Beacon Pines Review

Beacon Pines demonstrates to us that there is still a lot of potential in interactive storytelling. Games that have interactive stories are usually like movies or TV shows. Independent games such as The Walking Dead followed the same structure but with simpler 3D graphics. But the Beacon Pines has been able to present a detailed story with multiple paths and endings in the form of a very attractive storybook.

Beacon Pines starts by opening a book. A Female narrator warmly begins to tell the story with a soft and catchy voice. This narrator sometimes literally reads the sentences engraved on the book’s pages. Other times she explains the situations or guides the gamer. Apart from this narrator, Unfortunately, none of the game’s characters are voiced and only unintelligible voices are given to them, which may become boring after a while.

Beacon Pines is the name of a fictional small town whose inhabitants are cute anthropomorphic animals. A seemingly calm, beautiful city with friendly and cheerful residents, but with dark secrets concealed behind the scene. You control a teenage boy named Luca who has lost his father for six years and his mother has recently disappeared. He lives with his grandma and has a relatively ordinary life. The story begins in such a way that it feels like we are dealing with a game for younger audiences. But soon you will notice that there is a dark sci-fi side to it. Here are many endings you may encounter usually associated with a disaster, failure, or the death of Luca. Here achieving an ideal ending is not an easy task, but for this, the developer has designed some creative solutions.

You earn items called charms during the game. You can get these by advancing the story, exploring the environment, and talking to the residents of the town. These items are words that you can choose in critical situations called Turning points to change the narrative direction. If the story goes in a way you did not like, you can easily go back to the previous turning points by a tree called The Chronicle and pick another charm and see which direction it will lead you this time. Returning to the past and choosing another way and taking a new path is fun, especially for those who love interactive books, While we must accept that the game is not suitable for those who are not story fans at all. Yes, we can categorize Beacon Pines in the adventure genre, but more than dealing with puzzles, you have to deal with dialogues, dialogues, and more dialogues! Therefore, the game is not suitable for everyone.

Beacon Pines is artistically fantastic. The game has wonderful visual illustrations for its charming and cute characters. The environment has a rich color palette and, there are lots of detailed paintings to see. Also, the overall book style of the game is truly unique. Adding to all this, atmospheric music tracks make us give a full score to the art department of the game in the end.

We recommend this game to everyone who enjoys experiencing a dynamic story and reading quality dialogues.

The review code was provided by the publisher