Donut County

Introduction

Donut County is a comic masterpiece, a perfect blend of quick wit, snappy dialogue and out-of-the-box gameplay. From the opening scene you can tell that this won’t be your usual venture. Each level is a short, unravelling mystery of how and why you’ve ended up 999 feet down below! One thing is for sure… never trust the Racoons

Platforms and Language – 9/10

Donut County is another one of those Indie games that pulls in to the mainstream popularity, as such it has the benefit of being affordable, at around $4 to $7 as a digital copy, but also is available on a wide variety of platforms.

The language can be set directly through the settings menu at any point. I would recommend playing through in both English and Japanese to gain a further understanding of the story if you are struggling to follow it in Japanese alone.

Glossary

Usability – 10/10

This game is near perfection when it comes to being an effective learning tool. The UI in every instance is clear and bright, often avoiding the typical monochrome text box style in favour of vibrant and animated dialogue. Conversations range from texts, using colloquial phrases and idioms to back and forth group chats/rambling in brilliant comedic fashion. The unapologetically chaotic main character BK has so many brilliant one liners which use all manner of casual and digestible grammar constructs. I truly feel that if you’re going to learn how to read and understand grammar like this it needs to be in a comic or joking context and this Donut County is a shining example of this.

The variety of content in Donut county isn’t as much as some AAA games out there but that does not mean it is limited, the majority of your time will be spent progressing through the game normally but additional time can be spent in the “Trashopdia” if you want some additional reading material. This is an optional encyclopedia of all the items you can collect as you play and each one comes with a hilariously constructed quip from BK. At first it can be a little jarring as it can be a little difficult to understand exactly what is being said until the joke lands. One way to get around this is to play the game through quickly in English (potentially only an hour or so of game time) and write down or memorise some of the items. Donut County’s advantage is that it translates directly into the Japanese while maintaining as much of the underlying theme and humour as possible.

The take away here and what makes Donut county so special is that the writing is intrinsic to the story, the heart and soul of your play through comes down to feeling the interaction and story of each character, which considering the game can be completed in an hour is a brilliant quality. The best way to form long lasting memories is to tie them to an emotion so it only makes sense that a game with these comedic chops can make memories that’ll last forever. Donut county is the game I will recommend to all learners, no questions asked. I continue to come back and play more and can’t wait to complete it in other languages when the time comes!

Challenges and Methods – 6/10

Trashopedia

The above mentioned Trashopedia is extensive to say the least. Each level can add anywhere between 10 and 30 new items for you to read through. The challenge I pitch here is to read every entry from start to finish, if you come across a word you don’t know or have forgotten the pronunciation for then you have to start again. At first this may seem a bit mad but I promise you it is worth reading them. One aspect that will strengthen your grammar forms and conjugations is seeing them in unusual phrases which these definitely are.

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