Beacon Pines (Game)

Beacon Pines is a game released by Hiding Spot Games on September 22nd, 2022. It is available on PC through Steam, itch.io, Nintendo Switch, and Xbox (included with the Xbox Game Pass). The game was funded by a successful project on Kickstarter, and was made in the Unity game engine.

## Development

Beacon Pines was conceived during the development of a turn-based roleplaying game named “Luka”, which had a rhythm centric battle system and was set in a medieval fantasy setting (which later influenced the game’s art direction). After 6 months of constructing a demo and attempting to get this idea to work, the team (consisting of Matt Meyer, Brent Calhoun and Ilse Harting at the time) came to the realization that they were much more passionate about the game’s characters and stories, and found the simple act of traversing the world whilst talking to characters enticing. This drove them to change course and create an adventure game instead.

This decision meant throwing away the game’s hook, and so Hiding Spot began brainstorming ways to make the game stand out. Eventually, the team arrived at the idea of a story with words missing, and in order to fill the gaps, the player must find the words in the game’s world. Unlike their attempts at making Luka's hook more enjoyable, they managed to settle on a set of mechanics that made the idea work. Around this time, the game was also intended to be called “Welcome to Beacon Pines”, though was shortened for simplicity’s sake (concept art of the logo within the artbook also demonstrates this was the case).

On February 2nd, 2021, Hiding Spot Games launched a Kickstarter for Beacon Pines, which managed to be fully funded in five days (raising over $30,000 within that time) and also reach all of its stretch goals (the final one being hit less than 24 hour away from the campaign's end), which allowed Fishing, Cooking, voice acting for Storyteller/Narrator, a hand animated Chronicle and a button that made Luka dance to be added into the game. It ended on March 5th, 2021, had accumulated 2,772 backers and raised $84,548 for the game’s development. As 4 people paid for the "Help design a main character in the game" reward and 9 others donated towards the “Help design a town character in the game” reward, this resulted in 13 additional characters being added into the game, these being:

* Dawn
* Natt
* Kado
* Geoff
* Bert
* Piper
* Ylsun
* Joey
* Jase
* Zariel
* Griffin
* Lumi
* Jetson

The Kickstarter page also originally featured a demo with shorter branches of the Chronicle, but this demo is no longer accessible (though playthroughs of it can still be found online).

On April 9th, 2021, Kirsten Mize was announced to be the voice actor of Storyteller. Hiding Spot Games revealed that Beacon Pines’ publisher is Fellow Traveller on August 31, 2021.

After the game’s release on September 22nd, 2022, the game was updated on March 22, 2023 to add in the Cooking Minigame (giving previously unusable Charms a purpose), three new charms (Tender, Adorable and Lavish) as well as a button to let Luka dance.

## Trivia

* According to the pitch deck for Beacon Pines, a port to Playstation, Stadia and Luna was considered.

## References

2. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/1269640/Beacon\_Pines/
3. ↑ https://hidingspot.itch.io/beacon-pines
4. ↑ https://www.nintendo.com/store/products/beacon-pines-switch/
5. ↑ https://www.xbox.com/en-us/games/store/beacon-pines/9p4r2m0nrwnk
6. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3310244
7. ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@beaconpines/video/7055730918216109358?lang=en
8. ↑ https://twitter.com/BeaconPines/status/1572352404414205954/photo/1
9. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3235373
10. ↑ https://www.reddit.com/r/Unity3D/comments/lb1wzw/the\_absurd\_journey\_designing\_beacon\_pines/
11. ↑ https://discord.com/channels/616982269667704844/619497196089507850/735940932775575653
12. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 196
13. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3094580
14. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/description
15. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/rewards#reward-UmV3YXJkLVVtVjNZWEprTFRnd09ESXpNelU9
16. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook/ Beacon Pines Artbook, Page 75-81
17. ↑ https://hidingspotgames.com/beaconpines/demo.html
19. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h2h5dUO59k
20. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3155037
21. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3288204
22. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3761198
23. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sn5mV1ABn\_4
24. ↑ https://www.slideshare.net/PitchDecks/beacon-pines-game-pitch-deck