A children's book comes to life...
Developer:
Hiding Spot Games
Release date:
September 22, 2022
Platforms:
Official Description:
Beacon Pines is a cute and creepy adventure game within a magical storybook. You play as both the reader of the book and its main character, Luka. Explore the town to find word charms and use them to change the course of fate.
I will admit that as a gamer, games that offered multiple decisions as opposed to a linear
predetermined experience, terrify me more than most horror games could. The amount of choice offered to me and the risk of influencing an unfavorable outcome would have me petrified and overthinking the next moves I made. In Beacon Pines, however, the sleepy town and the cutesy children’s reading book style do well to mask the sheer amount of control you have over the direction of the game.
Developed by Hiding Spot, Beacon Pines makes use of a mechanic called the Chronicle
to let you track when and where your story diverges, (the game calls these turning points) and allows you to go back and influence those moments again once you have collected more “charms”, words that describe what Luka, our main character is experiencing, to create another possibility from this moment onward. Though games that take this route tend to have several bad timelines and one true ending, you can look at these branches as more like a precursor to the ending than as failed playthroughs. This doesn’t however, mean that there is any lack of tension or excitement to be found here.
If it sounds confusing, don’t be alarmed because Beacon Pines does a great job of making
what could easily be a daunting, gothic film noir sleuth, a charming and delightful narratively
focused adventure. Stylistically reminiscent ( to me at least) of A Night in The Woods, there
should be enough charisma here in this cast of characters to keep you engaged and willing to see the true ending over the course of this 6 or so hour adventure.
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