Go Nuts For Donuts Board Game Review

Year Published: 2017

Players: 2-6

Playing Time: 20 Minutes

My succinct version of this review is that Go Nuts For Donuts is a game that’s trying to be a silly, psychological party game and simultaneously a lightly strategic set collection game, and neither side works particularly well.

I’ll unpack that statement. But this is a game that would be forgettable and worth ignoring…if I hadn’t encountered it in a shocking number of places, both online and at meetups. I don’t doubt that there’s some fun for many gamers in it, but I also consider it a testament to its marketing that it’s managed to become so embedded in recent gaming circles while providing such an ephemeral experience.

The comments I hear about this game mostly surround the donuts themselves, with people salivating at the prospect of eating the types that they’re collecting, and debating the merits of various donut types at the table as the game is played.

This is fun; games that inspire discussion can be great. But is there any substance under that glossy glaze of the titular donut?

Unfortunately, I see little. Like the donuts themselves, the game is the board gaming equivalent of junk food; perhaps amusing in the moment, but lacking any true sustenance.

Go Nuts For Donuts – The Premise

In brief, in the game you all pick a number corresponding to a donut (or related food item) in a communal market. If you are the only player to pick a number, you get that donut. If two or more players pick the same, no one gets it.

Various combos of collected cards are worth varying numbers of points. Most points wins.

Eyes Glazing Over

I won this game once by picking at random. Seriously, I shuffled under the table, selected one, then for the sake of being courteous would pretend to consider what I was selecting, having already made the decision. The win also happened the very first time I tried this.

This might be poor etiquette in some games, but given how light and fluffy the whole thing is – not to mention the fact that it showed that this “strategy” is viable – I wasn’t detracting from the overall experience. I do think it’s at least slightly damning that it can happen, though.

To combat my own point, though, I’ve played other games with similar levels of randomness, where you could likely approximate a reasonable score or even win by picking your actions randomly. I actually like one or two of them.

So it’s not that this example means the game is bad, nor that the randomness is bad in and of itself. But in context, it’s not nearly as satisfying to me.

Serving Two Masters

Why does one iteration of “try to guess what your opponents will pick” work and another doesn’t? A couple reasons.

The first is that the game doesn’t ask you to prioritize the psychological elements. It’s set collection, you see, and so this already narrows the cards you’d even want to receive in most rounds.

In others – even some even simpler than Go Nuts… – where the same “if 2+ pick it, no one gets it” mechanic exists, the only consideration is what others are picking. This allows for more psychological intrigue and, crucially, it allows more of a long-term psychological meta to form over the course of the game. I’ve laughed until it hurt in one such game (it’s unfortunately unpublished, so I’m hesitant to name it), but it was because we ended up colluding with one another to stymie a particular opponent whose early-game card selections left us in a hole. But then there were betrayals and miscommunications, and hilarity abounded.

There’s none of this table talk in Go Nuts. Or at least it’s not incentivized in the same way. So it’s less of a social game and more “pick something and merely hope it goes through.”

The second reason is that the set collection portion of the game isn’t particularly exciting, even for an entry-level party game. Sushi Go Party does this much better, and isn’t much longer. Heck, one of its card options (Miso) introduces some player psychology, and it works better as a whole, because the game itself is more fleshed out.

So if the set collection mutes the raucous party atmosphere, but there isn’t much beneath the surface of it to sustain strategic interest, what’s left?

Softening the Blow

There’s still some humor in seeing others pick the same card as one another. Or even if you’re one of those people whose selection was negated. I’m not dead inside. I smile or laugh along with everyone else when this happens.

The game is also very quick, and isn’t trying to be highly strategic. I could see this working quite well with children or some families, for instance.

But the humor of negating with another player is the entire gimmick upon which the game hangs it hat, unless you’re simply enamored enough of the donut art that you enjoy it on aesthetic grounds alone. Eventually, that gimmick wears thin, and it happens far sooner than some others that have held my interest long-term.

Additionally, games don’t exist in a vacuum. I cited Sushi Go Party earlier, and I’d always reach for that before this one. If you want the psychological guessing game to accompany its superior set collection game, play it with the aforementioned Miso card. Other, lesser-known games provide interesting second-guessing puzzles that work better for me as well, such as GOPS (which is playable with a standard card deck, no less!), and Eggs of Ostrich, which isn’t quite playable with a standard deck but is easily proxied with some generic components.

Still others aren’t quite the same mechanically, but still offer opportunities to outthink opponent maneuvers – or curse at them – but in a far more interesting tactical environment. I’m thinking specifically of Libertalia, but there are undoubtedly others in this realm.

So the use-case for this game is nonexistent for me. I am not distraught when it shows up at my table, particularly given the length, but neither am I excited. If you want to salivate over a box of donuts, I do recommend buying yourself a box of donuts. Just maybe not this one.