Mr Donald: Making Games Fun Again

Harkening back to the earlier era of video games and the popularity of the Boomer-shooter subgenre, Mr Donald is a satirical take on current world affairs and the gaming industry as a whole. While the game may contain some characters and themes that seem related to current world issues, it exists as a rather hilarious satire of them.

As the game says, “if you tend to interpret satire literally, this game may not be for you”. With that in mind, let’s get into exactly why Mr Donald’s demo is worth trying, a little bit about the origin of the game, and how it stacks up when compared to other entries into the genre. 

What is Mr Donald?

Mr Donald’s gameplay consists of standard boomer-shooter mechanics, in that you will traverse the levels, squeezing through corridors and vents while fighting off swarms of enemies with a variety of weapons. Within the demo, you’ll fight the same hooded figures either with melee weapons or guns, occasionally tussling with the same enemies, only reskinned. 

In what we think must be an intentional choice from the devs, given the game’s clear anti-AI message, the enemies’ AI is easily exploited, often running into walls or simply being too slow to keep up with you.

Where the real Mr Donald game begins is when you stop treating the experience like a game and more like a playable comedy sketch. Around every corner is some new satirical reference to current affairs, of which most stick the landing. While this can become a little much, with your companion “Elon” constantly calling you to give some remark, this absurdity is sort of what you signed up for with this game. The devs also take great care to showcase the satirical nature of the game, as many real-world details are altered. For instance, every calendar in the game shows December having 30 days.

The biggest issue was the lack of signposting, as we got lost in these levels frequently, and this was only made worse by a lot of the separate areas looking identical. One must consider, though, that it is still only a demo, so perhaps when more levels are added, this issue of sameness will be reduced. 

When is Mr Donald releasing?

Currently, Mr Donald’s release date has not been revealed. This is not too shocking, as the demo has only just become available, but Mr Donald’s news page on Steam has been getting very frequent updates, so perhaps we will not have to wait too long. 

If you wish to keep up with the game, several of the developers’ links, including their X page and website, are additionally available on the Steam page. Mr Donald’s price is also unknown; however, with previous entries from this team, it is unlikely to be too much.

Who is developing Mr Donald?

Mr Donald’s developers are a group called RSK Team. Not much information could be found about this team across all of their platforms. However, they only have one previous release, titled “Free Durov” another meme game in a similar style to Mr Donald, but in the horror genre.

One thing that is known, however, is the country of origin of this team, Russia. This conclusion was made by identifying languages in the game that were not translated using AI, of which there was only one: Russian. The humour in a russian team making a game about this particular individual is not lost on us. 

We are hopeful that the scope of the satire is expanded as the game’s development continues, especially since what is shown is entertaining. One can imagine how these developers would satirise other world affairs, given the opportunity.

The Mr Donald demo

Within the Mr Donald demo, you will play through a single level of the game in which you are tasked with saving the Vatican from an evil group of robe-wearing enemies. It’s a fairly standard shooting affair; however, there are some fun moments later on in the level with an abundance of meta commentary about the state of the gaming industry. 

As you progress through the stage, you will unlock more of Mr Donald’s weapons. We found that some were considerably more useful than others, as the base pistol is practically unusable. The pistol is so bad that you can empty half of a clip of ammunition into a single enemy, and that still may not be enough to kill. 

Within Mr Donald’s levels, you will likely have to traverse quite a distance to reach the end, as the single level available in the demo took us over an hour to beat. While a bit of that time can be attributed to the previously mentioned lack of direction given to the player, most of it was spent engaging in the shooting. 

It was within this that we found a few things worth noting: 1) The music will cut in when an enemy is near, and out when there are none. This is quite useful as you end up using the music as a way of finding out which path will lead to further progression. 2) There are really only two good weapons, the shotgun and the Desert Eagle, which is located on the dead scientist. 

We recommend you pick this up as the assault rifle is a rather lacklustre ranged weapon, with this providing the only viable ranged option. This is unfortunate, as you tend to find yourself simply going through the paces with the same two guns, as opposed to trying new strategies and actively engaging with the gameplay.

Boomer-shooters and how Mr Donald compares

When comparing Mr Donald’s features to other games in its genre, honestly, it doesn’t hold up well. It has standard FPS gameplay but without iron sights, instead opting for the not often seen “same pov but zoomed in”. Additionally, the level on show in the demo is nothing too special, with the best moments again being when the comedy is front and centre.

This is something that Mr Donald really struggles with. As with most boomer-shooters, the absurdity of the violence on show is what serves as the humour for the game. Mr Donald’s humour is all in the writing and level design, with most of the gameplay actually being kind of annoying. 

It saddens us to say this, as the first 20 minutes of this game had us laughing from our stomachs. While we’re excited to see how this game improves, and what the devs add in future Mr Donald updates, right now we can really only recommend it if you want a good laugh at the expense of the current political climate, and the world as a whole.