Pigeon: A Love Story captures that feeling of looking for a specific book in a bookshop, or being surrounded by friends but feeling alone. In it you take on the role of a faceless pigeon, soaring above a skyline amid tens of thousands of other faceless birds as you search for your mate.
In this case, perhaps as I was playing the build at New Game Plus in London, the skyline that I explored was a to-scale version of the UK Capital, complete with tags for landmarks. It was a little bizarre to flap along the Thames, knowing that I could wander less than thirty minutes from the door of the venue and see a bunch of the landmarks that I’d just passed over. Tokyo, Amsterdam and more are said to be joining London with the release of Pigeon: A Love Story.
On the other hand, it was a surprisingly freeing experience, just making my way through the skies and occasionally calling out for the one of the thousands of birds that I had to find. I guess, in that same way, it was quite a thoughtful and lonely experience – something not dissimilar to living in a busy city – where you can pass by hundreds of people on a street, yet not connect with a single one of them.
There’s a couple of extra elements at play – beyond tourism at several thousand feet high – such as the ability to gather birdseeds in order to call out further, and the birds that reject you will sometimes spit out witty rejections.
I think, for me, the magic here is the tourism aspect, but I’m really interested in seeing how it develops and if more features are added before its launch later this year.
Pigeon: A Love Story is currently in development for PC, Mac and Linux
