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Hollywood Monsters moves to small screens, on iOS in December
Hollywood Monsters, known in the US as the 2011 PC game The Next Big Thing, is coming to iOS devices on December 6. Developer Pendulo Studios recently launched Yesterday on the App Store and must have liked how that whole deal went down.Hollywood Monsters chronicles a 1940s Hollywood your grandparents never knew, where all the monsters in horror movies are real and have acting careers spanning kids' movies to romantic comedies. Liz Allaire and Dan Murray get tangled up with these beasts and enter a mysterious adventure to rival any dinner theater. Break out the iPad at a holiday meal and have grandma play a few levels – maybe she'll remember the good ol' days just the same.
Hidden Runaway celebrates 10 years of point-and-clicks from Pendulo
Brian and Gina, the stars of Pendulo Studios' point-and-click Runaway series, take center screen in Hidden Runaway, a brand new episode available now on the App Store for $2.99.Pendulo has been in the point-and-click adventure business for a while now, and Hidden Runaway celebrates the 10-year anniversary of its first Runaway game for PC, A Road Adventure. Hidden Runaway has Brian and Gina, who now hate each other, telling their story to a Hollywood executive who wants to make a movie based on their exploits. The app is universal for iOS 4.3 or later.
Be part of The Next Big Thing for cheap on Steam today
Steam's Daily Deal has Pendulo's The Next Big Thing for 75 percent off on PC and Mac, at just $7.50. Pendulo is a veteran of the point-and-click adventure genre, known for its dark humor and cartoonish aesthetics, recently evident in Yesterday.Today, you can play The Next Big Thing for cheap and – oh, who are we kidding? This is a game you can play while you wait for Borderlands 2 to go live on Steam. That's all you'll be doing tonight anyway, and you might as well spend your wait time having fun.
Gamesplanet Lab: Kickstarter's 'crowd-creating' competitor
As Kickstarter has taken off like – well, a popular Kickstarter project – over the past year, especially in the gaming sector, backers have noticed a few inconsistencies with the platform. For one, projects aren't vetted for plausibility or quality outside of a standard registration form; your grandmother could accidentally promise the world 500 pounds of brownies if she raises $5, and there's nothing holding her to following through or using that money for brownie-related purposes.For another, Kickstarter is US only. Creative ventures outside of the US can't begin a crowd-funded project, though anyone with a major credit card can donate to a project and watch its success with yearning in his heart. Also, Kickstarter caters to a wide range of products and ideas, making its reach broad but its expertise in handling any one industry dim.Gamesplanet Lab is a new crowd-funding platform that handles only gaming projects, has a strict vetting and follow-through contract, and is based in Europe but is able to host projects from around the world. Yes, that does sound like everything you ever wanted in Kickstarter. The only thing Gamesplanet Lab needs now is proof that it can work – it needs a breakout crowd-funding success.
'Brunchstorming' is Spanish for 'work,' if you're Pendulo Studios
Every Friday, the team at Pendulo Studios gathers in "Sala 2," a conference room covered floor-to-ceiling in posters, cut-outs and screenshots from the games it's created over the past 18 years as one of Spain's first independent game studios. For two hours or so, everyone in Sala 2 discusses ideas for new games, ways to fund ongoing development, fixes for current titles and what games they're playing on their own; they call this process "brunchstorming," and it's a vital part of Pendulo's operations.Last Friday, March 16, Pendulo's brunchstorming meeting also served as a celebration: Yesterday, its seventh graphic-adventure title, had just gone gold, and after working on it for a year, the team took that time to celebrate and reminisce about its development with a handful of questions from Joystiq, all in true Spanish style."Pendulo is not your usual game developer," Josué, Pendulo's writer, said. "Maybe because we're Spanish and we put some fiesta in everything we do, or maybe because we're more than workmates and we've become friends along the years. Or maybe it's because everyone has a say."Around a table piled high with "jamón, chorizo, a Madrid specialty called 'callos,' cheese, chips, empanada gallega (a sort of tuna-and-pepper pie), and something to drink," as Josué described it, the following Pendulo team members sat down to relax and candidly answer our questions about indie living in Spain.%Gallery-151879%
Yesterday review: Hit me baby one more time
Pendulo Studios promised Yesterday would be dark, gritty and just on this side of disturbing, and it most decidedly is. Yesterday introduces friendly characters simply to kill them off and it doesn't shy away from jamming bullets through almost everyone's head. It examines -- in detail -- torture, Satanic rituals and axes to the face, all within a complexly layered storyline about a young(ish) man's quest to find himself.Yesterday tackles heavy subjects such as love, immortality, the Spanish Inquisition, BDSM, poverty and sociopathic homicidal maniacs, all accessible with a point and a click. The art style is lighthearted enough to support Pendulo's trademark comic relief while keeping the story moving forward in a serious way -- seriously fast.
