It has been less then a year since Spanish developer Pendulo Studios released Runaway: A Twist of Fate, finishing the story of Brian Basco and Gina Timmins – at least for now. At gamescom, [German-language] publisher Crimson Cow gave us an in-depth look at the next point-and-click adventure of the Madrid-based developers, The Next BIG Thing.

It's the 1950s, where teased hair and massive state coaches with distinct silhouettes and copious curves are an everyday sight. The two protagonists, Liz Allaire and Dan Murray, are working in Hollywood, where a whole bunch of monster movies are being made. In the world of The Next BIG Thing, however, monsters not only exist in movies, but also in real life. Movie producer William A. FitzRandolph, for example, with his scaly, leathery skin and green complexion, most obviously is not human. In the movies of his enterprise, MKO Pictures, gruesome creatures are not played by human actors, but rather by his fellow monsters – a difference that will be of great importance during the course of the story.

Journalists Liz and Dan, for their part, do not stick together voluntarily – quite the opposite, as the two of them share an intimate love-hate relationship. He is an arrogant, well-dressed snob who is not disinclined towards a bottle of booze now and then, and likes to mingle with the in-crowd of the the world's movie industry. After having lost his dream job as a sports reporter because of his misbehavior, however, he is now stuck with having to hold Liz by the hand as he shows her the ropes of being a reporter.

The pair end up at a party where they are supposed to report the latest news from the world of the rich and famous. Dan, far from being enthusiastic about his new job, refuses to work together with his new partner. Newbie Liz, on the other hand, takes her task very seriously, but suffers from – to put it lightly – mental instability. After discovering a stranger breaking into the office of movie mogul FitzRandolph, she decides to take it upon herself to find out more about it. Her smug partner, however, still has to be convinced to work with her – reason alone won't be enough to persuade this dandy to cooperate with her. But he is not the only one being quite a handful: The other inhabitants of the giant estate could not be any weirder.



The Next BIG Thing consciously takes inspiration from Pendulo's 1997 game Hollywood Monsters, but Crimson Cow remarked that it won't be a remake. The 1950 parallel world with monsters and a variety of human and non-human characters has been chosen because the developers felt their creativity being cramped a bit while working on the Runaway sequels, and would like to return to a scenario that is more off the beaten path. And indeed, the scenario seems well-suited for the developers to run even wilder than before. Moreover, the Hollywood setting allows for even more references to movies, TV shows and games than could be found in Runaway. All of this was already on display in several instances, both in terms of visual style and content, during the gameplay segments we were shown.

In the same vein as the three Runaway games, The Next BIG Thing already made a great impression on us visually. The nicely drawn, somewhat skewed backgrounds are detailed and softly scroll when Liz walks from one side of the screen to the other. There aren't very many background animations yet, but the character animations pack a punch once again. While Liz is standing in front of Dan's huge car involved in an argument with him, which obviously does not impress him very much, she puts her foot on the car's bumper, crosses her arms and waves her hands about her. These motions already seem fluid and so well-matched with the backgrounds that one can expect nothing less than a new standard in terms of 2.5D animation. The pre-rendered cutscenes also look awesome once again and left us craving for more.

However, the game will not be as intricate as Runaway: A Twist of Fate when it comes to the details. For example, there won't be as many sumptuously animated close-ups like the ones featuring the pantomime Marcello in Runaway 3. Still, this game is by far one of the most stylistically promising adventures with a comic look. People who love Pendulo Studios' art style will most likely be all over The Next BIG Thing.



In terms of interface, nothing much has changed from Runaway 3. Players still have to switch to a menu screen to access the inventory or the hint and journal functions. The Spaniards are working hard to find a better alternative to the somewhat circuitous hotspot highlight system of their last game. What exactly the new system will look like, however, no one was able to tell us. By the way: The dubious “Runaway syndrome” afflicting inventory gathering, which had already been done away with in the last Pendulo adventure, will definitely not be making a comeback in this game.

The most important innovation is a new hint feature, in which the player will be able to fall back to a “checkpoint system”, meaning that the known goals will always be available for viewing to refresh one's memory. This is done by a narrator, who outlines the events in a sort of flashback while looking back on them. That way, players always will know what they have to do, all the while getting small hints of why a specific action is not working, or tips on how to progress.Those who played Runaway 3 may remember a certain scene involving a distraction to help Brian escape, where a conceptualized doll in the inventory constantly informed the player about his or her progress – it’s expected that the checkpoint system will work in a relatively similar way.

This feature of having an idea be used as an inventory item will again be found in certain puzzles that require a chain of coherent events to take place. For example, one of the people Liz meets in the stately mansion is a somewhat frustrated actor who believes that it’s impossible for him to ever achieve success in the film business. He does, however, bear a striking similarity to the protagonist of a famous movie. But his skin color is a bit off, his outfit might not be completely right, and he is also missing some neat sunglasses to complete the picture. So Liz must search for the suitable accessories, as well as something that can be used to alter his somewhat greenish tint to a more elegant blue.



Crimson Cow is emphasizing that features like these are there to take players by the hand so they will not be pulled out of the story and left with gaps in the action. This way, they hope to intensify the experience without making the game too easy, though it also means the game shouldn’t be expected to have an above-average playtime. The publisher is still being vague about specifics, simply saying that The Next BIG Thing will definitely not take longer to complete than the latest installment of the Runaway trilogy.

Overall, The Next BIG Thing left us with a very positive impression. In terms of visuals, Pendulo once again shows what they are best at: Very good-looking comic graphics featuring fluid, varied character animations of high quality. While we weren't able to really get a close look at the alleged bigger focus on humor in comparison to Runaway during this short presentation, Pendulo is known for having a knack with humorous dialogs full of cultural references, so there is no reason to doubt the raised entertainment value of the game. The setting, which is deliberately reminiscent of Hollywood Monsters, should be perfectly suited for this task. We are looking forward to seeing what Pendulo Studios will deliver with The Next Big Thing after about only a year of development, and whether they will be able to match the high level of quality of its earlier Runaway games.