The Magnificent Trufflepigs was developed by Thunkd and published by AMC Games. Players take on the role of Adam, a man who returns to Stanning, a quaint English countryside village where he spent his formative years. Though the playable character is Adam, it’s not wrong to say the star of The Magnificent Trufflepigs is Beth. She recruits Adam to help her find the match to an earring she found when she was a kid, despite the warnings from her friends about letting Adam back into her life.
Adam and Beth are the only characters in The Magnificent Trufflepigs and carry the entire narrative between the two of them. Adam is voiced by Arthur Darvill and Beth is voiced by Luci Fish, two actors with an impressive roster of characters. In an interview with Game Rant, The Magnificent Trufflepigs developer Andrew Crawshaw discussed the intricacies of creating Beth and Adam, how they impacted The Magnificent Trufflepigs overall, and how the game snagged Darvill and Fish to be the voices of the characters.
How The Magnificent Trufflepigs Got Darvill and Fish
When it comes to the driving forces of The Magnificent Trufflepigs, it seems like both Arthur Darvill and Luci Fish were hand-selected for their roles as Adam and Beth. Initially, Fish had been chosen to record some audio for the demo of the game, but Crawshaw says “she instantly became Beth,” going so far as to say “we knew we had to bring her back to record the final version of Beth.”
As for Darvill and Adam, there was a biography written of the characters, and Darvill’s name was listed as the personality the devs wanted for Adam. When Thunkd partnered with AMC Games, the publisher already had a relationship with Darvill. Due to the existing relationship between Darvill and AMC and SundanceTV, The Magnificent Trufflepigs was able to get Darvill to voice Adam.
The Characterization of The Magnificent Trufflepigs’ Adam and Beth
While Beth and Adam are the main characters of The Magnificent Trufflepigs, players never actually see them. Crawshaw says this decision wasn’t intentional initially but became a key part of the story’s development as time went on. Originally, they spoke to an animation house about animation hands to show items being held or moved but found the estimate to be close to the entire budget.
“It started out as a design constraint, but became a story feature as the script evolved.”
Beth is the reason players begin this "trufflepig" journey, but players seemed to have mixed reactions to her character. Some thought she simply used Adam to work through her own issues and left him behind. Others wondered if Adam was even “real” in the first place. Crawshaw cleared up these concerns, stating:
“It’s not that we wanted Beth to be unlikeable, but her journey is about self-improvement, developing resilience, listening to herself, and becoming the person that she really wants to be rather than the person she thinks everyone else expects her to be. That means she has to peel off a lot of layers, exposing and acknowledging her worst traits.”
When it comes to Adam, players should know that he is, in fact, a real person and part of Beth’s past. However, the conversations he and Beth have aren’t exactly “real;” instead, they’re akin to roleplayed conversations where we imagine how the other person would respond. Beth needs to go through these conversations with Adam to help get her life back on track, so she merely imagines what he would say in order to help her.
“Beth thinks she can’t be completely open with anyone – she’s barely speaking to her friends and her sister is more of a rival. But right now, she needs a good pal to talk to. She has this romantic idea that she can recapture a happy moment from the past, and she associates Adam with that time. The only problem is, once she starts to talk about all of the things that she’s been reluctant to face up to, there’s no hiding from the truths that are going to emerge.”
The Magnificent Trufflepigs is pretty much told from Adam’s perspective, but it’s undoubtedly a story about Beth. Besides helping Beth on her journey, The Magnificent Trufflepigs players are in for a treat with the beautiful surroundings of Stanning and the incredible voice acting of Darvill and Fish.
The Magnificent Trufflepigs is available now for PC and Switch.