From left to right: Rolo, Luka, and Beck
This is a story about [change]/[escape]/[survival]. It was far from the sort of change Luka imagined for himself. But change is, after all, a dangerous animal.
Beacon Pines is an Adventure Game by Hiding Spot Games, distributed by Fellow Traveller. It follows the summer adventures of three kids — brash Rolo, street-smart Beck, and introspective Luka — in the eponymous mountain town. Mysterious things have been happening in the abandoned warehouse nearby, so like any good protagonist, Luka goes to investigate!...
...and is murdered by a mysterious stranger in a hazmat suit.
Luckily, Beacon Pines is just as much a storybook as it is a game. By interacting with his environment, Luka collects "charms", keywords that can be inserted at vital points in the narrative. The right charm can change everything, and it's your job to provide one. Does Luka [escape] from the murderer? Does he [struggle], leaving traces of his identity behind? All choices lead to a different story, but which story is the best is for you to decide.
Following a successful Kickstarter campaign, which can be seen here
, Beacon Pines released on September 22, 2022. It is currently available for PC, via Steam and itch.io, as well as Nintendo Switch.
This game includes the following tropes:
- Arc Words: Change. It's the charm you're forced to use as Luka is inevitably killed when exploring the warehouse alone the first time around, and it's the charm that concludes the story in a way that lets you access the epilogue. The true substance contained in the Source is described as "a physical manifestation of change".
- Anti-Climax: When cornered alongside Iggy by Kerr and the Clipboards, Luka can choose to "Fight" them using the Mission Control Defense Cannon (MCDC), a plunger gun set up by Rolo to defend the treehouse. The situation is set up like Luka making a defiant Last Stand, even giving Kerr a "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner. He moves on to pull the trigger on the MCDC... only to discover that since Rolo didn't test the thing beforehand, the plunger just harmlessly slides out of the gun and lands on the ground. This causes Kerr to briefly grumble at Luka's "unsanitary" threat, before he nonchalantly sics his army of Clipboards on him and Iggy, who make short work of them.
- The Bad Guy Wins: The conclusion of the story should Luka explore the warehouse alone: Sharper Valentine has aged back up, attaining eternal life — the town is helpless as the Clipboards are capable of bringing the worst fears of the town to life should anyone try to defy him, and Sharper's fertilizer business makes a comeback, with no signs of it stopping anytime soon, even as the overuse of the Source causes the world's winters to grow longer and colder. Fortunately, given the game's main mechanic, it doesn't have to end that way.
- Book Ends: The story starts with Luka visiting his father's grave, and on the Golden Ending route, ends with him visiting his father's actual grave in old Beacon Pines.
- Brick Joke: Early in the game, when you go to the library, you can find a book titled "A Peek Behind the Curtain: The Methods and Ruminations of Patrick C. Montesquieu, One of the Greatest Acting Minds of our Time", written by...Patrick C. Montesquieu. As we learn, William Kerr, who acts as the CEO of Perennial Harvest, is actually Patrick C. Montesquieu himself, giving a VERY good explanation as to why the book ended up there to begin with.
- Chekhov's Gag:
- Iggy and Tish are shown early on shooting off fireworks to prank the Clipboards from Perennial Harvest. When they need to break into the Perennial Harvest building, Luka asks Iggy and Tish for their help to use the same firework prank to make the Clipboard in the reception let a disguised Rolo in so he can investigate.
- If you used the "Shit" charm when confronting Roxy, Luka will kick her in the shins, distracting her long enough for both him and Rolo you run past. Roxy uses the same tactic to allow her and Fitz to escape after William Kerr and the Clipboards corner them in a hallway. He even reacts in the exact same way.Roxy/Kerr: Did that little shit just kick me?
- Chekhov's Gun: Beck's "Unlucky Penny" is used early when she meets Luka in one branch on to make a decision opposite on what it lands on. In the final branching point, she mixes it into Solomon's potion intended to age him up before giving it back to him, resulting in him being turned into a baby instead.
- Company Town: Beacon Pines was founded as one for the Valentines' fertilizer company. These days, it's less so.
- Cruelty Is the Only Option: As a part of learning the function of Charms, the player is at first restricted to only be able to use the Charm "Chill" once Luka and Rolo encounters Roxy the first time. This leads Luka to decide that the best way to deal with Roxy is to "be a little chill", resulting in him telling Roxy to relax and not be too hard on Rolo. This outcome, however, ends up triggering the first Bad Ending. But the first Bad Ending also unlocks the Charm new "Shit", which becomes the player's only avenue to continue the story. In this other version of events, Luka decides that the best way to deal with Roxy is to "be a little shit", resulting in him kicking Roxy in the shin and telling Rolo to make a break for it while she is distracted.
- Dramatic Irony: Everything about Luka's interactions with Solomon at the Founder's office in Perennial Harvest becomes this, especially as Luka makes jabs about the Founder, since in order to access this point, the player already has fully seen the branch from Luka exploring the factory alone and therefore knows Solomon is the de-aged Sharper Valentine.
