At one point on the Steam page, Beacon Pines is described as “Twin Peaks meets Winnie the Pooh.” If an equation could ever make us play a game, it would be this one.
Beacon Pines has intrigued us from the moment a demo hit PC. At first glance, this is a cute narrative adventure that could have been an Animal Crossing Halloween event. But if you scribble a little further, it’s clear that this is a very mature adventure, full of dark themes, fruity language and the loss of innocence.
It is therefore not your average adventure game. Beacon Pines is the kind of game that would welcome an interview with the creators because we have so many questions about the creation and reactions. Then color us happy that we got the chance to do just that.
Hi, could you introduce yourself and your role on Beacon Pines?
Matt Meyer – creative director, co-writer
Ilse Harting – main artist
Brent Calhoun – co-writer
Can you give us a brief overview of the game?
Mat: Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy adventure game. The atmosphere is like Winnie-the-Pooh meets Weird stuff. You play both the reader of a mysterious storybook and its protagonist, Luka. Strange things are going on in the town of Beacon Pines, and it’s up to you and your friends to get to the bottom of it. By exploring the city, you will find charms with words engraved on them. You can use those words at special points in the book to completely change the path of the story.
What immediately grabbed us about Beacon Pines were its charms: artifacts that represent words and terms, which can then be used to change your own story. Where did that idea come from?
Mat: The original idea for the mechanic came from the question: how could a narrative game work if, instead of choosing from a set of answers during a given conversation, you insert a single word that changes the context of a sentence? As it turns out, this simple question resulted in a wild number of possible directions for the game mechanic. Can these words be found in the world? Do you start each day in different words? Are the words for single use? Do the words need to be categorized in any way (adjective, verb, noun)? It goes on and on.
One of the hardest parts of making the game was not just researching all these questions, but narrowing that possibility down to what we hope is the best version of what the game could be.
Brent: Once we started playing with what we could do with Charms, we realized we could make a game that was about exploring all the ways a story can go.
How do you create a story that branches in such an intricate way? How do you make sure a player understands that story?
Mat: This was probably the most embarrassingly difficult part of making the game. We have a big intricate diagram of all the interrelationships between the stories, and looking at it now, I can’t help but chuckle that it works.
There were no doubt countless difficult design and story decisions, but I was also constantly relieved when something in the design just clicked. Once the story got to a certain point of complexity, adding or changing any part of it felt like placing a piece on a precarious Jenga board.
Beacon Pines looks beautiful. Who is responsible for the art? What were their sources of inspiration?
Ilse: The art style is inspired by a number of different things. The initial direction for the world is inspired by miniature dioramas. All the places in the city are their own little diorama through which you, the player, only see a glimpse of this world. This story is based on a childhood summer adventure. When you think back to your own memories, you probably don’t remember everything, just the things you found interesting as a child.
We wanted the art to reflect this by not showing you everything and blurring the edges, you just experience the parts that are wonderful and important to little Luka.
Together came the idea to make the world a book. It felt so natural to have all the places to explore look like pictures in a book and fit into the story of the whole storybook.
Moreover, the portraiture is strongly inspired by the genre of the visual novel. The more we leaned into a story-driven game, the more appealing the talking portraits became as a beautiful way to show more of the characters their expressions and gestures that wouldn’t otherwise exist with just the overworld sprites.
There are some adult moments and themes, but the art is almost storybook like. How do you take on the challenge of showing the game to the right audience?
Mat: We are painfully aware that Beacon Pines looks like a child’s play, even though it isn’t. Fortunately, we’ve found that there are many people who find the combination of “cute and creepy” attractive or at least intriguing.
Brent: Starting with a storybook feel gives us plenty of interesting places where our story can grow. Many of the themes the game revolves around deal with the concept of change. From the transitions that happen as a young person grows up to the upheaval of a small town forced to catch up with the modern world.
We got some nostalgia from Beacon Pines – the sense of adventure you get when you break the rules as a group of kids. Did this all come from your own childhood?
Mat: We wanted to inject as many of our childhood memories as possible into the moment-to-moment gameplay (kicking a field of dandelions, snooping around where they shouldn’t, throwing things at electric fences, etc.) One of the main pillars of designing Beacon Pines was what it feels like to be in the world, and those moments are a big part of that atmosphere.
How Dark Do Beacon Pines Get? It has the ‘Horror’ tag on Steam, but is it really horrifying?
Mat: It gets pretty dark and spooky at times, although I’d say it’s more creepy than downright horror. Due to the dynamic branching in the story, the game does quite a bit of genre hopping. Some branches are creepy. Some are cozy. Some turn into a heist movie. It all depends on the charms played at key moments.
Brent: We wanted to make a game with bets. Where players feel that things matter. So there is certainly danger here and there.
A challenge for a single-player narrative game like this is often to give players a reason to play again. Are there reasons to return to Beacon Pines?
Mat: While the game is mostly designed to be played as a whole, there are a few ways that it can be fun to replay the game.
First, we’ve packed in a lot of dramatic irony, humor, and inside jokes that players won’t really notice until after multiple playthroughs.
Second, there are fishing and cooking mini-games, which rely on the non-story-critical charms you encounter throughout the game, but put a more playful twist on the way charms are used.
The demo for Beacon Pines has been in the hands of players for a while now. Did producing a demo help the game? What impact has the municipality had on its development?
Brent: Player feedback has been super important throughout the process. It was very useful to be able to see all the game playthroughs that people have shared on YouTube and Twitch. They gave us valuable insights into what worked and what didn’t.
I also don’t think I can overstate how great it was to see people raving about Beacon Pines! If game development is a marathon, our community is the paper cup of ice-cold gatorade we desperately needed.
What’s it like to be about to release your debut game?
Mat: Terrifying.
Brent: What he said.
When can we expect the full game of Beacon Pines?
Mat: We don’t have an official release date to announce yet, but it’s not far off.
You have all the money in the world to make a sequel to Beacon Pines. Where is the game going?
Mat: We have many ideas for interesting expansions and/or a sequel. But to be honest, we’ve spent so long making this game that I think we need some breathing room. I look forward to a day when I have put enough distance between myself and Beacon Pines that I can go there with fresh eyes.
Until then, I can’t wait to see other people’s reactions to the game when it comes out!
Many thanks to hiding placethe developers of Beacon Pines, for taking the time to answer these questions.
We’ve just finished the final season of Stranger Things and are ready for an animal-swapped game with a similar vibe. Bring it on Beacon Pines! Rest assured we’ll be coming to you with more news and information about Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch release dates when we have them.
For now it is probably worth a visit to the Beacon Pines Steam Page.
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