Yesterday's gritty, gutsy style makes us excited for tomorrow
Welcome to the Renaissance.The point-and-click adventure is back and it has nothing to do with Tim Schafer, Double Fine or Kickstarter. This particular revolution is being led by Pendulo Studios' gritty, stylized PC thriller, Yesterday, which marks a departure from the developer's previous title, The Next Big Thing, in a few crucial and exciting ways: Yesterday is not a comedy, though the dialogue retains a brilliant wit. It has nothing to do with the film industry. It involves the psychological analysis of a homeless man who believes his son, who was definitely killed in a tragic subway-tunnel collapse, is still alive.Maybe you have to be just as disturbed as Pendulo's fictional homeless man to really appreciate that last one, but if you are -- boy is it a treat.Pendulo has a solid track record in the point-and-click adventure genre -- they liked it before it was cool, even -- with the Runaway series and The Next Big Thing, but the studio had something to prove when it boldly announced that it was giving up comedy to offer an original, dark thriller with Yesterday. The game retains Pendulo's trademark art style, exaggerated features and colors that appear hand-painted over 3D models, and it is just as appealing as it was in 2003. This time around, however, not just the story is darker, but the palate is as well, with much of what I played taking place in a derelict, abandoned subway channel (I bet you can guess which one).
Latest Yesterday screens offer a peek into the game of tomorrow
Yesterday is living in the past in name alone -- it's actually ahead of us. A recent volley of screens give us a look into what to expect from Pendulo Studios' latest when it launches this March.
New screens for 'Yesterday,' Pendulo's new, darker adventure
Pendulo Studios, known for adventure games like the Runaway series and The Next BIG Thing, has shown a few screens from Yesterday, which reveal that troubles aren't so far away. The latest batch highlights the dark atmosphere, as a trio of playable characters unearth mystical and mysterious murders.
The Next Big Thing dev announces an 'original and dark thriller,' Yesterday
Pendulo Studios, developer of The Next Big Thing, has announced a new comic-book-style adventure game titled Yesterday. Apparently the art is where the similarities to Pendulo's previous titles end: "Pendulo has now given up comedy for once and is offering an original and dark thriller," the game's announcement reads. "This is the starting point of the brand new adventure from Pendulo Studios." Yesterday begins in New York City, where "beggars are disappearing one after another, only to be found burnt alive. Meanwhile, a Y-shaped scar forms in the palm of the hands of seemingly unrelated people." A young heir, Henry White, and his pal Cooper investigate these incidences, while a third man, John Yesterday, is pulled into the story after his memory is erased. We're betting that last guy is pretty important -- call it a hunch. All three characters will be playable, Pendulo promises. Yesterday is slated for release in Q2 2012. %Gallery-138581%
The current big thing is The Next Big Thing demo
Since our first look at the kitschy, cartoony style of The Next Big Thing, we (like many of you, we'd bet) have been harboring a secret crush on Pendulo's upcoming adventure. Well, it's not really a secret, we'd tell you about it if you asked. We just don't get a lot of opportunities to bring it up. Is this love real? Are we gonna get our hearts broken? We'll know soon enough thanks to a just-released demo available from our friends at Big Download. Just think: True love may be just 792 MB away.
The Next Big Thing is this launch trailer
On April 25, The Next Big Thing will launch, continuing Pendulo Studios' tradition of humorous adventure games -- at least, this launch trailer suggests as much. And here we thought the next big thing was guilty cat!
The Next Big Thing is this trailer
Well, that is until the adventure game The Next Big Thing launches, which will be the next big thing. Developer Pendulo Studios is just being up front, right? In fact, we're thinking about doing the same, renaming Joystiq to Thing Our Mom Reads and Sometimes Tells Her Pinnacle Friends About.
Runaway: A Twist of Fate gets a flood of media, March/April release date in the UK
If you're reading this post from across the Atlantic, chances are you're wondering why we're announcing a release date for Runaway: A Twist of Fate, a game that was released in France and Germany four months ago. Well, you see, for those of you in the UK, the third game in the Runaway point-and-click adventure series is just arriving, with publisher Focus Home Interactive pinning March and April release dates on the PC/Nintendo DS title (respectively). Aside from a website jam-packed with video of the game (including the trailer you see above and two more after the break), the publisher released a handful of screens that we've added to a gallery for your perusal just below. Don't say we never did nothin' for ya! %Gallery-84237%
