Some games have so many moving pieces and parts that you think you know it only to find out that you’ve misread what it is about completely. Playing Fall of Porcupine for the last couple of weeks, I thought I knew the game and made an assumption about its simplicity and personality. What I have gathered going into week three is that this game is far more than what I assumed.
This simple game revolving around a nice pigeon doctor named Finley (he’s a pigeon who is a doctor – not a medical doctor solely for pigeons) starts easy enough with good vibes and whack-a-doodle moments, only to transform into something wholly other that is built on seriousness and emotional drama and trauma with the human condition…or various species condition.
Anyway, there is more than meets the eye with Fall of Porcupine, so let’s get cracking on this.
A jack of all trades
Story is everything
The gameplay in The Fall of Porcupine is led by a powerful and personal story about Finley the doctor pigeon who moves to a new town called Porcupine. The story gives an account of Finley’s start with the town, discovering its townsfolks, the town’s traditions and ceremonies, and bevy of dark secrets that make the town more flawed than perfect. His journey is fun, it’s emotionally impactful, and there is plenty of drama and trauma to go around.
The entire core of the gameplay is wrapped around Finley’s story. It lives and breathes in conjunction with it and doesn’t go too far off the beaten path when trying to branch out when introducing new gameplay methods. What that gibberish means is that there is a variety of gameplay within Finley’s world, but it is all dictated by the game’s story. So, for example, if Finley is trying to cope with the loss of a patient, the gameplay might bring branching narrative choices into the fold, but all relate to that patient dying. It’s constructed for such an ordeal and directly affects the story that is being told about Finley’s emotional well-being because of that death. The branching narrative goes along with the story and doesn’t do anything too surprising without consulting the story first. That is solid gameplay design and it’s akin to a long-running show or a well-made movie, where the boundaries of what the characters are and do are defined by the story and world they live within. Sometimes games force mechanics and gameplay moments into the story without seeing if it fits within it. Fall of Porcupine’s dance between story and design are perfectly in stride together and not missing a beat.
I appreciate the different gameplay design elements implemented into Finley’s story, especially the branching narratives. Those choices do a wonderful job of keeping on track with the story and offering decisions for the player to make that fit within the context of the narrative. These small little bits of gameplay moments do affect outcomes and can have an impact on the story but keep within the confines of the boundaries established by the story. That’s a lot of care and love put into the design of the game and its gameplay elements.
Mini-games and meaningful moments
Unless this is going to be the next Dragon’s Lair or a dramatic movie, Fall of Porcupine must do more than just tell a story and offer branching narrative choices to the player. It must be interactive, and the good devs at Critical Rabbit offered up some much-needed breaks to the core gameplay through mini-games.
The mini-games in this title come in a variety and at various points in the game and with purpose. When Finley is on call, most of what you do in the hospital is more routine and repetitive than the mini-games. During your hospital rounds, Finley is assigned routine hospital check-ins with patients. These patients need medication, maybe a shot, sometimes an evaluation, or having Finley listen to heart/lungs in action. These check-ins are personified through mini-games. For example, when giving an evaluation, you are asked to basically WORDLE symbols until you get the right combination. There are multiple slots with symbols and each evaluated patient has their own combination of those symbols. Those symbols are just a guessing game and eventually, you will find the right shapes in the right order to complete the evaluation. It’s a simple game that you can’t lose, but it adds more depth to the routine hospital rounds.
Each check-in has its own mini-game, but you will perform each mini-game multiple times across multiple patients. For this role, it makes sense that a doctor would be giving particular check-ins the same exact way multiple times. That’s what doctors do. They have a system that works for them when trying to check on a patient’s health and it only varies with what they are trying to check for (heart issues, lung problems, etc.). This portion of the game is standard and probably the most repetitive of the gaggle of mini-games in Fall of Porcupine. Some of these games are tough as hell and take time to perfect. Thankfully, the game isn’t in the business of discouraging you when you don’t perform the patient check-ins well, so the scoring system for these mini-games is letters rather than numbers. And even in the worst of times, meaning the worst of my performances in these games, I never scored below a C. The story seemed to be okay with that, too. Good positive vibes amid sick patients is never a bad thing.
Once you go beyond the borders of the hospital, a real variety of mini-games begins. As the story progresses along with Finley, you will find mini-games that go with the moments. For example, early on, you have a good friend who takes you to Porcupine’s deep forests to show you some creepy animals built out of wood. It’s like something out of Blair Witch. The story reveals that these animals are actual representations of community members that have passed. The reason your friend takes you to these is to ask you to help repair those wooden animals that are damaged. You go around traversing the elements and environments to find the damaged wooden animals to repair. You also learn about your friend’s reason for visiting the deep forest grounds, which is heartbreaking. It’s an interactive part of the game that works but reinforces the importance of story over gameplay design. It’s an out-of-left-field move with the gameplay design, but it works well when the final reveal is made with Finley’s friend. Then the reason why the mini-game exists makes far more sense.
