Happy Happy Donuts boasts unique gameplay, cutesy animals for delectable match-three recipe

Lucid Games' next project, a free-to-play game, trades oft-used gems and artifacts seen in match-three titles for unique game pieces. Namely, donuts — brightly-colored, sugar-glazed donuts.

With customer service as its framework, Happy Happy Donuts uses a donut shop as the setting for its match-three operations. Supporting this with lively colors and an overarching animal theme, Happy Happy Donuts has a great deal of charm on display. This is especially seen in the cutesy elements (webbed feet, tails, whiskers) that distinguish each animal — and, really, the creation as a whole.

GameZone spoke to Pete O'Brien of Lucid Games on the game, which he says will speak to audiences young and old — the appealing presentation believed to be the hook that will invite players to try the game's mechanics.

"We chose to stylize the art for broad appeal," O'Brien said, citing "Japanese donuts and contemporary donut cafés" as inspiration for this decision. The unintimidating exterior by no means suggests a toned-down level of difficulty, as the team hopes to also attract genre veterans with challenging gameplay.

Happy Happy Donuts aims to inject a slight twist on common match-three systems, using group rotation in place of a singular drag-and-switch method. How this came about was not from examining the inner workings of competition in the category, but rather starting with a foundational design idea and working from there.

"We first started with the move mechanic and built the rest of the game around that," O'Brien shared. "Our biggest challenges were defining the world and refining the feedback loops of the mechanic. It was when we built out the game structure that we were most inspired by what's already out there."

The team is hopeful that this focus, along with the fully-adopted theme, is what will help distance Happy Happy Donuts from the scores of look-alikes in the category. "King continues to dominate the genre," O'Brien acknowledged, "but we've seen other developers break through and hope we can do the same." Competition aside, O'Brien sees it as "a healthy genre" conducive to quick bursts, precisely what their game caters to.

Happy Happy Donuts is set to release next month for Android, iOS and Facebook, but the team is planning to extend the game's life beyond its release window. "We have lots more to add to the world of Happy Happy Donuts." Hopefully that includes a platypus donut.