Pigeon's Mission

Just reached world 5, and honestly the game is way better than I expected. The combat feels really solid and fast-paced — there’s no “dragging things out” feeling at all. Switching between weapons is super smooth, and a few of the boss fights are genuinely fun. I actually felt a real sense of accomplishment after beating them.

Pigeon's Mission reminds me of why I fell in love with gaming when I was a child. The controls are tight, the game is action packed and full of variety, and the art style is amazing. Gameplay - The game has a weapon system that is surprisingly deep. You collect seeds and use them as "universal energy" for all your guns, for healing, for your jetpack. The game looks like a simple platformer but it's actually about resource management. Picking the right tool for the job, prioritizing which enemies to take out first, and planning your route. It hides its depth and complexity behind the cute, childlike art style. Controls - Tight, crisp controls and very responsive. It's a real joy to just move and traverse the world. Variety - The game is jam packed with variety. It doesn't waste your time. It's tight, constantly introduces novelty, and it never gets stale. One moment you're jumping, the next moment you're flying, the next you're swimming and fighting swordfish, the next you hop on a roller coaster while dodging enemies. But looking at it as a whole, what it does for me specifically is that it makes me feel like a kid again. It has a childlike earnestness to it that I find unique and hard to find in today's gaming landscape. Many games try to be quirky or edgy, but Pigeon's Mission is simply trying to be itself. It has heart. What a joy! Highly recommended.

[b]TL;DR: Backed this game on kickstarter a while ago because it seemed cool to support an indie dev parent/son duo. Game's not very good. There are lots of weird design decisions that get in the way of what I [i] think[/i] the game is trying to be but maybe my visions just not good. 21 ish levels total (8 of which are bosses) means the time spent actually doing the platforming is much less. Probably not worth the $10. [/b] [h2]Pros: [/h2] Art style is cute. The pixel art is charming and there was clearly some love put into some of the animations (especially the end level animations). [h2]Cons:[/h2] [list] [*]The plot was drafted by a 6 year old. The characters don't talk [i] to [/i] each other so much as [i]at [/i] each other, so if you're over 12 you should probably just skip all the cutscenes. [*]Weird system mechanic interactions that make the movement system less fluid to engage with than it could have been. It's not "clunky" per se, but you'll see what I mean in the next section [*]None of the gimmick levels are fun [*]Very limited accessibility options (Key rebinding, colorblind mode). They do have a "turn off screen shake" option which I appreciate (without it I wouldn't have been able to play at all). [*]The bosses don't have any hitstun animations so your attacks don't feel like you're interacting with them even if you're hitting them and they "flash" [*]Buggy! So far I've seen: [olist] [*] A bug where my level progress/time didn't save (6-1). I was still able to advance, it just didn't record it. [*] A bug where you can still get hit by a projectile mid dash [*] A bug where the water level's dash attack caused multihits on an enemy boss [*] The crouch input while standing doesn't do anything. The tutorial in the first level said I'm supposed to be able to duck projectiles by holding down, but that just doesn't work. [*] Hitstun on air attacks on bosses not causing the momentum slow (so you can't stall in the air in the same way as on regular enemies/ the non bugged bosses) [/olist] [/list] [h1]Weird System mechanics: [/h1] [h2]Wall slide:[/h2] [list] [*]When jumping into walls, there's a delay before Pidgeon starts sliding down it which means that if you don't wait for the delay you can waste jump inputs. (They will never be cached or held for you, they're just gone). [*]If you choose to input "towards the wall" shortly after entering wall cling proximity range you can circumvent this delay if and only if your towards input is above some minimum length (that's about 1/6th the normal wall slide delay). This creates a system that tries to encourage you to perfectly time your towards input when wall jumping but ends up just feeling like the game wants to slow you down instead. Also the delay doesn't even apply if you dash into the wall instead so this might just be a bug (not sure how it slips through as a core system mechanic but...) [/list] [h2]The variable jump height: [/h2] The jump height is decided entirely by how long you hold the button [i]while on the ground [/i]. As soon as you're in the air you can no longer influence your jump height in any way (except cancelling momentum with the air dash). This means that it's incredibly precise to get the variable short hop heights which are as followed (measured in Pidgeon heights and I've tried to roughly estimate the frame window you have to do each with 1 frame = 1/60th of a second): 1/4 Pidgeon. 1-2 frames. Useless as it doesn't change your height enough for any of the levels to require this of you and it doesn't dodge low attacks/projectiles. It can be used to animation cancel the air attack with the landing frames but the boss enemies have so much health that this kindof damage optimization is literally never going to matter. 1/2 Pidgeon. 2-3 frames. Not very useful because the level design never asks you to do this one and it only lets you hop low melee attacks (not low projectiles). The only sources of low melee attacks are maybe 2 short enemies. 1 full Pidgeon. 2-3 frames. This is the height you want every short hop because it dodges projectiles, but the level design never really rewards you for doing that (because dash is projectile invulnerable most of the levels are designed to encourage you to dash through them instead of short hopping them which is a shame if players are looking for skill expressive ways of navigating the levels). [h2] Ladders: [/h2] [list] [*] No fast fall down ladders (spamming jump moves you upward in a weird way that doesn't make it possible to gain speed going up either ) [*] You can only interact with a ladder if >half of Archie's hitbox is on top of it (but it just feels unnecessarily precise given that the visual for Archie's model doesn't seem to always directly line up with his hitbox for the ladders). It could be that all the ladders in the game are a little thin but when that's the only way to fall down through thin platforms that's kindof damning. [/list] [h2] Enemy attack telegraphing: [/h2] Other platformers that have enemies/moving obstacles will have a clear indicator when an enemy is about to do an attack so that you as the observer/player can learn the cue, and then react when it's going to happen. Half of the basic enemies in the game only have melee attacks that aren't telegraphed. 1/4 of the basic enemies have ranged attacks that aren't well telegraphed. 1/4 of the basic enemies have telegraphed attacks (indicated by their character model flashing black for about 400ms) This pattern of poor enemy intention signaling is exacerbated by the boss design because they usually have [list] [*]contact damage on different body parts (but not always all of them) AND [*] a flashing red character model when below half hp (which makes the flashing black model a worse attack indicator than it already was). [/list] Most games would solve this by making the attack animations more readable, or giving the bosses special windup/prep animations before letting them do the attack. I won't spoil the final boss but know that his fight is the worst about this. (Both [b] knowing which parts of his body are active[/b] (can hurt you) and [b] trying to anticipate what attack pattern he's going to do next [/b] [h2] The gimmick levels[/h2] They're not fun. The minecart level sends you back to the beginning of the section every time you crash. It sucks. [h2] Other stuff that didn't fit anywhere else: [/h2] [list] [*]Secondary Weapon equips not saving between levels is annoying given how short the levels are. [*] The dash being a two charge system with a shared cd isn't intuitive (because it's hard to tell whether the sound cue for dash refresh means both dashes are available or just one of them. Imagine the situation where it makes the sound mid-dash (pretty frequent given that most enemies have projectile attacks) and it feels p bad. [*] Because the (floor) slide uses the same cd as the dash, sometimes the sound cue for dash refresh will happen but it seems like sometimes you're still locked out of sliding for an entire dash cd. I hope this is a bug. [*] No visual indicator for when dash comes off of cd. (There's a subtle "ding" sound that happens after about 2 seconds but good luck if you're hearing impaired). [*] The charged hammer swing requiring you to swing the hammer with a light attack before accumulating charge would be fine if using the light attack didn't immediately cancel all of your momentum. In a differently-paced game this would be excusable, but in this game it kills the pacing. Because there are platforming obstacles that require air + charged hammer, it shouldn't stop your momentum [b]and[/b] force a light attack if you start charging hammer and then try to jump (a jump cancel). You can dash cancel it but the buttons are awkward for my hands on controller and there aren't any key rebinding options so... [/list] Out of review space: Final score 4/10. It's a game. Couldn't return it xD

