Charms

Charms are small tokens with a word and image engraved upon them. They provide the only way to significantly affect the story of Beacon Pines: in **Turning Points**, one can use the Charm's word to complete the sentence, giving it a different meaning and causing the story to branch onto a different path. Charms must be discovered as one progresses through the story, and they can only be obtained after certain dialogues in exact story branches or after being an additional reward for interacting with environments and/or other characters. Once a charm has been used to its fullest potential at a given Turning Point, a checkmark will be visible in its lower-righthand corner when that Turning Point is viewed in the Chronicle.

Most Charms are obtained in linear order. Using incorrect charms first to face bad endings, the player will obtain new charms in every branch, every time returning back to the previous Turning Points with new options available to unlock new story progress and to move the plot forward to reach the final ending.

Acquiring the first charm grants the player "**A Charmed Life**" achievement.

## Development

The original idea for Charms came when Hiding Spot Games needed a hook for the game that would become Beacon Pines, as while they found the stories and characters interesting, they struggled to find a design that clicked with their previous concept (a rhythm-based RPG). After deciding to focus more on the story aspects of the game, they thought of what would happen if, instead of selecting from a list of actions or a set of prewritten responses to impact the story, the player inserted a single word into an important moment, and these words were something the player could collect within that same story.

While this original idea persisted throughout the rest of the game's development, it took a while to find a good metaphor for these collectible words. Initially, they were treated as cards, which would've been stored in Luka's diary (another cut feature). Several card designs were experimented with, including ones where Luka's expressions were silhouetted, and others using similar art to what is used in the final game, but with different card borders for each card. This was scrapped due to how, in games, they're often associated with abilities and the like. They also tried to represent these words on a mechanical device, which had multiple designs and even a 3D-modeled version of a device prototype created.

Eventually, they landed on naming them "Charms", though it wasn't until they got feedback that they decided to visually represent them as such. According to Matt Meyer, "Charms were a great way to represent collectible words, without the baggage of cards or limitations of a mechanical device. They were nice and shiny and gratifying to collect". In earlier versions of the game, charms had symbols that denoted what Turning Point they could be used for, though this was eventually taken away. They were also originally going to be single-use, but refill at the start of each new day, though this idea was discarded due to how easily players could get stuck without the appropriate word.

## Appearance

Charms typically look like a portrait of Luka displaying different emotions or actions with light background. In some cases, Luka is absent, and instead an item is displayed on the charm. All charms have shiny golden frame with a label at the bottom. When it comes to choosing a charm for a Turning Point, the line beneath the missing word will have a unique icon related to that Turning Point (a heart, a triangle, a four-pointed star, etc.).

## In-Game Charms

**Note**: As the game is somewhat non-linear, and certain charms can be collected through different means or in different Chapters (e.g., the Junk charm can be obtained in any Chapter where the kitchen drawer in Luka's house is reachable), the order the Charms are listed in below will not be the same order all players will obtain them (especially since some are optional).

## Trivia

* In the artbook, 3 charms (Hard, Rumble and Lavish) are marked by the developers as their favorite.
	+ **Hard** is marked as "**Matt's Favorite**".
	+ **Rumble** is marked as "**Brent's Favorite**".
	+ **Lavish** is marked as "**Ilse's Favorite**".
* During early development, there existed cards (the prototype term for Charms) such as "Snort", "@!#?@!", "Flirty", "Limping", "Dancing", "Shaking" and "Thwack".
	+ The artwork for **Flirty** has since been used for the **Tender** charm.
	+ **Thwack** was later reworked into **Smack**.
* Before the Cooking minigame was added, the Indulgent, Succulent and Incendiary charms were still obtainable, despite being unusable.
* The Tender, Lavish and Adorable charms were previously unobtainable in the game until the 1.1.1 content update. Their existence was only known due to their existence in the game's code and artbook.
	+ The Tender and Adorable charms were previous referred to as "Flirty" and "Cheery" respectively.
* The Chill charm has the most uses in the game, being useable in 3 different Turning Points and the Cooking Minigame.
	+ This is likely to foreshadow various events in the game.
	+ It was also seemingly going to be used for the fishing minigame.
* The Artbook lists the Pungent charm as "unused", despite it being usable at launch for the Fishing minigame. This could potentially be due to the art being different from what’s in the final game, though the used artwork is never shown.
	+ The Indulgent and Lavish charms aren’t marked as unused despite the former not having a use until the Cooking minigame was added, and the latter was unobtainable until the 1.1.1 content update, even though the Adorable charm is marked as unused for that same reason.
* The Pungent charm was orginally going the be labelled "Rotten".
* Junk is used in the Warehouse of Horrors Turning Point in the game's release date/launch trailer, though considering it (unlike the Change and Struggle charms) lacks the symbol that denotes it can be used at that Turning Point and how even the earliest demo didn't have it as an option, this was likely an addition purely intended for promotion.

## References

2. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 179
3. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 178; 180
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 https://www.gamedeveloper.com/design/how-word-choice-transformed-the-exploration-driven-world-of-i-beacon-pines-i-
5. ↑ https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3248332
7. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 132
8. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 133
9. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 134
10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2103234672/beacon-pines/posts/3388113
11. ↑ https://store.steampowered.com/app/2141050/Beacon\_Pines\_Artbook Beacon Pines Artbook, page 135
12. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TctBkdMcJ\_Q
13. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAX8YBGje80
14. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h2h5dUO59k