Fall of Porcupine

This game has been likened to Night in The Woods, and it suffers for the comparison. Sure, the 2D platforming and anthropomorphic animals are similar. So is some of the gameplay. But there isn't much else here that quite lives up to the heights of NITW. I am not trying to compare this game to NITW; that would be unfair. I really wanted to like this game because it seemed right up my alley. A mystery in a small town with adorable animal characters? Sign me up. But the plot is very basic, slice of life stuff. Not a bad thing if that's what you want, but I don't see any themes the game is interested in exploring. It pays homage to healthcare workers, but won't delve into any subject matter meaningfully. The game touches on burnout as a healthcare worker, but doesn't delve into much else. Other topics they could have explored include the the consequences of a broken healthcare system, the realities of living in a small town, or even homelessness (seeing as one of the NPCs is homeless). There are some hints at an inclination to delve deeper, but unfortunately it's mostly random generic platitudes. It's a very fluff-heavy game for the most part. Not to compare to NITW again, but that game manages to address so many themes and topics. I understand that not every game needs to have a serious "message" but it just seems like a missed opportunity. The game just falls kind of flat. Even the burnout aspect I thought could have been handled better. On the bright side, I do like the characters. I like Finley, Mia, the two brothers admitted at the hospital and Ingrid. I enjoyed hanging out with them and hearing about their day. I enjoyed interacting with the patients, and some of the mini-games grew on me (except the stethoscope one, which I found nearly impossible and very frustrating). Having said that, I wish the town of Porcupine was laid out better. There is so much dead space, with such little opportunity to interact with objects and spaces. There is a jumping mechanic in this game, but there may as well not be, because there isn't much to explore in the town or the hospital that makes use of that mechanic (except for one area in the basement where the game becomes uncharacteristically creative in its use of space). Others have said this too, but I need to mention it again. The game is very buggy. Some are annoying but small, but there was one that broke the game for me. I changed something in the settings and I couldn't progress in the game anymore beyond a certain point. Other bugs include Finley using the elevator, despite the elevator being broken and that being the thing we are trying to fix. It's just sloppy, and given that the game was released in 2023, is kind of inexcusable. Finally, the ending. The game goes from zero to one hundred so quickly, and doesn't offer a satisfying resolution. The pacing is all off, because you spend 90% of the game doing basically nothing, and then everything just goes balls to the wall. The "mystery" is pretty tame ultimately. I won't give spoilers, but a couple of pretty insane things start happening near the end and you think the game is now ramping up to build to some epic conclusion but it just ends very abruptly. It's as if there is a whole scene missing. We don't get answers nor do we get any closure on all the characters we've spent all this time getting to know. I really want to recommend this game, but I can't. It has zero replay value, unless you want to sit through hours of running around empty spaces just to unlock a couple of extra surface-level conversations.

I wanted to like it, but the pacing of the story wasnt great at all, you can tell it takes inspiration from night in the woods, but the story and gameplay in this is sooooo slow, the mini games drag on and the majority of the game is spend walking thru and empty town and an empty hospital with very few meaningful interactions, the idea is there, a story about the world of a hospitals and its workers, but it gets buried under bad choices, the entire first and second act are slow to set up an overarching story and mystery that gets blasted thru in the 3 act with no real conclusion, a lot of questions are left unanswered and the ending is so abrupt after throwing you in mini game hell, i also encountered so many bugs during my playthrough, so many mini games failed cause the buttons pressed just arent registered and a lot of visual and dialogue bugs as well

I liked the town, the characters, and most of the story, but the overall narrative didn't come together and I felt let down by that. Generally works well on Steam Deck except for some of the minigames, even with the simple setting turned on. The other issue is that the screen size doesn't fit the Steam Deck screen and there was no way to change it.

creepy cute mystery game. I loved the game "night in the woods" and this gives the same vibes. it's pretty relaxing also for a chiller. play time 15hr when I split it between 3 days.

Despite some really touching moments, most of the story is flat, not to mention that it lacks an actual ending, leaving a ton of unanswered questions and a game that feels incomplete. Just like the story, the gameplay has some good moments, some minigames are actually fun, but for the most part it's just painfully slow, and there are way more bugs than you'd expect to see in a 2D game that costs 20 dollars. Sadly, the game falls short of its potential, it's not garbage, but it's not worth 20 bucks either.

♥♥♥♥

The story has glacial slow pacing and takes too long to get to the point. I was a good 6+ hours in and not much had happened. I’ve seen that it’s around the 8 hour mark when things start picking up, but just… ugh. Too much pointless dialogue and platitudes about life. At one point, I started skipping through it. Gameplay gets monotonous FAST and a couple of the minigames (stethoscope and that one where you have to dance to distract other NPCs for example) are buggy. It’s a beautiful game, but even that loses it’s charm when you’re running back and forth through mostly non-interactive environments. Idk I figured something that starts with a TW about depression, death, illness, etc would’ve had something poignant to say by now.

i loved this game it almost made me cry at the ending i 100% recammend it for anyone looking for a cry worthy ending

It a wonderful Indie Game. Reminds me a little bit of both Night in the woods and Beacon Pines.

I love the art of this game, simple but cute and special. And the music is wonderful. But the best thing is how it depicts the reality of people working on the healthcare system. I experienced some technical issues with the minigames, but I got through with the easy mode. All in all, I fully recommend this game. It's so human (even though the characters are cute animals, hehe). A game to reflect on!