Beacon Pines

good visual novel style game.

This was such a delightful game to play! The characters are cute, the plot is intriguing, and the UI was clean and easy to use. Don't let the fluffy artwork fool you, it IS possible to die many times throughout the story, though most of the deaths are off-screen and there is never any gore. Luckily the game is very forgiving and provides you a story branch so you can quickly select a scenario and replay the route. The mystery leads up to a big conspiracy that is really fun to unravel, and I enjoyed watching the bad endings as well for how unexpected (and kind of funny) some of them are. This is a great cozy game that'll take you a couple hours to finish, and can be played with/by older kiddos too!

As the description says, you play the part of both reader and main character, with the narrator being your guide though the story. The narrator makes the game twice as good as it would be otherwise - she injects so much emotion and feels into this story, it honestly feels like a family member reading a story to you in bed.

Bought this today and played all the way through in one sitting. Totes adorable. I really love this mechanic where you can go directly to the branching choices and try another branch. I think a LOT more VNs could benefit from that. (This is not a VN, but the branching choices concept is similar, and handled here better than most.)

Great story telling game. Naration is really good. Just wish it had mouse controls.