Field Notes from the Lone Pine Dev Team — Devlog #4 | Bang Bang Bang Interactive

Lone Pine is a narrative indie adventure game about hiking down a mysterious mountain filled with cryptids, puzzles, and emotional storytelling. In our fourth monthly devlog, we talk about the game’s story, how we found our groove for the narrative and characters, and rambling about video game storytelling in general.

Why it is what it is

Video games can tell very deep and emotionally touching stories. Indie games especially try to do a lot with themes about trauma, grief, loss, and other heavy themes. When we did our interview with Well Played, Zach commented that he didn’t expect Lone Pine’s story to also have a deeper, more emotional part to it, and asked us to expand on why we decided to go in that direction. I think we did it for the same reason a lot of indie games do it.

We're a small team with a limited scope. We can't expand outward with big set pieces or cutscenes, so we have to drill deeper instead.

Lone Pine is a passion project for us - we love working on it and being in that world, but if we look at it from a more business-oriented perspective, if we as a team want to get into making games, it’s hard to stand out amongst a thousand different deck-building rogue-likes. I love Slay the Spire 2, but you’d be hard-pressed to get me to try a similar game when I can just sink another 200 hours into this one. But it’s true that a game with a good story is kind of like a good book. You read it, then you put it down and go searching for your next good book. We think we can tell you a good story with good characters and dialogue that might be just the thing you’re looking for after you’ve finished some other great narrative game.

Also, the team all want to make the kinds of games that we love to play: games with great stories.

If you’ve been following us for a while, you’re probably already familiar with the broad strokes of the initial concept of Lone Pine, so stop me if you’ve heard this one before. The game started as a simple idea: a short narrative experience where Izzie scales down a mountain after a spooky incident, guided by a friendly mountain spirit. Twenty minutes to half an hour tops.

When Lara came on board as our artist in mid-2024, we had a lot more freedom with what we could do visually. That's when we started exploring the idea of Izzie travelling to this isolated location to photograph cryptids. I can’t remember if it was Sam or myself that pitched the idea of cryptids, but it came from one of the many discussions we were having about the game when we were ironing out a twenty-minute story to fit with the game jam theme of ‘scale’.

When Sam and I sat around talking about what Lone Pine would be, probably before it even had a name or a main character, I pitched some of the themes you’ll find in the game now, which explore Izzie’s character and state of mind, and the things that have led her here. At the time it didn’t feel right, then weirdly it somehow came back around when the cryptids came in. Go figure.

Screenshot from Lone Pine showing Izzie running outside Shady Rest Cabin in the rain.

Not the best weather for cryptid hunting.

Blender Theory

There was a great post on BlueSky the other day about inspiration for games, using an example from Pikmin:

Screenshot of a Bluesky post by TAHKO (@tahk0.bsky.social) that reads: "assuming this really is one of the inspirations behind Pikmin, this is a good example of one of many somethings inspiring a game (and how that can lead to something unique) VS one game inspiring a spiritual sequel which is just that game again but less budget." The post includes an image comparing a giant strawberry from Pikmin being carried by Pikmin, alongside a Hieronymus Bosch painting.

Another user added an insightful comment, which said:

Screenshot of a Bluesky post by Sawyer Friend (@sawyer.gem-games.net) that reads: "I tend to preach 'Blender Theory' where you put a bunch of stuff you like in a blender and mix them. If you only put a banana in a blender it just tastes like a banana, but several different fruits creates a unique flavour that doesn't resemble any one of its ingredients."

We’ve mentioned something similar before.

We’re inspired by narrative games like Firewatch and Oxenfree, and wanted to make something in that vein. But the main idea behind the story and themes of Lone Pine came from a long-form article about Snow Leopards. I tend to find a lot of my inspiration for writing comes from long-form journalism, or narrative journalism. I’m definitely not saying Lone Pine is going to win any awards, or that I’m some kind of best-selling author, but if I had to give One Weird Trick They Don’t Want You To Know (Narrative Directors HATE Him), that would be it. I’m giving it away for free as a thank you for reading the blog!

Screenshot from Lone Pine showing Izzie in the Control Room with the Lone Pine map open, featuring the symbol of Yalgia.

Where is Lone Pine located? In Yalgia of course!

Izzie the Aussie

Izzie’s age, motivation, and personality are all things Sam and I brainstormed together early on. We went through a few different ideas for who she is and why she's come to Lone Pine. Because of our scope, a lot of Izzie's story has to come from her alone and what's going on in her personal world. We looked at what we could do with the tools we had available, and poured in as much as we could possibly fit.

The other thing people have pointed out is that all the voice acting in the game is Australian, with unapologetic Australian accents. Since we have a small studio setup, we recorded scratch voice acting early on, hoping we'd secure funding and replace it with professional actors later. That funding hasn't come through yet, so you're still hearing us.

Even if it did, we'd go with Australian voice actors. Lone Pine is a fictional location inspired by national parks from all over the world, so that gives us the excuse to do what we want - and it's genuinely nice to hear more Australian voices in games. Recording the VO has been one of the highlights of production.

But it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows. We’ve set Lone Pine in a fictional place with Australian accents, but also at one point, a bear shows up. We took Blender Theory too far, and that combination of things threatened to TEAR OUR STUDIO APART.

Not really, but it was a surprising point of contention for a while. Is it a fictional place in Australia? Then why is there a bear? Did it escape from a zoo? Or is it a fictional American or European place, in which case, why is everyone Australian? Does Lone Pine have a large Australian immigrant population? Will players even notice or care, or will their suspension of disbelief crack under the heavy load of all these questions?

In the end, we decided we’d put references to the fictional country Lone Pine is in, and call it there.

What’s Next

Since our last devlog, Lone Pine was featured in the Frosty Games Fest 2026! We dropped a new trailer featuring some brand new content, including a first look at our new area, the ravine! A huge thank you to Frosty for including us. It was great to be amongst so many amazing games from such talented creators.

We can also announce that Lone Pine will be showcasing at the annual Queensland Games Festival at the Powerhouse in June! We’re thrilled to be a part of this showcase and can’t wait to see you there!

Until next time!