- Dying Town: Most of Beacon Pines' buildings are boarded up, because of its defunct fertilizer factory. The mayor's attempt to revitalize the town amounts to little more than a unnecessarily fancy sign and a telephone box that nobody uses.
- Empty Chair Memorial: Luka's father's old fishing chair still stands by Old Pickler's Pound, where the two of them used to fish. Jetson, the local angler, offers Luka to bring it home with him, since it he does most of his fishing standing up any way, but Luka doesn't like the idea.
- Endless Winter: The original Beacon Pines is trapped in one due to the Source, with everyone having unknowingly relocated to an exact replica at some point in the past. In some of the Non-Standard Game Overs, Gran unwittingly plunges the replica Beacon Pines into one trying to destroy the Source on the day of the festival.
- Foreshadowing:
- The constant mention of the weather being unusually cold despite approaching summer, such as one child noting the disappearance of insects and Luka wearing a sweater. It's a consequence of the Source causing an Endless Winter in the original Beacon Pines that in many of the bad endings leads to the town freezing over because of Eleanor trying to destroy the Source.
- Depending on the order the player takes the routes: After Luka escapes from the warehouse without Rolo coming along, he'll be tasked the next day with delivering Gran's jam to Mr. Tolliver and Mrs. Fratelli. When Mr. Tolliver receives his, he nervously makes quite a display of accepting the delivery, so that everyone around will know about the "JAM" that he's going to put on his shelves posthaste. The reason gets shown later in the same branch; however, if the player first explores the story branch where Iggy gets shoved into the green goop, they'll already know that Gran, Mr. Tolliver, and Ms. Fratelli are organizing something together.
- During the fishing flashback, it's possible to fish up an old broken pocketwatch belonging to Sharper Valentine. Luka's father remarks that Sharper won't want it back because Sharper has "a contentious relationship with time". Beyond the obvious meaning that Sharper doesn't want his legacy to fade away, it foreshadows that Valentine's dealings with the Source involve the manipulation of time itself.
- Fishing Minigame: Interacting with the chair by the lake flashes back to Luka going fishing with his father, allowing the player to use certain collected charms as various types of bait (for example, the "Pull" charm has Luka affix a magnet to the hook, and the "Cling" charm is a ball of sticky tape). The objects that get fished up tend to shed a little light on the town's history, or provide glimmers of Foreshadowing.
- Heads or Tails?: Inverted with Beck's "Unlucky Penny", where she does the opposite of what the coin "tells" her to do. The use of this coin actually results in Solomon's potion doing the opposite of what it was meant to do (age him up) when she mixes it in.
- The Heist: Breaking into Perennial Harvest HQ is described as this, complete with the trio getting help from their friends and family.
- He Knows Too Much: In one version of Chapter 4, this is potentially stated verbatim by Mr. Nuncreed as he hands Luka over to the men in hazmat suits, causing a Non-Standard Game Over.
- Heroic Sacrifice: At the end of one path, Iggy in order to take Kerr with him, with his fireworks supply triggering the Source *just* enough to fill the hole in behind him.
- Immediate Self-Contradiction: After telling his grandmother that he is going to hang out with Rolo for the day, Luka turns to leave and his grandmother tells him to try and stay out of trouble. Luka promises that he will. Immediately afterwards the player is presented with the next objective: "Get into trouble with Rolo."
- Meaningful Name: Perennial Harvest, essentially means a harvest that lasts for a long or apparently infinite amount of time. The company's true goal is to allow Sharper Valentine the ability to live forever via the chemicals from the Source.
- Multiple Endings: The narrator's goal is to find the best ending to the story, with the charms changing the story's course with a single word, so these naturally result. The demo version of the game has the following endings:
- Death ending: Luka is investigating the warehouse alone when a hazmat worker grabs him and drags him off to a terrible fate.
- Tainted ending: Beck is splashed with toxic waste, turning a lock of her hair grey. She flees the scene.
- Peaceful ending: Everyone survives the confrontation at the warehouse, and a significantly chastened Luka decides not to go poking around anymore. The mystery is never solved, but the narrator congratulates you for finding a route where everyone is safe and happy.
- Never Say "Die": Zig-Zagged. Though it's stated quite plainly that Luka's dad had died, every bad ending Luka gets caught in stops short of stating his death outright. Even the ones where we see him and others frozen to death on screen will simply state they've been frozen forever.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: A brief bit of foreshadowing in one path that Luka is too distracted to catch: Rolo absolutely insists that their hideout be called "Mission Control". At one point, though, in a shaky walkie-talkie transmission he just says something about "the treehouse". He was trying to warn Luka to stay away from the treehouse, because the Clipboards are headed there to catch a mutated Iggy. It ends up being a Bad End.
- Open Secret: Mission Control, the secret treehouse where Luka and Rolo regularly meet, is known about by every other person in Beacon Pines.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: In one story branch, Beck invites Luka to her house, and between this and a massive storm coming in, Luka is unable to keep a promised meeting with Rolo, resulting in a heated argument that ends with the two renouncing their friendship. Unlike most instances of the trope, the aftermath of this argument and the events that lead to their reconciliation cause them to miss the third act entirely.
