Fall of Porcupine is a Night in the Woods style story about healthcare, with a demo out now

Hard times for both cats and pigeons in small towns, apparently.

When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.

Fall of Porcupine’s anthropomorphic critters, troubled small town setting and light platforming give way to the obvious inspiration of Night in the Woods. It’s unsubtle, but maybe not a bad thing:Night in the Woodsisn’t a fluffy story, even with its fluffy protagonists.

With Fall of Porcupine looking to tell a story about healthcare as work, maybe showing its inspirations so clearly is a fair shorthand: this likely isn’t going to be a story about sticking plasters on grazed knees, even before you unearth whatever mysteries the town is hiding.

Finley—the pigeon, it’s the town that’s called Porcupine—is a new doctor, and he’ll have to deal with new job stress, a demanding boss, and navigating both friendly and professional relationships.

The teaser trailer reveals only glimpses and stressed out characters, while Finely flits between them. The playable prologue should show off a little more: and it’s now available for free onSteam.

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals

Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

The reigning Pope of 1-bit mystery games is back with a Halloween treat: a haunted house game you can play in your browser

Return of the Phantom, which is basically The Phantom of the Opera but with time travel, is free on GOG

I desperately hope Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Baldur’s Gate 3 and Disco Elysium inspire more RPG devs to reject the traditional drip, drip, drip of DLC and expansions