of the core gameplay, there’s a rather silly story going on – a certain raccoon has sucked up everyone in Donut County, and most of the story is a frame story, where you have a discussion in a cave deep underground where everyone ended up, and the characters recount how they got sucked into a hole between the levels while complaining at each other.

    The game is chock full of internet speech – the two main characters literally say lol and JK, and some of the game is also told via text message conversations on smart phones. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but it lends the whole thing an extremely informal air, and while that works for the game, it still ends up feeling a bit weird.

    That said, the trashpedia – an in-game encyclopedia which fills up with details on the items you collected in each level, from the point of view of the raccoon – is quite funny, with the various descriptions being pretty humorous and showing the limitations of the raccoon, as well as his mentality about the world.

    But this wasn’t enough to carry the game for me. Yes, the game has some funny bits to it, but the actual core gameplay is pretty mediocre and surprisingly uncreative given how interesting it sounds like it would be at first.    … Full Review »
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