I had high hopes for this game, after completing it I had a few gripes. Especially with the squirrel boss. It is horribly designed, for example it can fly cards at you while spawning a machine that shoots at you while spawning a card that follows you all while constrained to the cards flying at you. It’s literally impossible to navigate, I literally only beat him because of rng. It was atrocious. Not being able to change controls, atrocious. No achievements. Having to skip cutscenes every time you re-try a boss. Movement is clunky and slow. However, the aesthetics are good. The premise is good. It has a good vibe. Just needs a lot of re-thinking of the mechanics and boss dynamics. If it ever goes on sell I’d recommend it. But only being able to kill that squirrel magician boss by pure rng and it not spawning a ton of ♥♥♥♥ on you killed this game for me up to the end.

So much love, passion and thought went into the creation of this game. It has everything you could ask for. The pixel art is stunning and charming. The storyline is captivating and entertaining. The gameplay is fun and fresh. And the fact that it’s all from the mind of a little kid is mind-blowing and inspiring. I highly recommend this game!!

I have to say so far the game has been super fun. this brings me back to my sega genesis days and i love it. the combat is great the soundtrack slaps and the weapons you get are really dope. sometimes its wild to think this is made by a kid who isnt even double digits! GREAT WORK!

Great game. very proud of what the father son duo has accomplished. Art style and charm are all here and the game play is fun. For me it's tough to move past not being able to support fullscreen. When this is added I will surely be back to explore more. Congratulations on finishing the game and I wish you both the best.

Great game so far, I'm looking forward to more from Glowing Cheetah Studios

I’ve just finished the second area and stage 3-1 and I’m enjoying the game quite a lot. If someone is looking for a reference game to compare it to, I’d probably mention the Sonic games on the Sega Mega Drive. The game is fast paced, each new area introduces a new weapon or tool, a new "movement" mechanic and new enemies. The boss fights are also entertaining. If you like old school platformers, I think you’ll enjoy this game.

Been a long time supporter of Pigeon's Mission, and the game has really come a long way. Right off the bat its a love-letter to retro games, and the spark of childlike whimsy can be found in every corner of the screen. There are still a few things I personally want to see in the game such as, more levels, collectibles, improved replayability, and much more polished platforming. However, the game has significantly improved from its last demo, and I appreciate the time, effort, and love that the devs are giving it. Highly recommended for young kids just starting out their gaming journey!