[h1][i]“As I walk along, I wonder
What went wrong with our love~ 🎶”[/i]
~Del Shannon, Runaway[/h1]
If I ever have to pick one single genre as my favorite, it'll be point-and-click adventures. There's nothing more cozy in the world than sitting in a dark room with some ice cream and coffee, trying to figure out what to do next in order to progress. Unfortunately, there was also a major problem with the genre. I know, I know; you've heard this story, like, a million times before. Bear with me, as it's really important to mention. I'll try to keep it short. Yes, it was the Internet.
While back in the 80s it was quite easy to pull an all-nighter in order to finally learn what happened next to our man Roger Wilco, once the Internet started to be affordable and at least one kid in class had access to all the walkthroughs out there, it was an obvious fun killer. Which was rather sad, since it was also the time when the genre peaked with games like Monkey Island 2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, Broken Sword, and others. Still, despite those games being absolutely fantastic, investing in such projects started to be a pretty bad idea. I mean, come on. What's the purpose of an AAA project that can be solved in only a few hours? Doug TenNapel's The Neverhood was a nice example of that. It was a brilliant game that involved claymation, a unique setting, and a one-of-a-kind soundtrack by Terry Scott Taylor. The game was a bloody art. Guess what happened with it? You guessed it! It flopped. It's not like we stopped getting major games at that point; The Longest Journey, for example, did pretty well. It sold 200,000+ copies in about three years (which was quite good for a point-and-click title). How many copies did, say, The Sims sell, though? Almost four million. In just a year. Like I said, the point-and-click genre was in agony. It was pretty obvious that point-and-click games wouldn't last long. Publishers felt that way, the press felt that way, the audience felt that way... Guess who didn't? Some devoted devs. And that, my friends, is finally the time for us to start talking about our game of the day—Runaway: A Road Adventure.
Runaway was released in 2001. And as long as we don't count Humongous Entertainment, who were still doing their kid-oriented thing, the genre was considered dead and only small European (also, post-soviet) companies were still making such games. Which were ugly, clunky, and unpleasant about 90% of the time. And technically? Runaway was one of such games too. Technically. See, while being developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios (“pendulo” means “pendulum”), it didn't feel cheap. I mean, come on. Thanks to how point-and-click games don't require complicated gameplay mechanics, balancing, or other things, those are pretty easy to make. Because of that, it was often like, “Don't know what to make? Make a point-and-click adventure!” Runaway wasn't like that. If anything, it was exactly the opposite of that.
Pendulo cared. Like, for real. The guys loved the genre and wanted to make something real. And naturally, lots of people who were tired of all those clunky games like The Mystery of the Druids and Zero Critical were ready to welcome it. Did Runaway disappoint? Not at all! Heavily inspired by all sorts of movies (from Tarantino's Pulp Fiction to Stephan Elliott's The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), it was... quite a trip, really. It had 3 CDs of content (yes, those nasty things were still a thing); there were lots of solid (not perfect, but high quality) animations, an exclusive song (performed by Spanish band Liquor), six story chapters, etc. The storytelling was also unorthodox for this kind of entertainment (one of the many problems with the genre was that devs didn't even try thinking outside the box)... It was a thing. Runaway sold well (somewhere on The Longest Journey level) and together with April Ryan's game and Benoît Sokal's Syberia, it's considered one of the games that helped to halt the genre's decline. Was it perfect, though? Well... about that.
To be completely honest with you, I kind of regretted revisiting this game many years later. See, Runaway was one of those things that shined in the moment but somehow didn't age that well. Back in the day? Seeing a certain amount of quality was more than enough. And it's still there. The game does have that certain aftertaste we all want from such stuff. You can feel Broken Sword, you can feel LucasArts... But at the same time... let's just say a certain amount of clunkiness is still there too.
Take the puzzles, for example. Sometimes, those are OK—quite intuitive, etc. But sometimes? Sometimes it's, “[i]How in the name of rotten Cthulhu's butt was I supposed to guess THAT?![/i]” Items that do nothing and some crazy pixel hunting are included. Don't get me wrong, though; I'm one of those boomers who feel heavily against so-called “hotspot highlighting.” That certain thing where you press a button and instantly see all the active elements on screen. You know, the one that's included in, like, every single point-and-click adventure nowadays (I believe it was Simon the Sorcerer II: The Lion, the Wizard and the Wardrobe that was introduced said feature to us in 1995). Personally? Not a fan. I do believe that a certain amount of pixel hunting is important in order for the player to get dopamine. Without it, the game starts to feel more like a chore. Runaway, on the other hand? Even if you feel like me, it [i]will[/i] make you want that “press Tab to win” thingy. The game also makes certain objects reusable, with absolutely no hints or indications about where exactly it wants you to check a certain container again. Our character (Brian Basco, who totally isn't “We've got George Stobbart at home,” lol) says, “there's nothing else interesting in there,” and then boom! There's suddenly a new item in there. Ridiculous.
Talking about the characters, by the way: I can't say those are terrible (I've seen much, [i]much[/i] worse in the genre), but at the same time, they are anything but iconic. The whole thing screams Broken Sword, except our lady here is a cringey damsel in distress who does nothing but be “sexy” and ask for help. [i]Eugh[/i]. Broken Sword's Nicole was a [i]person[/i]. Gina Timmins? She's nobody. Again, Runaway did fine and it's [i]that[/i] kind of a story; just... make sure not to expect too much.
And that's exactly the problem, I think. When you look back at Runaway from years later (I'm writing this a whopping 25 years since the initial release, and my monitor doesn't even support its default resolution, so I needed to use dgVoodoo 2), it feels like nothing special. Somewhat poor, even (especially since it still has some bugs and, in my case, for example, the game skipped a pretty big portion of puzzles just because I tried to leave the area). Lots of puzzles are questionable, some of the pixel hunting is ridiculous... I already mentioned all that. In other words, while looking at everything good that Steam has to offer, I'm... not even sure I can recommend it. Not in a “[i]Dude! Forget about everything else and go play this one![/i]” way, at least.
Still, it's very important for us to remember that Runaway was one of those games that helped to save the genre back in the early 2000s. And it deserves lots of respect for that. And even with all that aside? It's still quite solid. A bit too old-school for a modern audience (again, some crazy pixel hunting), a bit too clunky, and it doesn't look nearly as good as it did in its moment; but still, it's totally playable. Since point-and-click games are anything but long (you can beat Runaway in about four hours if you use a walkthrough or ask generative AI for help), there's always a demand for new ones, so... yeah. Runaway is worth playing. It totally is. Just make sure not to expect too much. It wasn't nearly as good as some of us probably remember.
