Fall in Porcupine 

Due for release on June 15, 2023, Fall of Porcupine tells the story of Finley, a young doctor starting out in his career who moves to the peaceful town of Porcupine. Follow the doctor as he discovers more about his patients, the lives of the townspeople, and the secrets that lie hidden in this story. 

Developed by Critic Rabbit and published by Assemble Entertainment, Fall of Porcupine will be available for all main platforms. 



The Story of the Caretaker

The story of our pigeon doctor (or was it pigeon doctor?) begins in a rather peculiar way. In a surrealistic dream where his domestic and talkative little flower seems to guide his steps amidst clouds and huge roots. We still don't know what actually happens there, but that reality certainly doesn't seem all that real. 

At a certain moment, the doctor's dream turns into a nightmare, as he finds bloodstains on the floor and one of his patients quite weak. Before he can really help him, Finley is hit by a series of boxes falling on him. Startled, he wakes up from this strange dream but realizes that something has really hit him, as he sees the bruises on his head. 

As he regains consciousness and pulls himself together, our doctor realizes that, as usual, he is late for his shift at the hospital. So he hurries to get ready and crosses the entire city towards work, since the bus line is out of order. 

Once there, Finley is met by his preceptor, Dr. Krokowski, and a colleague who accompanies her to her first appointments. After this, he is assigned to attend to his own patients independently, following his natural hospital routine, with demands and issues specific to this area. 

What Fall of Porcupine tries to do is to put us in the place of a health professional, to understand the routine of these professionals and how stressful and even unrewarding it can be. Finley is a hard-working guy who genuinely cares about his patients while trying to maintain a good relationship with them and his co-workers. 

Outside the hospital, we follow his life as an ordinary person (or pigeon). We meet outstanding characters, such as Ingrid, the secretary who was once a nurse and who has suffered from back pain forever, Adele, an elegant but eccentric little lady who seems to know the history of the town in-depth, and Susi, Porcupine's only wallet and who knows about everyone's lives. Maybe even more...



Between dialogues that are sometimes funny and a little silly, sometimes contemplative and full of meaning, Fall of Porcupine elaborates a narrative centered on captivating and dense characters, given the dimension of the work. The game, which is very similar to a visual novel, reminds me of a lot of games like Night in the Woods and Spiritfarer but has a well-defined identity that sits intimately in the field of health care. 

However, I felt that the game is slow in telling its story. The dialogs, long and not always assertive, can leave the player bored. And because it is an experience centered on storytelling, I believe this is a negative point that can directly impact the gameplay. 

Sometimes I found myself wanting to advance the dialogs so that they would soon fill up the little text boxes simply because the experience was already becoming tiresome for me. I am a big fan of games with a dense and textual story (I advise you to read my review of Pentiment), but for it to be able to absorb me, it needs to have, more than a good storyline, the appropriate narrative rhythm.

Simple activities, deep meanings

The gameplay of Fall of Porcupine is relatively simple. Since it is a kind of visual novel, the commands are basic, such as moving the character and performing small tasks. These tasks are the way we attend to our patients. Through small puzzles and activities, we can medicate them, examine them, change their clothes, and more. 

For example, to medicate a patient we need to find the balance between the dosage of the medicine and the number of pills. We do this using a list that shows us bars that we need to fill by balancing the pills.

In addition, some other events will require our direct participation, such as when a character drops collection tubes and we need to rearrange them according to their rather complex and unnecessary form of standardization. This consists of sorting the tubes by colors that need to form large colored squares. You will get a good idea of this in the picture below.



Besides these activities, we need to follow the routine of the hospital and the personal life of our doctor. For this, we rely on the help of a cell phone where we receive our notifications. 

Overall, Fall of Porcupine maintains cozy gameplay. This is one of those games that you try on a rainy and boring night, relaxing to the soundtrack of the game itself (which, by the way, suits the proposal very well). You will not have great difficulty in performing the puzzles, although some of them require a little more motor coordination. 

However, there are some things that can take the peace of the game, making it boring to some extent. You will encounter loading screens every time you change rooms, which in itself is already a bit of a nuisance. But if that were not enough, they last longer than they need to. They don't take forever, but long enough to break the rhythm of the game little by little. 

If you have a little more patience and just want to pass the time with a light, intriguing game with a narrative that is a beautiful metaphor for real life, Fall of Porcupine is worth your time.

Poetry for the eyes, art for the ears

With hand-painted graphics and a relaxing soundtrack, the game manages to engage us in a very poetic visual experience. Starting in a surrealistic dream and moving into the reality of the professional routine, we can observe the nuances of the lives of very well-constructed characters, with animal archetypes that comprise their personalities. 

In addition, the town of Porcupine is conquered by being a peaceful place, even though it hides its secrets. I feel that it is the town that Autumn has chosen to live in. For me, there is a lot of poetry in the art of the game, which certainly makes it a particularly enjoyable and meaningful work.



And if that were not enough, the soundtrack puts the experience in its arms, dictating its peaceful pace without jerky movements, always reminding us that games are works whose artistic value is presented powerfully when it needs to be. 

For this review, Fall of Porcupine was played on the PC, through Steam.

Huge thanks to Assemble Entertainment for providing the Fall of Porcupine access key, which made this content possible.