Matt : We’re painfully aware of the fact that Beacon Pines looks like a kids game, even though it’s not. How are you approaching the challenge of getting the game seen by the right audience? There are some adult moments and themes, but the art is almost storybook-like. The more we leaned into a narrative driven game the more appealing the talking portraits became as a lovely way to show more of the characters their expressions and gestures that otherwise would not exist with just the overworld sprites. Making all the places to explore look like images in a book just felt so natural and fits into the whole storybook narrative.įurthermore, the portrait art is very much inspired by the visual novel genre. We wanted the art to reflect this by not showing you everything and fading the edges, you just experience the parts that are wondrous and important to little Luka.Īlong came the idea to turn the world into a book. This story is based on a childhood summer adventure, if you think back to your own memories you’ll most likely not remember everything, just the things that seemed interesting to you as a child. All the places in town are their own little diorama making you, the player, see only glimpses of this world. The initial direction for the world is inspired by miniature dioramas. Ilse : The art style has its inspiration from a couple of different things. Who is responsible for the art? What were their inspirations? Once the story got to a certain point of complexity, adding or changing any part of it felt like placing a piece on top of a precarious Jenga board.īeacon Pines does look beautiful. There were innumerable difficult design and story decisions, for sure, but I was also consistently relieved when something about the design would just click. We have a big complicated diagram of all the story interconnections, and when I look at it now I can’t help but chuckle that it works. Matt : This was probably the most embarrassingly difficult part of making the game. How do you go about creating a story that branches in such an intricate fashion? How do you ensure a player carries an understanding of that narrative? One of the hardest parts of making the game was not just exploring all of these questions, but actually narrowing down that possibility space to what we hope is the best version of what the game could be.īrent : Once we started playing around with what we could do with Charms, we realized we could make a game that was about exploring all the ways a story could go. Are these words found in the world? Do you start each day with different words? Are the words single-use? Should the words be categorized in any way (adjective, verb, noun)? It goes on and on. Matt : The original idea for the mechanic came from the question: How might a narrative game work if, instead of selecting from a set of responses during a given conversation, you insert a single word which changes the context of a sentence? It turns out this simple question resulted in a wild number of potential directions for the game mechanic. What immediately grabbed us about Beacon Pines was the charms: artifacts that represent words and terms, which can then be used to change your own story. You can use those words at special points in the book to completely alter the path of the story. By exploring the town, you’ll find charms with words engraved on them. Some odd things have been going on in the town of Beacon Pines, and it’s up to you and your friends to get to the bottom of it. You play as both the reader of a mysterious storybook and its main character, Luka. The vibe is something like Winnie-the-Pooh meets Stranger Things. Matt: Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy adventure game. " Chapter 9 - Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back Pt.Could you give us a quick rundown of the game? " Chapter 9 - Two Steps Forward, Two Steps Back Pt. " Chapter 3 - Of Runaways and Stowaways Pt.
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