Donut County posits a world where raccoons crave not only trash, but also apocalyptic profit. This manifests into a physics adventure game with a primary mechanic of expanding the size of a trash-swallowing hole that also swallows everything else. Donut County is a meditation on greed interrupted by a mischievous heartbeat, which is probably what you want from some sentient raccoons outfitted with preposterous technology.
Press X Button to Deploy Hole.
Raccoons enjoy garbage but are not arbiters of what is and is not garbage. Their fondness for trash theft and their default bandit fur creates an unsavory reputation, but it’s obvious that, if allowed, raccoons would steal anything that isn’t nailed down. They’re criminals, but nature isn’t subject to the laws of men and it’s deemed unwise to put animals in prison. This moral failing and general paradox leaves room for the perfect crime. Raccoons see no problem with and suffer no penalty when stealing anything.
Donut County, which I believe to be a work of fiction, is a place where raccoons have bought the local donut shop and transformed it into a sanitation management headquarters. They’ve used it to house a gig-economy app where its contractors, Hole Drivers, can create nebulous holes that swallow everything. The local populace doesn’t seem to be aware of this and keeps ordering donuts. Holes show up instead of donuts. The hole gets larger every time it swallows an object, meeting the obvious end of eventually swallowing everything. The contents wind up in a cave system 999 feet below Donut County.
BK is, technically, the raccoon player-character using the Raccoon Company’s app to control the holes. His good friend Mira, the only human in a society of talking animals, provides emotional support and moral direction. BK’s obsession with earning enough work points to earn a quadcopter has selfishly imperiled the entire town, creating a medias res story where we find out how each of the local residents wound up in a trash-filled cave 999 feet below Donut County.
Donut County’s writing is goofy and fantastic. It’s presented in a modern texting-culture aesthetic where characters issue genuine pain as often as they perform sick dunks on each other. Everyone in the community has a tiny story and a huge personality. Cave sequences occur between each level, leaving Donut County with almost as much casual chatter as tangible gameplay. The short length (it probably took me fewer than two hours to finish) insures neither piece outstays its welcome.
Of special mention is the Trashopedia, the in-game dictionary that provides a one-sentence description of everything swallowed with the hole. All of it appears to be written from the eyes of a raccoon who doesn’t understand the item’s actual human purpose. A lawnmower “scares grass to keep it small,” while a measuring cup “turns food into math.” Raccoon Company’s own corporate logo states “Have A Garbage Day!” in a pretty font with a powerful motto “HURL ME INTO A DUMPSTER” just below. There’s a quiet hilarity to every raccoon-authored facet of Donut County, and its wit stays sharp without descending into twee mirth. They feel like innocent Mitch Hedberg jokes if Mitch Hedberg had been a raccoon.
It is impossible to describe Donut County’s gameplay—your hole expands as it swallows objects—without citing Katamari Damacy, but it has just as much in common with Gnog’s Rube Goldberg puzzles or Hohokum’s abstract call for intuition. Swallowing objects blessed with physics makes the hole larger, but only across finite levels with contained shifts in scale. Getting larger is merely a side effect. Progression is tied to solving a short environmental puzzle. Donut County’s hook is the fun process of seeing what you’re able to swallow, but its identity leans heavier on making sense out of complete nonsense. You’re expected to use realistic objects in wild ways.
Each level has a new gimmick. In the Riverbed I had to clean up water, which was filling my hole, but there happened to be one of the drinking bird toys nearby, eliminating the water. In the Ranger Station, I had to use smoke from the campfire I swallowed to deploy a hot air balloon. Eventually you’re granted an in-hole catapult that allows objects to be barfed back out of the hole (like a frog you can fire up in the air to eat bees), further expanding the verbs used to solve puzzles. Every location in Donut County is ripe for tinkering and, if all else fails, either blunt force or better timing will eventually provide a solution.
Humor found in Donut County’s writing spills over to tiny details across its environments. Raccoon Lagoon, an amusement park, has a sequence that requires the player to operate a log flume ride. When the rider goes down the ramp a tiny camera flashes a picture. The police presence on The 405 is a bunch of raccoons holding bullhorns while tied to quadcopters. A security camera sequence at Raccoon HQ features a raccoon taking a dump with a roll of toilet paper off to the side, rather than placed back on the roll. The placement of objects you’re intended to mindlessly consume and destroy is always deliberate and, if you look hard enough, usually tied to a sight gag.
Donut County’s levels almost end too quickly. As if it’s afraid to overstay its welcome, each can be solved in under five minutes on a maiden voyage. The end of the game creates a run of clever, concordant challenges that flow as well as they play, and serve as the only time Donut County feels comfortable blowing out all of its ideas. I wanted more from the game (and I felt it was capable of delivering), but can understand why it felt so compartmentalized and guarded. Everything in Donut County works, which isn’t the easiest task in a physics-based game. It’s intended to be a light adventure rather than god’s gift to puzzle enthusiasts.
A harder look at Donut County reveals a range of deeper cultural commentary. Raccoon HQ is the inevitable fallout of the gig economy operating under aggressive capitalism. Mira and BK’s friendship needs to survive BK’s selfishness and irresponsibility. Earning experience via destruction to buy a quadcopter isn’t quite Papers, Please’s level of equating personal success with monstrous behavior, but it’s definitely raising the issue. Ultimately I think Donut County is a game about raccoons living out their deepest natural fantasies, but it’s interested at looking in other directions, too.
Donut County is a little short and peaks prematurely and I don’t care. I’ve never played a game where I control a hungry hole, think like a trash raccoon, or talk to friendly animals at the bottom of a cave. Birthed from a Peter Molydeux tweet, set to a Vulpixic soundtrack, and brought to life with the honest intention to make a coherent experience, Donut County‘s basic existence is a surprise. The bombshell is that it’s good, too.
