SNAP Review – Donuts

Is it donut time yet?

I’m not really doing donuts right now. How about an iced coffee instead?

Wait, who doesn’t love donuts? How these Donuts instead?

This is a SNAP review for Donuts.

Game

Donuts is a game for two players, designed by Bruno Cathala and published by Funforge.

The box recommends it for ages 8 and up, and says it takes 10-15 minutes to play. We’d say it can go a bit younger, and games can be even faster – sometimes.

Art

Let’s talk about the art in Donuts.

The illustrations from Philippe Nouhra prove that art doesn’t need to be complex to look delicious.

The donuts in this are wooden tokens, with the chocolate frosting design on one side and plain vanilla on the other.

The board is made up of four square pieces, that hold pink and white “plates”, each perfectly sized for a single donut.
And that’s it!

Mechanics

So, let’s talk about how we play Donuts!

Set out the four boards in a square – you can put them in any order, and even flip them over.

Each player takes 15 donuts and turns them to show their chosen color.

The goal of the game is to get five of your donuts in a line – horizontally, vertically, or diagonally.

The first player puts a donut on any square of their choice. The second player must follow the line on that square to place their donut. They can put it in any empty square, as long as it’s on that line.

Then it’s the first player’s turn again, and THEY must follow the line indicated by the spot the second player claimed.

The only time you can disobey the line placement rule is when there are no more empty spots in the indicated line. Then you can play on any empty square on the board.

There is one more twist – if you insert a donut into a space immediately between two donuts of your opponent’s, you flip those two donuts to your own color. This is true even if you have multiple donuts “inserted” into the sandwich – the two donuts on the ends of the sandwich get flipped.

As soon as one player gets a line of five adjacent donuts in their color, they win!

If you manage to place all thirty donuts on the board without creating that line, the player with the largest group of touching donuts in their color is the winner.

Expectations

And that’s how to play Donuts! So Anitra, what did we expect from this one?

Bruno Cathala is responsible for a lot of puzzle-y games, like Kingdomino and Sobek, and also silly ones like Oh My Brain! and Velomino. We expect his games to have rules that are easy to remember, but strategy that makes us think.

And even though I’m not doing donuts right now – with a name like Donuts, I expected something delicious.

Surprises

So Anitra, let’s talk about what surprised us here.

I was still surprised at just how simple this game is. I can teach it in less than a minute, even though I rarely win.

But it also surprised me that the theme does not matter here. It reminds me of games like Quarto and Cinco Linko – it’s really just about getting your pieces in a row and blocking your opponent; here it’s using donuts, but it could be anything.

I did like the variability in the way you can set up the boards, though. Even if you play this a lot, you wont be able to predict the best move all of the time.

I completely agree with that. Having four disconnected boards with two sides means there ends up being lots of different ways to play. And frankly, I like them not being labeled, so you’re not setting up the “1” side or the “2” side or anything. Just put them down and see what you get.

But like you said, I also definitely feel the connection to abstract games. So, if you’re watching this and you’re thinking “this kind of feels like Go or Othello“, I am totally vibing with you. It does. But for me, that’s a good thing.

Some of Cathala’s other designs that riff off the “line them up” idea or the “follow the direction of the tile” concept add too much other stuff to the game (at least for me) and it makes those games feel cluttered.

Here, there’s only one or two rules, and the simplicity makes it a really nice game to bring to a casual get together, or date. Maybe you play it once, or you play it a couple of times.

I did get tripped up by the flipping of other player’s pieces by playing in the middle of them, though. It was unique and different, and just a little weird for me.

Yeah, it’s a little hard to wrap your head around that part.

Recommended?

So Anitra, do we recommend Donuts?

I think Donuts is a good game for fast plays. I don’t think there’s quite enough here to hook most gamers, but it would be a great game to play with a kid who won’t play traditional abstract games like checkers, because they need some kind of theme.

Donuts fits that niche just right.

For me, honestly I fall on the other side, because like I said, I like this game as a compact abstract, and I don’t care about this theme at all.

But that really goes to show you that this game can be versatile.

If you’ve got a kiddo like Anitra mentioned, maybe this is just enough to get them to the table. But for me, I like this as a more compact and quick alternative to longer abstract games that have a bunch of little pieces.

We’re going to give Donuts 3½ frosted double chocolate beignets out of 5.

(That’s a donut that I would eat, by the way.)

And that’s Donuts, in a SNAP!

Find Donuts on Amazon or at your friendly local game store.

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The Family Gamers received a copy of Donuts for this review from Funforge, via Flat River Games.

This post contains affiliate links, which do not change your price, but help support The Family Gamers.

SNAP review music is Avalanche, provided courtesy of You Bred Raptors?