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 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).