Other mini-games are more personal to Finley’s personality and journey as well. These mini-games work to build up and develop Finley in the story. One such moment is simple, where Finley must force himself to clean his room before he goes to work. If you have ever suffered depression or have gone through some mental health issues in your life, maybe you have moved to a new place and are petrified of meeting new people, sometimes cleaning up can be a literal chore. How this relates to the story is that Finley’s dialogue talks about needing to push himself to clean his room and asks the user to help him out. If you do it, it has a positive impact on Finley. If you don’t, that’s okay too because the game is built on good vibes (mostly). Through this mini-game, the Fall of Porcupine becomes more than just a game. It becomes a reminder that some of what we do from day to day is a struggle and that it happens to a lot of people, even pigeons. Again, this keeps within the confines of the story established by the game and only helps to enhance the story when it comes to its impactfulness on the player. It certainly helps to relate to players’ own life experiences, which is a healthy part of the game.
And you will find so many mini-games that fit right into the story that help to push its interactivity, but never sacrifice the story’s integrity along the way. And some of the games aren’t as emotionally impactful. Some of them are simple in design and with purpose. For example, there is a part of the game where your good friend Mia asks you to come shoot hoops with her. If you choose to do so, and there is a choice here, you will follow her to the basketball court and compete against her 1-on-1. And this isn’t a Dr. J Versus Larry Bird 1v1 scenario. This is more of a shooting contest to see who scores the most. It’s a simple interactive moment between characters that takes the gamer’s eyes off the dialogue for a bit, and it’s quite fun. How does this impact the story, you ask? It builds a better relationship with Mia, who you find out is equally as lonely as Finley in the town. That relationship opens the door to trust, which opens the door to more interaction with Mia. Simple, yet brilliant in its execution.
As the game rolls on, even in its more serious moments, and there are some dark, serious moments where you’re emotionally tied to a situation, the mini-games keep on rolling. They offer up good breaks for the player while keeping within the boundaries that the story sets.
Gameplay Summary
Most of what you get with Fall of Porcupine is a strong story that is set in motion and direction by branching narrative choices and mini-games. The story is still the core gameplay and doesn’t let go the entire time. This was good design from Critical Rabbit who seemed laser-focused on getting you involved and engaged with the story and characters. I can dig this design and I think that nothing they do feels thrown in frivolously or carelessly placed. Every interactive move the game makes is respectful of the story.
May not be for everyone
While I adore a good story in a game and feel like one must exist to get players engaged and hooked onto a game, the way that Fall of Porcupine works may not be for everyone. The story for this game took a long time to get moving. I wasn’t sure of what to make of it for the first 2-3 hours and almost assumed what the rest was going to be after a while. It’s more reading than interactive at the beginning, and I’m sure most who see this game in motion might think it’s more of a wide-open interactive platformer than more of a visual novel. The game certainly leans more on the latter than the former.
If you’re expecting the latter, then you’re going find tremendous storytelling that includes facing heavy and complicated issues that most adults can relate to nowadays. It’s truly a treat and may hit too close to home for some comfort. Regardless, it is powerful and effective.
If you’re expecting the former, then a heavy amount of disappointment awaits you, which could turn into impatience with the developing story and accompanying gameplay design choices. This game is akin to more of an interactive soap opera, though written far better than most soap operas. There will be a lot of reading with the occasional break for mini-games. If someone doesn’t expect that, they probably won’t be too thrilled with the results, as the mini-games don’t do much to sustain the gameplay design. They’re not meant to be huge interactive experiences, but rather just breaks.
That’s my biggest issue with this game, as it does seem a bit heavy on story and light on interactive content. Again, I love the story and felt like Critical Rabbit delivered something compelling in this category. Some gamers may not take to it as well as I did and are expecting a bit more controller and less reading.
Presentation
One huge plus with this game is how the animation is presented and how it is executed with the story. As Richard Scarry had to be an influence on this game’s development. The animals could be straight from his book, as they’re cute characters that have plenty of personality in their animation. I was sold on the characters when I first saw them, especially Finley’s huge eyes which are innocent and adorable. All the characters have that kid-like art style and animation to them, which probably helps balance out the tragedy and comedy that the story presents.
The environments are equally as astounding, as they complement the art style of Fall of Porcupine characters and help to soften the blow when the story turns south quickly. All this said, I loved the presentation and felt like it helped sell the drama.
And on that note, let’s wrap this rambling review up.
Conclusion
Fall of Porcupine from Critical Rabbit is a serious story wrapped in cute animation that only Richard Scarry could fully appreciate. The story is driven by branching choices and relaxed from time to time by mini-games. The main crux of this game is the story, which may not be for everyone, especially considering the topics of conversation it presents. They can be powerful at times, but also empty on interactivity.