- Precision F-Strike: The person in the hazmat suit at the Valentine Warehouse says "Shit" after they see Luka snooping around in the scenario where he goes alone, the very first one you CAN get. In the version where Rolo goes with you and goes missing, when you talk to Mr. Nuncreed, he says "Shit" when he realizes Luka knows more than he should to reveal that HE was the person in the hazmat suit.
- Rapid Aging: What the factory's toxic waste causes. Hitting a branch, it makes that branch bloom into flowers within a minute...and then wither away completely. Hitting fur, it turns the fur grey. A more refined version of it results in both Rolo and Eleanor significantly aging.
- Red Herring: You'd be forgiven for thinking something truly supernatural was going on with William Kerr and his army of identical employees, with their cult-like mannerisms and ominous catch phrases. It turns out to be nothing of the sort; he's just an actor paid to be the CEO of a puppet company and his employees are apparently normal red pandas.
- Right Behind Me: On their trek through town, Rolo stops for a bit to catch his breath, so Luka goes on ahead at which point he turns a corner and encounters Rolo's sister, Roxy, who tells him in an annoyed tone that she is looking for Rolo. Luka nervously claims he hasn't seen him, just in time for Rolo to catch up with Luka again, to warn him that he they better stay try to stay clear of his sister, because she is currently mad at him. Luka repeatedly tries to convey to Rolo that he ought to shut up, but Rolo continues to boast that they have nothing to fear from Roxy, because she is "useless" and "a chump", and, finally catching Luka's drift, adds "And... she is standing right around the corner, isn't she?"
- Sequel Hook: In one ending, a character informs Luka that he is destined for greater adventures that will be told in future installments. Subverted when the narrator gets upset at this cliffhanger and scraps it immediately.
- Significant Anagram: The letters in "Perennial Harvest", the chemical company managed by William Kerr, can be rearranged to spell Sharper Valentine, the founder of Beacon Pines that's truly in charge of the company. This is foreshadowed by Solomon convincing Ylsun to rearrange the letters on the "Perennial Harvest Festival" sign to read "Sharper Valentine Festival".
- Silver Fox: Luka's grandmother is a surprisingly attractive elderly doe, with lush, wavy silver hair flowing across her back. However, she's actually his mother who was aged due to a large exposure to the aging chemicals.
- Small-Town Tyrant: Sharper Valentine used to be this, and his daughter Heiress is trying to continue the tradition, though she's somewhat ineffectual in dealing with the people. In the timelines where The Bad Guy Wins, Sharper becomes one more powerful than before.
- Something Only They Would Say:
- Gran reveals that she is actually Luka's aged-up mother when she refers to him by a nickname that only she and her husband used for him.
- Rolo, also aged up, quickly proves his identity to Luka by reminding him about the flaming chicken coop.
- Speak in Unison: The Clipboards do so, or nearly so, when there are multiple around. This is slightly odd, because they're apparently ordinary, but perhaps it's just part of the act.
- Story Branching: There is a key point in each chapter called a Turning Point where you have to choose which "charm" to insert into the story, with different charms resulting in different branches. Each Turning Point can be returned to at any time, and sometimes the player will need a charm only obtainable in one branch to gain access to a different branch.
- Surprisingly Creepy Moment: "Aw, lookit the pastel-colored world populated with fuzzy animals- did Luka just die?"
- The End... Or Is It?: In the Stinger of the initial version of the game, 10 years after the events of the game, a re-aged Sharper Valentine rediscovers The Source while playing in Old Beacon Pines. Since he has no recollection of his past wrongdoings, it is implied that he would go down the same path as before. However, this scene is not present in current versions of the game; the Beacon Pines wiki states that it was considered too confusing and undermined the epilogue's tone.
- To Be Continued... Right Now: A variant. After Iggy sacrifices himself to stop William from catching Luka and accidentally closes off the source, Natt comes in and says that Luka was ging to save the world, before walking off with Luka following behind. The branch ends saying that it'll be continued in "Beacon PIInes: Pines Harder, -Revenged Served Cold-, Second Time's A Charm". The Narrator is having none of it, and sends us back to find a proper ending.
- Tube Travel: The new telephone box in Beacon Pines is actually an access point to a tube transit system set up by Perennial Harvest to quickly travel to the old Beacon Pines and back.
- Undying Loyalty: Rolo towards Luka. When they were younger, Luka spontaneously took the blame for a chicken coop Rolo set on fire (though Iggy reveals in one route that it was actually him using illegal fireworks), and ever since then Rolo has been trying to show the same loyalty to him. For this reason, "flaming-chicken-coop moment" is a term Rolo uses to remind Luka that he won't let him do dangerous stuff alone.
- World of Funny Animals: Families are the same species, like Rolo and Roxy both being Maine Coon cats.
