It has been a while since I sat down with an old-school point and click adventure, a game where using your brain for thinking rather than ‘twitching’ is important. Runaway: A Twist Of Fate makes for a nostalgic and mature reboot for the genre.

The Monkey Island series of point and click adventures along with other Lucas Arts classics such as Grim Fandango, were a step up from the earlier Sierra branded games, with the game-play maturing beyond the trial and error approach of such titles as Space and Kings Quest.

In modern times however, there has been a dearth of these games, seen as old-school up against increasingly sophisticated shooters or role-play games. But there has been a mini resurgence, with companies such as Telltale Games reimagining the seminal Sam & Max series as well as bringing Wallace & Gromit to latent fans of the point and click adventure.




Similarly, Pendulo Studios has been working on their Runaway series of modern-point-and-click adventures for a couple of years, and the latest one, Runaway: A Twist Of Fate is about to hit the PC market.

Graphically, R:ATOF has a pleasing cell-shaded cartoon style that colourfully and clearly presents the game world in a way that does not make the game a cluttered pixel hunt for clues. Different scenes, including cut-scenes will have different angles or tracking shots to modernise the look and feel of this game, lifting it out of the stereotype.

For those unfamiliar with the game-play; players are asked to control an onscreen avatar, solve puzzles and manipulate inventory items to progress the story. In this case, this third in the series starts off with Gina beside Brian Basco’s grave, immediately post-funeral.

Gina receives a text message from beyond (or perhaps, within) the grave, from there it is up to you to guide Gina, and others, through a story of relationships, the Mafia, murder mysteries and mental asylums.

Some scenes will flip between multiple locations, with parallel storylines that intersect in interesting ways. It is a nice trick, that again modernises the genre.

With a supportive cast of well developed characters, logical puzzles utilising just the right amount of inventory alchemy (that is, combining inventory items to achieve the goal) as well as a compelling, mature and reasonably funny story.

This is not a brain-bendingly difficult game; there are plenty of tools to help drive the player through the charming story without getting frustrated and stuck.




Hitting F2 for instance, shows the vast majority of clickable areas on the screen. There is still some tricks to this as moving characters around will open up new areas via camera panning previously hidden by the screen boundaries. This is an invaluable clue however, to what scene interactions or exits are available.

F1 is a nice help system structured with multiple levels. Initially a cryptic clue of text, with further levels of visual clues to help prompt you down the path to solving the next puzzle sequence.

The review code seemed stable enough, with only an occasional audio glitchs along the way. Speaking of audio (<*slaps head*>), the voice acting is consistently good. Infrequently a slightly out of pitch inflection will jar a moment, and conversations don’t flow as well as they could, but overall this is a well produced title.

Runaway: A Twist Of Fate delivers a nostalgic, yet updated experience. The story bounces around using flashbacks and memories intertwining in a cinematic way. This gives a quality interactive movie experience, that can be as engrossing as any other *cough* Heavy Rain *cough*. Any game that uses an imaginary flower as a plot device (and inventory item for that matter) is one that - whilst remaining firmly entrenched in its own genre - definitely thinks outside the square.