Reverse ‘Katamari Damacy’ with lots of laughs

“What is a donut without a hole?”

That’s Roma, the larger of the two talking donkeys (I’m pretty sure they’re donkeys) that make up Donut County‘s premiere power couple.

“Wow, good question,” BK, a talking raccoon and the proprietor of the local donut eatery, replied. “We should really stop to ponder this for as long as possible.”

The raccoon is deflecting. No one realizes it except Mira, his human and employee and sort-of-friend.

But before she can say anything, Coco spoke up. The bright green talking alligator (or is it a crocodile?) seems to be a local source of wisdom. When Coco speaks, folks listen.

“A donut without a hole is still a donut,” Coco said, knowingly.

It’s easy to describe how you play Donut County, the new game from indie star Ben Esposito (see also: The Unfinished Swan, What Remains of Edith Finch). You control a hole in the ground. As you move that hole around, objects fall into the nothingness below. The more trash you gather, the bigger your hole gets.

It’s like an inverted Katamari Damacy, the game from legendary designer Keita Takahashi in which you commandeer a rolling sticky ball that grows in size as you absorb objects. Eventually that comes to include groups of people, cars, even whole buildings. 

Your Donut hole works the same way. In one section of the game, you clear out an entire gridlocked freeway by situating your hole at one end of it. The army of cars rolls slowly forward, transforming into a waterfall of metal, glass, and rubber as groups of vehicles tumble into the darkness together. Once you dump an entire level’s worth of objects into your hole, you move on to the next arena.

As you climb through Donut County‘s dozen or so levels, new elements surface that complicate and add depth to the basic idea of “drop shit into a hole.” It’s more of a problem-solving game than a skill game in that regard; a handful of later challenges serve up timed puzzles, but they’re generous with their timing.

At one point early on, you come across a scene where there’s puddles of water between you and a bunch of objects you need to swallow. Clearing out one puddle is easy: the water pours right in your hole. But it stays there, creating a pool that prevents any other objects from falling down.

Solving the puzzle in this case is easy: A very large, highly visible bird stands off to one side of the screen. Get close to it while you have a hole full of water — which is easy to do even by accident — and the bird drinks it all up. Do that with each puddle and boom, no more water.

The bird pops up again later on, though. It’s a tougher puzzle, but by that point you’ve been trained to deal with liquids in your hole. It’s not that the earlier level is a tutorial; the later one simply builds on lessons imparted earlier in the game.

Donut County is hardly blazing a trail here. Lots of games have this sort of gentle difficulty curve. But it feels effortless. Maybe because everything happening around your hole manipulations supports the story, and it’s all so unreservedly weird.

Personality counts for a lot, and Donut County goes all-in on its oddball world.

Personality counts for a lot, and Donut County goes all-in on its oddball world. As you might have already gathered from the snippet of game dialogue I shared up top, there’s quite a cast of characters to get acquainted with. The puzzles you’re solving are an extension of an exceedingly bizarre story involving a community of anthropomorphic animals and their one human friend, Mira.

The plot centers on BK and Mira, who works for the donut-peddling raccoon, and most of the puzzles amount to flashbacks that recount how the entirety of Donut County ended up living underground. (Hint: It’s the raccoon’s fault.) You spend time with the colorful cast during scenes situated between each level, with the now-homeless community chattering about their plight in front of a campfire.

The patter is charming in its intentional weirdness, with dashes of textspeak thrown in — characters proclaim “LOL” and “OMG” as if they’re IMing or texting — all throughout. The crux of the dilemma this community faces stems from BK not knowing, or really just not accepting, what actually qualifies as a donut.

To the raccoon, “donut” = hole in the ground. So donut deliveries — did I mention the donut store delivers? — become a game of trashing each neighbor’s property as the hole slides around the ground and makes the world disappear. Mira plays the “straight (wo)man” role of trying to explain to both her friend and the Donut County community why donut = hole is wrong.

So BK is a self-absorbed turd who justifies the mischief he’s caused as noble, charitable deeds and an aspect of his job. He’s all too happy to gaslight his friend Mira, who insists over and over that donuts aren’t the same thing as holes in the ground. 

The writing is everything here. There’s a sense of rhythm and timing in the way each line is delivered. The story hangs on this absurd idea that there’s room for debate on whether a hole in the ground is actually a donut. The shreds of story delivered between each level are all the reward you need for making progress.

The puzzles themselves aren’t nearly as rewarding. Even at the later stages, they’re relatively simple to work out after a few minutes of poking around. It’s enjoyable, even satisfying, to clear out each location by watching a bunch of crap tumble into your ever-expanding hole in the ground. But it’s never challenging.

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.