PlayStation 4 Critic Reviews

Donut County is short. It has little to no replay value. It feels like it squanders a great deal of its potential. And yet, Donut County is still one of the best games I’ve played this year. You may only get a few hours out of Donut County, but they’re a few great hours.

Laser-focused and brimming with charm, Donut County is one of the year’s best experiences. While brief, its laugh-out-loud sense of humor and laid-back, tactile gameplay combine precisely to create a game like no other. You’ll come for its physics based puzzle-solving, but you’ll stay for its quirky cast of characters and world. This is not a game to be missed.

It built a hilarious narrative around that silly concept and used that concept as a vessel for its heartwarming story and incredible humor that comes out in its writing and irreverent gameplay. For a game about garbage, its wholesomeness and “holesomeness” make it the very opposite of trash.

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.

If you’re looking for something that will challenge you and twist your brain into knots, this game isn’t it. There’s no real skill curve, and most of the puzzles are simple enough that you can more or less accidentally stumble on the solutions, with a few rare exceptions. But I assure you that from the first moment you tip something into that hole and see it grow, you’ll be hooked.

I wished the story was longer and the game had more things to do besides capturing things in a hole. But the story was lighthearted and the gameplay was fun. If you don’t have high expectations, I think you’ll find Donut County is a nice diversion.

Donut County is an excellent concept executed with pizzazz, personality, and an unexpectedly salient message at its core. While the end came abruptly and left me wanting more, like an endless mode or bigger levels to swallow things in, I can't deny the great time I had with what's there.

Donut County is a charming and straightforward example of how video games don’t need to be overly complex or contain multiple mechanics and systems to make for a good time.

Though short in duration and hardly taxing, Donut County wins you over with buckets of charm and some of the most relaxed gameplay money can buy. As such, Donut County is a compelling, nigh essential stop on the gaming journey for any self-respecting PS4 owner.

People will call Donut County an indie darling, and those people will be right.