Fall of Porcupine [Review]
Porcupine is a small city in the middle of nowhere Europe where you, Finley, are a new member of the small hospital staff who is just struggling his way through his new job. This cozy-looking game was developed by Critical Rabbit and published by Assemble Entertainment. It has a soothing and kind-looking art style that’s a bit reminiscent of a storybook drawn with watercolors. The style is what originally drew me to this game.
Fall of Porcupine is about a young anthropomorphic pigeon named Finley who is trying to make his place at his new job. His overbearing and slightly terrifying boss causes him stress and some of the patients are a bit mysterious and troubled. Finley even experienced some sort of accident that caused a head injury with an older patient, it seems while helping the patient a wall of boxes collapsed on the two. While Finley represses the incident, the patient's dementia causes him to forget it entirely, leaving the entire accident to be an ignored mystery, chalked up to the poor bird being too much of a klutz.
The game is certainly story-based, and there is plenty of reading. Almost every little thing has a speech bubble to read, some even having more than a few sentences about it. It can be a bit much, as a lot is seemingly Finley talking to himself or inanimate objects that don’t add too much to the story. What makes the game are the characters. While it may seem there are choices, the game doesn’t have multiple endings or anything like that. Instead, your choices boil down to what characters you would like to know more about. You can choose between characters to talk to, like riding the bus with the garbage man who has his own mystery he's trying to figure out or taking the long way to work so you can talk to all the people on the way.
While the game has a soothing and calm art style, the game is a little dark. Finley is plagued by nightmares that end with him seeing a patient blooded and knocked out. As the game continues you will encounter more and more intense problems, even coming to the town accusing the hospital workers of committing malpractice. Allowing patients to die due to their negligence. As the player, and as Finley, you can’t do much but your job. Just continue to take care of the patients as you always would. Fighting against your thoughts of if you are morally corrupt.
As for gameplay, it’s fairly simple and barebones. When taking care of patients you will be given a minigame or a puzzle, like figuring out the combination of pills that fill up each bar. My favorite was the dressing wounds game. You were required to click and hold certain buttons until they went away. I was able to play this game with no interruptions on the Steam Deck, when this minigame came up there were a few times I had to contort my fingers or use both hands on one side of the device. I liked the challenge. The rest of the games are a bit easier but around the same level of simplicity.
While I adore the art of the game, I don't think the game is for me. It felt more like a story than a video game. But, the story is intriguing and can captivate you if allow it to. While it may not be for me, the game is well thought out and has a lot of love and detail put into it. Even simple things like jumping, Finley will flare his arms (wings) and tail feathers out as he floats a bit. To me, these little details make the game all the more charming even if I didn't care for the gameplay. I will be giving Fall of Porcupine a 6/10, but the game is certainly worth it just to stare at the beautiful art and scenery. Fall of Porcupine is currently available for Playstation 4/5, Xbox One and Series, Switch, and Steam.