Donut County has the honor of being our physical indie release of the week. 2018’s raccoon simulator of sorts is still going strong. It took home mobile game of the year just last month at SXSW.
The questionable protagonist of the game is a raccoon named BK. He works at a donut shop with his human friend Mira. While arguably a health code violation, it’s still a cute friendship. The game opens up with the two texting each other and BK promising to do something about “the honking man.”
While BK thinks he delivered the honking man a donut via a new app, something more untoward is going on. It turns out this new app is actually sending holes instead of donuts. This is where the main gameplay mechanic reveals itself.
In Donut County, the player controls BK’s destructive holes, which swallow up townspeople and everything else. The hole starts fairly small, but grows as objects are taken in. It’s a simple mechanic that lends itself well to puzzles as well as simply being fun.
Go Nuts for Donuts
Creator Ben Esposito worked on Donut County in his free time during development of The Unfinished Swan. The core of Donut County is based on a Molydeux Game Jam idea. The game has been described as a “reverse Katamari.”
This nega-Katamari has been released by publisher Annapurna Interactive on iOS, macOS, Windows, PS4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. The physical version, however, is limited to only the PlayStation 4.
The physical release comes by way of iam8bit. It’s an exclusive release, limited to 5,000 copies, and is a region-free disc. It comes with a reversible cover art insert, designed by Lily Nishita.
Lily Nishita’s gorgeous art has been featured many places, with maybe her most well-known project being the cast of Overwatch drawn as dogs. She’s also worked with big companies like Blizzard and Naughty Dog. Her reversible cover shows the devastation caused underground by the holes of Donut County.
Donut County and its chonky star BK is available for pre-order now from iam8bit. The price is $29.99 USD and will begin shipping sometime in Q2 2019.
