Beacon Pines

Set within the pages of a mysterious book, the town of Beacon Pines appears like a picture-perfect fairy tale – but this façade hides a dark, long-buried secret. You play as Luka, the kind-hearted protagonist, who spends his days reading comic books and seeking adventure with his fearless best friend, Rolo. When they decide to explore strange goings-on at the old abandoned warehouse, however, they’re soon entangled in a sinister web of danger, deceit, and decision-making that will determine the fate of the whole town. 

Beacon Pines is a curious visual novel with a twist (pitched as ‘Winnie-the-Pooh meets Twin Peaks’), the core game mechanic involves collecting word ‘charms’ as you progress through the story. At key plot points, you can then select from your charm collection to fill in blank words in the storybook to direct the narrative course. Though technically simple, changing just a single word can result in drastically different – sometimes fatal – outcomes.

Exploring one story branch can yield a charm that can be used in another branch, so even if one branch leads to a dead end, this gives you the means to progress further in another branch. Consequently, you aren’t bound by your choices as you might be in other decision-driven adventures, giving you the freedom to explore even the most undesirable fates with the knowledge that you can always rewrite events afterward (like how you’d keep your finger wedged in the decision pages in Choose Your Own Adventure books).

While some might find this lowers the stakes, I enjoyed how each branch gradually reveals more secrets while raising further questions. This motivates you to replay sections and slowly unravel the truth, ultimately working towards the ‘true’, and most satisfying, ending. Despite this mechanic, revisiting scenarios never felt like a chore – the creators have taken care to ensure each section seems fresh, with different charms opening up entirely new dialogue and events. And, as all are significant in some way, each branch feels as vital and ‘real’ as the last. (The only repeated content I found was a somewhat lengthy propaganda film about the town founder that you couldn’t skip if you had the misfortune of stumbling into a festival tent more than once.)

The visuals look like the pages of an enchanting children’s story come to life; settings appear as cozily charming hand-drawn vignettes, and dialogue is enriched with detailed personality portraits that capture the emotional range of the colorful cast of anthropomorphic characters. The playable character sprite is quite simply animated in comparison – a two-dimensional model that brings to mind a paper doll with movable joints – though this felt consistent with the overall style and is offset by the descriptive portraits.

As the character model moves freely with just the arrow keys, I sometimes found it slightly cumbersome to control, occasionally having to readjust multiple times to interact with hotspots. Thankfully, environments are easy to navigate, and precision isn’t too important to the gameplay, so this is a minor quibble.

Most importantly for a game of this nature, the writing was excellent – compelling, emotive, descriptive, and complemented wonderfully by the warm, expressive narrator and sweeping, dynamic piano music. Characters are well-drawn narratively as well as visually; I found them genuinely funny and likable, from brash, excitable Rolo to shrewd, rebellious Beck. Don’t be fooled by the cute characters and storybook aesthetic, either – despite its short length of 5–6 hours, this told a surprisingly thoughtful tale, spanning themes of change, loss, and friendship with a unique and creative approach. There are also various satisfyingly dark twists and memorably poignant moments, including a couple of endings in particular that demand you keep playing.

Though I didn’t find it quite as hard-hitting as comparable titles like Night in the Woods overall, it was impossible not to be totally beguiled by Beacon Pines – a cozy yet creepy gem that is the perfect opening to the fall season.

The Good

• Unique, branching storytelling approach
• Enchanting art style with expressive character portraits
• Lovable characters and humorous dialogue
• Well-written story that explores profound themes

The Bad

• Short game length
• Simply animated character sprites
• Occasionally cumbersome controls
• Low-stakes gameplay might deter some

Our Verdict

Very good

A game of very high quality. Although some aspects might have been executed better, we would recommend this game without hesitation.

Beacon Pines is utterly charming yet wonderfully creepy, with a surprisingly thoughtful narrative despite its cute characters and storybook aesthetic.