Game EXP: Pigeon's Mission (VSD)

Pigeon's Mission
Systems: Windows, macOS, Steam OS, Linux
Release Date: December 18, 2025
Publisher: Glowing Cheetah Studios
Developer: Glowing Cheetah Studios
Time Spent: 4 Hours 30 Minutes
Videos on YouTube

I'm not one to complain about skill walls (much).  I feel that there is something inherently wrong with two of the last four boss fights in Pigeon's Mission effectively being on the level of Dark Souls if Dark Souls were unfair, but also potentially bugged to the point that they create the illusion of a skill wall existing.  Unfortunately, this isn't a traditional Game EXP article because, as of January 26th, I have been unable to make it past the world four boss, I believe, because the game is either broken or contains a skill wall so absurd that Pigeon's Mission has missed the point of being a fun game co-designed by six-year-old Logan.

Pigeon's Mission is a 2D pixel art platformer at its core.  You play as Archie, a young pigeon who goes in search of his parents after they're taken in the middle of the night.  Throughout the levels, Archie gains new abilities to help him on his quest, such as converting all of your saved up energy (by collecting gold 'gems/coins') into one HP (you have a total of 4), using a bit of energy to perform a slower but more powerful attack, or using a vaccuum-like device to clear the screen of enemies.  The game is linear like New Super Mario Bros., where levels take only a couple of minutes to complete, and you can go back and replay levels to try and beat your previous time with all of the power-ups you've acquired in later levels.  Each world is made up of three traversing/platforming stages and a platforming stage that leads right into a boss fight.

The boss fights.  Sigh.

The game consists of, I believe, six worlds, although I have only made it to the boss fight of World 4.  The first two boss fights were great, both in terms of how they played out, how you needed to use some level of skill based on abilities learned during the stages of that world, and figuring out how best to use the seeds in the arena to your advantage instead of collecting them all in one go.  In each of the first two boss fights for World 1 and World 2, I never died once, realizing how best to attack the boss, and then beat them, figuring out what the developers wanted me to do.  They were a decent blend of fun without being a complete pushover.  

The third boss fight, against one Rocky Ronstar, was absolutely horrendous, although looking back, I still don't know why the fight gave me so much trouble.  Except I do. You had a special attack that used seed power that could stun Rocky for a few seconds, and then you could quickly switch to your regular attack to hit him 5-6 times.  Halfway through the fight, after Rocky started flashing (because bosses didn't have health meters, but used the old-school flashing indicator when they were at/about half their starting HP; this is, of course, speculation, as you will find out with the next boss) and would ocassionally jump up on a platform, pushing a button that made lava rise over the floor of the stage, requiring you to punch a button that would make platforms appear for Archie to safely jump on, with one platform disappears right after another one appeared.  Rocky's attacks also came a lot faster and were more varied, including a Cyclops-type blast that would take up 7/8ths of the screen and lasted just long enough that you couldn't jump/dash over it unharmed, and just low enough that you couldn't duck under it.  In one instance, Rocky glitched and jumped off his platform after starting the lava flow, and began attacking me while I tried to avoid him while jumping platforms.  In another instance, Rocky again glitched and just stopped moving, and I was able to defeat him.  Except when the screen went black, like it did after beating a boss, I had to start the level over again as it registered that Archie died, not Rocky.

World 4 consisted of a lot of underwater areas, and those were, for the most part, fine.  There wasn't anything that felt cheap or that the developers thought they could make the stages purposefully hard because "WatER STaGe!!"  The boss, however, Whirlpool Wave, I genuinely believe to be somehow broken.  But it wasn't always this way.  I watched a playthrough video, partly to build up my confidence that I could, in fact, defeat Whirlpool Wave, but also to see what I was doing wrong.  As it turned out, there was an update on December 28, 2025, that added some quality of life improvements, but also appears to have broken the Whirlpool Wave fight.  I think.  I have nearly an hour of gameplay video on YouTube, fighting Whirlpool Wave, and never beating him.  In the one YouTube video I could find, RoboRobVT beats Whirlpool Wave before the December 28th update, after hitting the boss around 30 times.  After the December 28th update, I have managed to hit Whirlpool Wave about 30 times before it starts flashing, and as many as 36 times after it starts flashing.  I also experienced a bug where Whirlpool Wave will sometimes continue its attack animations after you pause the game.  

My last complaint about this specific boss fight is that it's not interesting.  The boss looks great, its attack animations are, for the most part, fair, and all look good, but there's only one way for Archie to attack Whirlpool Wave: by performing a dash attack.  Each dash uses up a bar of Archie's special move meter (different from the seed power meter), something that didn't exist before the December 28th update.  You also need the dash to safely pass through the whirlpool attacks and to defeat the swordfish that Whirlpool Wave summons.  And you occasionally need to use the dash when Whirlpool Wave summons the spikes that shoot up out of the ground, and the only two safe places are halfway across the screen, which you have literally one second to figure out where that safe place is and get there.  Everything you do in this battle is centered around the dash attack and the management of your special move meter (which I've also noticed has an inconsistent refresh rate).

I have reached out to the developers through multiple channels, each time with zero response.  The first was on the Steam forums, but they appear not to have posted or responded to anything there since the game was released on December 18th.  I sent a message through Glowing Cheetah's contact page and never heard anything back.  I lastly reached out on Glowing Cheetah's Discord, and there's been very little activity since launch; although two weeks ago, there was an acknowledgement of my message, but no follow-up.  So now I find myself in a self-imposed limbo of wondering if the game spiked into the realm of Dark Souls difficulty, and I'm just not good enough to beat Whirlpool Wave, or if there is some kind of infinite health bug.  But I haven't played the game since January 29th, and I don't really want to go back to what feels like a no-win boss fight.

So this is sadly where I am with Pigeon's Mission.  What started out as an adorable and amazing project started by a loving Dad, bringing to life the ideas and drawings of his kid in a game that started out fun to play, turned sour from a lack of communication on any front (others have noticed it too), and what appears/feels like a game-breaking bug.  That is what sucks so much about having negative experiences with the boss fights against Rocky Ronstar and Whirlpool Wave.  The pixel art is great, the animations are fluid, the ability selection is a little clunky at first, but you get used to it, and by World 3, switching attack abilities becomes almost second nature.  The music, while not original to the game, is fun and suits the world and gameplay.  But something needs to be done after the December 28th update, because now it just feels softlocked and joyless.  Hopefully, I can come back to this if there's ever another patch/update.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian

Don't Forsake My Troubled Times