Bad Donut - Baker City

Small business rivalry can go pretty far if both parties are willing to go the extra mile in order to sabotage the each other’s success. Granted, it rarely goes farther than menacing glances and the like, but there are exceptions every once in awhile. The fast food industry is full of small business owners that put a lot of passion into their work, which is why some of them don’t get along.

Bad Donut - Baker City is a 2D platformer in which you play the role of a donut trying to bake more donuts, by gathering the required ingredients and carrying them back to the bakery. While it may not make sense at first, the actual gameplay is quite fun and addictive, depending on how patient you are. Time is a factor as well, which makes the whole game a lot more alert and dynamic.

You also have to compete with the ponchikis, which are trying to do the same thing as you on the other side of the map. The ingredients are the same, so you’ll have to fight them in order to get the flour, the milk or the yeast. Once you manage to bake a few donuts, more will spawn to help you, and it should go a lot smoother when an entire team is working together.

After you manage to bake a certain number of donuts, the chef rewards you with various special items, such as a spatula to use as a weapon, or even an actual gun. On the other hand, the ingredients seem to spawn randomly around the map, which makes it rather difficult to find in time. Speaking of which, you can also find clocks to add more time, although you have to do this all the time if you want to stand a decent chance at the last few power-ups.

The graphics are black and white, which is not as disappointing as you may believe. In fact, the visual style is pretty nice, especially when it comes to level design. However, there are various objects you can collide with or even move around the map, such as bottles, chairs and tables. While this is an interesting idea in theory, the truth is that these items often block doorways and make navigation very difficult.

All things considered, Bad Donut - Baker City is a pretty solid game, but it needs more work before it can keep players busy for longer than a few minutes. Right now, the replay value is pretty low, especially after you see how difficult it is to gather resources and clocks at the same time.