Base price: $25.
2 players.
Play time: ~15 minutes.
BGG Link
Buy on Amazon (via What’s Eric Playing?)
Logged plays: 7
Full disclosure: A review copy of Donuts was provided by Flat River Games / Funforge.
It’s never a bad time for food-themed games. People love food. Plus, there are now enough donut-themed games that you could ostensibly have a board game breakfast party where you just eat donuts and play games about donuts. We need to get there for French Toast, but it’s an ongoing process. We will arrive eventually. In the meantime, I shouldn’t focus on food too much since I’m about to go to bed, so let’s hop to it and talk about Donuts, a new game from Funforge!
In Donuts, your goal is just to get five in a row. Pretty simple, if you ask me, or at least it would be if that’s how it all worked. You see, the board is a particularly interesting one. Once you play on it, the directions indicated on the space you chose tell your opponent where they’re allowed to play next. Plus, if they ever manage to fit one or more donuts between two of yours, they flip your two donuts to their color! Three can become five pretty easily, if you’re not careful, so step up and watch out! Will you be able to line up five donuts first?
Contents
Setup
Not much! Give each player some donuts:
Then, shuffle (and rotate!) the four board pieces, placing them in the center to make a 2×2 board. Note that they’re double-sided!
You’re ready to start!
Gameplay
This one’s super easy to play. On your turn, place a donut on the board. The space you place on indicates where your opponent’s next donut must be placed (along the indicated horizontal, diagonal, or vertical line). If you ever place one or more donuts between two of your opponent’s donuts, flip the outer two donuts of your opponent’s color.
First player to get five of their donuts in a line (again, horizontal / vertical / diagonal) wins!
Player Count Differences
None! Two-player only.
Strategy
- Absolutely gotta plan ahead. This is most of the game, so … do that. You can’t just fly by the seat of your pants and place donuts haphazardly; you need to think of where you want to be and where you want to force your opponent to be. Why did they make the move they made? Are they hoping you’ll place on a specific spot? Does your placement give them more or fewer options? Think about it.
- Keep an eye on where the possible outcomes of your move can lead, too. There are only so many places your opponent can place after you place. Are those places going to eventually help you or hurt you?
- Insertions aren’t that easy to come by, so try to gently push your opponent into a mistake. It’s not necessarily super easy to do, so you might either have to get tricky or place such that you force your opponent into a trap.
- Definitely worth it to lose a few pieces in order to win the game, but be careful. You can lose an insertion here or there, but there are a few where losing them will immediately cost you the game. Keep an eye out for traps.
- Watch out for diagonals. These are the places that a lot of players don’t immediately think about when they look at the board, and they’re also potential spots where an opponent can pin you (since there are fewer spaces along most of the diagonals than along the verticals and horizontals). Just be caeful.
Pros, Mehs, and Cons
Pros
- Who isn’t excited about a donut-themed game? A fantastic theme for a fantastic food.
- A nice, quick abstract. You only need five in a row, so it hearkens back to Connect Four but without the “it’s already solved” problem.
- It’s a nice take on something like Reversi / Othello, but it’s definitely its own distinct game. It’s reminiscent of it with the flipping of donuts, but now it’s you flipping donuts that you’re surrounded by, not that you surround. That plus the placement restrictions really add some novelty to the game.
- I appreciate the different modular board options. There’s a lot of different ways that they can go, especially rotating the board before you start playing. That’s great! Modular setups for abstract games are a nice way to keep things relatively fresh.
- The component quality is nice, as well. The boards are pretty good and the donuts are surprisingly nice and double-sided. I kind of wish they had gone like, chocolate and strawberry instead of vanilla and chocolate, just visually, but oh well.
Mehs
- The insertion rules can be a little opaque on your first play. It’s mostly that larger insertions (such as three of your donuts between two of your opponent’s) are possible and that an opponent surrounding your donut is different than an insertion. Those things can throw new players a bit.
- Also, I mean, the donut theme doesn’t make a ton of sense with the gameplay, but whatever. It’s one of those things that you just kind of have to take for granted and roll with, but if you’re looking for any ludonarrative consistency from an abstract donut game, you’re probably going to be a bit disappointed.
Cons
- I do wish there were a better visual indicator for what was just played and where you can play next. I think Board Game Arena handles it nicely, and it’s not as big of a problem since the board is relatively small, but the donut does, fundamentally, block some of the information on the tile and that can be a bit annoying. I suppose that’s probably part of the reason there’s a hole in the center?
Overall: 7.5 / 10
Overall, I think Donuts is fun! I wouldn’t necessarily say that I’ve been blown away by it, but that’s largely because my two-player abstract heart has already been won by Santorini. That’s likely not changing for a while, but Donuts stands just fine on its own merits. It’s quick to play, relatively simple to explain, and after a few plays, you’ll have your own distinct strategy start to evolve. Bright colors and an engaging theme work really well for drawing players in, too, even if the theme has no real impact on play. Sometimes you just want a fun theme for your game. Beyond that, though, I like how the modular board influences play, planning, and strategy, and I think there’s a lot here to like for fans of quick abstract games. If that describes you or you just really like to start the morning with a donut, Donuts might be part of your balanced board game experience! It’s been nice to play.
If you enjoyed this review and would like to support What’s Eric Playing? in the future, please check out my Patreon. Thanks for reading!
What's Eric Playing? 