Donut County is a simple puzzle videogame about holes. It begins in a hole that extends nine hundred ninety nine feet beneath Donut County, a dry and comfortably populated region resembling the United States’ southwest desert states. The County’s diverse populace of humans, human-like animals, and talking animals have become trapped in this pit following mysterious encounters with moving holes. These holes are inescapable, increasing in size the more they swallow into their depths, inevitably growing massive enough to consume each resident’s hiding space. The story is told in flashback from the perspective of different residents, who recount how they ended up in the chasm deep beneath Donut County. The twist is that I do not control the resident as they seek shelter from the hole. I control the hole, seeking to consume everyone and everything in a level.
In simplest terms, Donut County is a sorting videogame. This is caused by the growth mechanic of the controllable hole. As each level begins, the hole is tiny, able to consume only pebbles and tufts of grass. With each object the hole swallows, it expands an almost imperceptible amount. Levels are small, so it only takes a few seconds to clear a screen of its most diminutive objects, by which time the hole has expanded enough to take in larger objects. Fence posts. Cacti. Yard decorations. Soon, the hole is large enough to consume buildings, then entire mesas of the desert landscape.
This is what makes Donut County into a sorting videogame. I help the hole to grow by steering it underneath objects in each level, beginning with the smallest and ending with the largest. To keep this process from becoming too finicky or tedious, there is some room to negotiate the comparative size of similar objects. A car or boulder that is slightly wider than the hole can often be encouraged to fall in by wiggling the hole. The basic idea still holds across every level: smallest to largest. When everything in a level has plummeted down the hole, the level is complete.
To provide Donut County with something interesting beyond this pleasantly monotonous sorting task, most levels contain an additional puzzle. Typically when objects are swallowed by the hole, the only thing that happens is the hole grows slightly larger. A select few objects will cause the hole to adopt a new property. Some are elemental. Dropping a clay oven into the hole causes it to emit heat. Water has a curious reaction; it fills the hole as though it is a shallow puddle instead of a bottomless, hungering void. Some effects are stranger, like a snake’s tail that sticks out of the hole and may be swung around like a whip. Other effects are downright dirty. Dropping a pair of rabbits into the hole causes hearts to rise from its opening, then the hole rapidly expands while the soundtrack is briefly overwhelmed by popping noises.
Causing these changes to the hole is effortless and accidental. There is never a visual indication that an item falling into the hole will cause its properties to change. It simply happens, with each level crafted to ensure I discover these new properties just as they are needed. Finding how to exploit the hole’s new properties to cause changes elsewhere in the level is where it becomes a puzzle. Heat causes corn to burst into colossal popcorn puffs. Water draws the attention of a thirsty bird. The whip-like snake can clobber flimsy structures into pieces, knocking roosting chickens from their safe perches. Finding any of these solutions is never difficult. Often, I stumble across the purpose of a modified hole as accidentally as its creation.
The function of these puzzles is to give Donut County the smallest amount of friction, not to leave me frustrated and demanding answers from thin air. Without them, I would autopilot thoughtlessly through every level, mentally reinterpreting every object in terms of size and not shape or function. I would never absorb what I am seeing. The puzzles ensure I see the texture and personality of this digital world.
Donut County’s levels and puzzles are entertaining, in a thoughtless and time-filling kind of way. I wish I could say the same about the plot and characters.
Each level is interluded by a scene set at the bottom of the chasm. Each Donut County resident’s narration of their encounter with the movable holes fades into the actual level, then returns as they conclude their story. This should be an effective vehicle for communicating the mystery of the holes. Where do they come from? Who is steering them? What is their purpose? Each character’s story might reveal a little more until they collectively identify their tormentor. The mistake Donut County makes is a lack of mystery to any of its events. The culprit is identified before the first proper level begins.
The first characters the narrative introduces are Mira and BK, a human and raccoon who are friends and coworkers at Donut County’s donut shop. Mira and the other characters immediately link the appearance of the holes with BK’s delivery app. Everyone who ordered a donut was soon visited by a hole. BK is more concerned with the destruction of the “quad copter” drone he earned for opening the holes in the first place, insisting that he is the real victim in the situation. BK is a terrible person and that he serves as one of the primary protagonists is not to Donut County’s strength.
The intention seems to be that BK is terrible in a funny way. It doesn’t work. His lack of concern with everyone’s predicament makes him unappealing. His denial of responsibility is repeated across several character’s stories. His obvious lies become tedious quickly. There isn’t enough story to sustain Donut County’s length. A character links BK to the appearance of the hole, BK denies it, and we move on to the next character’s story, who links BK to the holes, who denies it, and so on. This exchange continues across a mind-numbing fifteen levels.
BK is right about one thing. He is not wholly responsible for the holes. Though he summoned most of them in his greed to earn enough points for the drone, he is not the one who created the app. This villain is finally, belatedly revealed just before the final level when Donut County’s residents make the novel decision to quit talking about their problem and do something about it instead. This takes them to the final level and the villain’s headquarters where they turn the holes against their creator.
Donut County’s final level is unique. It is by far the longest. Typical levels take a few minutes to complete at most; the assault on the villain’s lair takes several minutes more. Its shifting scenarios evoke different feelings, as though Donut County briefly adopts new genres. At its start, it feels like a stealth mission as Mira and BK try to infiltrate a hole into the building. Once the hole’s presence becomes impossible to overlook, the level becomes a chaotic smash-and-grab where the protagonists enact their revenge. In classic final level design, every puzzle and mechanic used in previous levels is resurrected, if only for a brief moment. If every level had this degree of effort put into their design, I might be inclined to more generously read the rest of Donut County as more than a sorting videogame. The final level is tragically good enough that it makes the rest of Donut County seem worse.
The final level is even unexpectedly capstoned by a traditional boss fight. BK and Mira, floating above the villain’s lair in a hot air balloon, must use all of their skill piloting the hole to shoot down an enemy drone before it can destroy their vessel. This requires turning the drone’s attacks back on itself to drain its hit points before its rocket barrages can deplete the balloon’s hit points. It’s classic boss fight design that feels like it belongs in a completely different videogame. It makes me wonder what happened to sorting objects by size. By the time I reach this final boss, I’ve done so much of that, I don’t mind the break.
Donut County’s underlying conceit of sorting objects by size mixed with some light puzzle solving might be appealing in a different form. It’s the story and characters that lets the simple design down. However bright and appealing Donut County’s setting and not-quite-human characters may be, putting a greedy and self-deluded fool like BK in front of them all makes me want to turn away. Despite availability on almost every major platform, I wonder if I might enjoy Donut County more on a smartphone or tablet. There are different expectations for a videogame on these platforms. Its mindlessly simple design and detestable character might be easier to tolerate on a smaller screen and crammed into tiny moments stolen between a life’s more pressing tasks. This is not a videogame well-suited to being played in a single sitting. Donut County might be fine after all. Maybe its player is the problem.