Nobody likes rejection, but what about the birds? Do they care? Not likely. Especially if you’re a pigeon. How do I know this – an Attenborough documentary? Am I an amateur ornithologist? Nope. I’ve swept the skies in Pigeon: A Love Story and have been unfazed by the incessant rejections of the world’s pigeon population.
You might remember this title from before, as I covered an earlier build. The full game is much of the same thing, only instead of just London, we now have Paris, New York, Tokyo and some others. Wristwork have been very busy since the first iteration, as there’s a noticeable difference in the readability of the bird comments compared to last time, plus there’s the addition of a multiplayer option.
Now, if clicking the link above is too much effort, let me summarise the objective once more. In Pigeon: A Love Story, you play a pigeon flying over various cities of the world in search of a soulmate. There are no waypoints or clear identifiers of what your beau looks like to narrow it down, and when looking at the stats of some of the stages, at least a million birds are flying in real time over the city.
Each bird is a silhouette – the same as yourself, so no identifying features or pseudo-Disney looks and finding either a burly pigeon or one with a pretty pink bow. They all look and act the same, a.k.a. they’re all going to reject you. However, this isn’t a school disco and awkwardly walking up to someone you like and asking for a dance (or snog). Instead, like an urban bat, you send out a soundwave that turns the blue bird shadows into red ones.
The coo represents the rizz, and if interested, you’ll get back a positive response. Alas, as referred to above, the pigeons give countless excuses or statements, like no, thank you, dream on, I don’t even like pigeons… stuff like that. Keep turning the skies red with your attempts though, as you will get a hint that will advise you to fly in a direction, to ‘follow the wind’, or that you ‘have a long journey ahead’ because you’ve only just started or are on the wrong side of the city.
These coos are limited, but collecting crumbs in the sky increases the coo range and improves combos. Pigeon: A Love Story is an interesting idea, but they have… pigeonholed… some mechanics to make it a bit more gamey. Ultimately though, it’s an interactive Google Earth map where you can fly over very real locations, albeit artistic rather than photorealistic, with numerous landmarks to locate.
I previously compared this to a clicker as it’s a casual experience that relies on repetitive gameplay. Once you find your soulmate, you’ve completed that area, then rinse and repeat in the next city. Ultimately, Pigeon: A Love Story is more geared towards completionists who are happy to fly over every inch of the city for 100% progression. While there are no conventional waypoints, you can open up the map view and add a pin to direct you to an area you haven’t been to, or, for me, I looked up real-world locations and cross-referenced with the in-game map to see if I could unlock everything. There are optional clues, but expect to be flying around for a very long time.
Besides the solo play, there’s a multiplayer mode also where you can play with eight friends to locate them on the map, or find your soulmate before they find theirs. As can be expected, the multiplayer side didn’t appeal to me, though I was surprised at the ‘screensaver’ side of things. Yes, this is a game you’re supposed to play, but taking into account the really lovely soundtrack and seeing real-life cities, you can select the autoplay feature and watch our bird do the matchmaking, though more appropriately, locating your bit of stuff on your behalf.
An interesting game that is a bit niche, Pigeon: A Love Story does have limited options, though with the sheer volume of birds to ask out, landmarks to find and a general overview of the world’s cities from a bird’s-eye view, there’s not much else like it. It’s very good value anyway, but for all your sceptics and cheapskates, there’s a demo currently available at the time of typing.
