Asbury Pines Early Access Impressions
You’ve never played an incremental game like this one.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
Everly Praetis is brutally murdered in the town of Asbury Pines. The grisly crime shakes the town to its core.
It may sound like the plot of Twin Peaks, but that’s only the surface. In Asbury Pines, the effects of the slaying ripple through the distant past and the far future, as we follow a cast of dozens living their lives in the place that will become Asbury Pines, is Asbury Pines, and was Asbury Pines. Each generation has its own drama to live through.
The non-linear story unfolds as you let characters “live their lives” on the rapidly expanding timeline, with new events appearing—conversations, crime reports, events, and more—for you to read as time progresses. You may only understand the significance of certain events once another character’s perspective is revealed far later in the narrative. The sense of discovery when connecting the dots from one era’s events to another’s is deeply satisfying.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
Of course, this takes resources, so that’s where the incremental bit comes in. You’ll rotate residents scavenging, working, and exploring around the town, so some will be experiencing events while others will be doing the work to make that possible. Resources you collect in one time period may also multiply or decrease over time in the following eras. During all this action, you’ll also contribute characters’ time to examining artifacts, researching science, running governments, and developing religions. These things can take anywhere from minutes to days of real time, but are worth it because of the bonuses they provide.
Soon, you’ll also be tracking the lives of some plants and animals, seeing the population's events from their perspectives. Some of my favorite narratives in the game come from the thoughts and interactions of these beings, not necessarily as events crucial to the evolution of the town, but rather how the events touch these creatures’ lives. A particular favorite was the heartbreaking story of a tuft of grass living alongside an invasive weed. Thankfully, animals and plants can also contribute to all the same tasks as your human characters.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
The developers recommend keeping the passage of time at 1x to get the most enjoyment out of the game. I raised the speed to 2x-3x as I played and didn’t notice any adverse effects; I was just impatient to read more of the excellent story. The game can also optionally track up to 12 hours of offline progress. It takes a bit of time for the game to calculate it when you boot up after an absence, but it’s worth it, especially if you’re trying to unlock the game’s governments, religions, and sciences, which take the most time. Though this feature is off by default after a recent update, it’s still there if you look for it.
The UI where you manage all of this is fairly well designed, though it was at times a little frustrating to find things in the late game, as the timelines you manage have stretched into hundreds of years, and you have dozens of rows to scroll through thanks to all of the characters you’ve discovered. Some of these characters may even take up multiple rows on the timeline, as their future or past selves effectively get split into a second character if they live into a different era. The game’s graphics all fall into the art of this UI, character portraits, and location images. It’s not a very visually interesting game, but the game’s true pull comes from the stories you’ll read as you play.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
The game is in Early Access now, though the story is complete. In the Early Access FAQ on the Steam store page, the devs wrote that they are using this period to make adjustments to balance and more. However, when I asked, they revealed that they’re also making story updates, including changes to the ending. I can’t wait to see what gets added.
I can’t recommend this game highly enough. I usually don’t give games I play in Early Access scores. However, in this case, I can confidently say this will be a 10/10 on release, provided the UI kinks are ironed out. I loved this game.
Asbury Pines is available now on Steam Early Access.
I had the opportunity to ask developers Pete and John of Chaystar Unlimited some questions about the game. I’ve included that brief interview below. There are very light spoilers in the final answer.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
Sam Kahn, for The Geekly Grind (GG): My understanding is that the game is content-complete. How long will it be in Early Access, and what changes do you plan ahead of the full release?
Pete and John (PJ): The game's [Early Access] version is content-complete, where players experience a curated narrative with accompanying art and gameplay. BUT, we do plan to make content modifications and additions as we head towards 1.0, including more characters (bugs and people), artifacts, and (you're the first to be told this) changes to the ending itself.
GG: How deep of an influence did Twin Peaks have on the story and themes, and did you have other outside influences?
PJ: Twin Peaks is the tip of the iceberg in that we loved the small town crime-mystery setting/theme. But that iceberg goes on to include other influences from amazing shows like Lost, The Leftovers, and Dark. These shows laid the groundwork for our "butterfly effect" style of unveiling a grander narrative.
Asbury Pines. Credit: Chaystar Unlimited
GG: What was your writing process? The story is incredibly intricate, non-linear, and may reveal itself to players in a slightly different sequence. Writing the game seems like it was a staggering undertaking.
PJ: It all starts in the Present and builds out! Once we have a grounding event, we begin a thought process of "if X already exists, then Y existed to make it happen... and if Y now exists, then Z existed to make Y occur." On and on, between past and future. As the story grew in detail and complexity, this thought exercise became more cumbersome but also more enriching. There were MANY times where we thought of interconnections between past-present-future only after those sections were written. Which is all to say, it was more about the editing of our choices than the writing process that made the narrative stitch together in the end.
GG: And I have to ask... will we see a new game or DLC about any other places in the world? I can't help but think about what's going on in other regions, or if any of these mysteries manifest there.
PJ: DLC is certainly not off the table, but our main focus is to polish game balance, mechanics, and story logic for our 1.0 launch. After 1.0, we may very well look to create compelling offshoots or additions to the core narrative. As for other regions in the game, they are currently ignored for a reason: the game is about the story of the town Asbury Pines and its immediate surroundings. Are we excited to explore Jehova Jim's attempt to take a Denver-based fort, or Queen Aryth's search for the Rocky Mountains, or the snail-based Massuma Empire's political upheavel in its capital? Definitely. But the story, as it is now, is about the evolution of a small town across time. That's why once characters leave town, they are not heard from again until they return—the town is growing without them, and the town is the main character!
All that said, we've found ourselves exploring DLC offshoots off of the Asbury Pines story as a fun thought experiment. Nothing cemented yet, but again, it's not off the table! :)
