If a long lost arcade game from 1983 resurfaced today, it would be Donut Dodo - a classic 2D platformer from the golden era, tough as nails and challenging for the whole family! Ready to top the high score table?
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Anyone who enjoys games that capture the 80s arcade vibe should absolutely check out Donut Dodo. It's got a super-fun soundtrack, spiffy pixel art & gameplay that's easy to understand while offering a fun & fair challenge. And the best part? It's a one-time purchase on Steam! No need to put in 25 cents for each round!
Dearly loved this one, great start to the year. Super chaotic and that perfect "easy to learn, tricky to master" skill curve. I do think the ferris wheel level could be slightly better balanced (there's a lot of waiting around if you elect to go for the highest score) but each level is incredibly fun to learn the intricacies of. Will continue to be a bus-stop mainstay going forward, I reckon.
genuinely one of the best arcade high score farming type games i've played. super fluid control, pretty charming nes/early arcade graphics, and some pretty solid music. the donut mechanic is really fun to farm high scores and get extra lives to help yourself out! i do wish there was an infinite mode though, and also these kind of games have a bit of a ceiling to them for me personally but very easily on the higher end of this kind of game for me!
You should listen to our episode found right here or wherever you get your podcasts to hear Sam talk about playing this game, the Evercade, and more!
Love this game and it's music to death. Kudos to CosmicGem!
Donut Dodo is one of those indie games that doesn't come along very often as most people seem to only care about metroidvanias, sims, roguelites or weird frankenstein projects that mash genres together with (oftentimes) little success. It's a true throwback that, quite specifically, apes the style of the original Donkey Kong with hints of Donkey Kong Jr and a dash of Popeye.
Taking place across five boards (that loop once at an increased difficulty), your job as Billy Baker is to snatch up all of the donuts scattered throughout the stage before collecting a massive one to end the stage. All you can really do is run and jump, which is par for the course of an early 80's arcade game character. Fortunately, unlike Donkey Kong, you won't fall to your death if you drop more than a pube-hair's length. You also don't have that incredibly clunky comitted jump arc from games like the aforementioned or Castlevania, but in exchange, you're locked in when climbing ladders or horizontally aligned ropes.
The titular Donut Dodo will be assaulting you with his own feces, fiery projectiles and boulders depending on the board. In addition, there's mice and possesed toilets (yes, you heard right) as well as Not-Clyde-From-Pacman on higher difficulties. Interestingly, there's no power-ups to grab. You do, however, get a rather tricky bonus round in between loops that will reward you handsomely with points and 1-ups once you get the hang of it.
That bonus round isn't the only nuance to scoring (heheheh) in Donut Dodo though. Upon grabbing your first donut in each board, a chain will start. So long as you continue to grab the donuts that are flashing in order, the pickup bonus will be multiplied. It may be tempting to just pick them up all willy-nilly and cash in a higher time bonus, but you're rewarded more for collecting them in order at the end of the day. My only gripe with this mechanic is that the donut order is completely RNG based. The routing may be entirely different, even if you shoot for the same starting donut every time.
Aesthetically, Donut Dodo nails it and that's perhaps the biggest surprise given the five dollar price point. While the chiptune music is admittedly a bit too awesome to pass for something that would have came out in 1983, the spritework is convincing enough to make anyone believe this was some scrapped prototype that never made it off the cutting room floor in that era. Much like Galacticon, which was also recently ported to Switch, it sets out to capture a specific era with none of it looking or sounding cheap.
If there's one thing I think Donut Dodo is lacking in, it's an endless arcade mode that loops infinitely. Instead, you'll either play two loops on "Easy-Normal" or "Normal-Hard" and once you clear the fifth board the second time around on either setting, the game's over. Due to its incredibly high difficulty (even on normal) as well as the fact that the game factors in your remaining 1ups in the final score, there's still plenty of room for improvement and replayability though. Unfortuantely for the Switch port, there's no online leaderboards. A very strange omission considering the original Steam version has had them for a while alongside a weekly one-loop score chase mode.
Despite the lack of online leaderboards (Switch specific) and no true "arcade" mode, this game is fully worth its asking price and then some. I have gotten far more enjoyment out of $5 title than I ever did with the Metroidvania/Roguelike/Farming Sim-Of-The-Week on the Eshop, and I think that speaks volumes to its quality.
Taking place across five boards (that loop once at an increased difficulty), your job as Billy Baker is to snatch up all of the donuts scattered throughout the stage before collecting a massive one to end the stage. All you can really do is run and jump, which is par for the course of an early 80's arcade game character. Fortunately, unlike Donkey Kong, you won't fall to your death if you drop more than a pube-hair's length. You also don't have that incredibly clunky comitted jump arc from games like the aforementioned or Castlevania, but in exchange, you're locked in when climbing ladders or horizontally aligned ropes.
The titular Donut Dodo will be assaulting you with his own feces, fiery projectiles and boulders depending on the board. In addition, there's mice and possesed toilets (yes, you heard right) as well as Not-Clyde-From-Pacman on higher difficulties. Interestingly, there's no power-ups to grab. You do, however, get a rather tricky bonus round in between loops that will reward you handsomely with points and 1-ups once you get the hang of it.
That bonus round isn't the only nuance to scoring (heheheh) in Donut Dodo though. Upon grabbing your first donut in each board, a chain will start. So long as you continue to grab the donuts that are flashing in order, the pickup bonus will be multiplied. It may be tempting to just pick them up all willy-nilly and cash in a higher time bonus, but you're rewarded more for collecting them in order at the end of the day. My only gripe with this mechanic is that the donut order is completely RNG based. The routing may be entirely different, even if you shoot for the same starting donut every time.
Aesthetically, Donut Dodo nails it and that's perhaps the biggest surprise given the five dollar price point. While the chiptune music is admittedly a bit too awesome to pass for something that would have came out in 1983, the spritework is convincing enough to make anyone believe this was some scrapped prototype that never made it off the cutting room floor in that era. Much like Galacticon, which was also recently ported to Switch, it sets out to capture a specific era with none of it looking or sounding cheap.
If there's one thing I think Donut Dodo is lacking in, it's an endless arcade mode that loops infinitely. Instead, you'll either play two loops on "Easy-Normal" or "Normal-Hard" and once you clear the fifth board the second time around on either setting, the game's over. Due to its incredibly high difficulty (even on normal) as well as the fact that the game factors in your remaining 1ups in the final score, there's still plenty of room for improvement and replayability though. Unfortuantely for the Switch port, there's no online leaderboards. A very strange omission considering the original Steam version has had them for a while alongside a weekly one-loop score chase mode.
Despite the lack of online leaderboards (Switch specific) and no true "arcade" mode, this game is fully worth its asking price and then some. I have gotten far more enjoyment out of $5 title than I ever did with the Metroidvania/Roguelike/Farming Sim-Of-The-Week on the Eshop, and I think that speaks volumes to its quality.