Don't break a leg, Breakaway!
Ready. Set. YO!
— Tagline
Penny's Big Breakaway is a 3D Platform Game released for the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PC via Steam in February 21, 2024. It is the debut game for Evening Star Studios led by Christian Whitehead, one of the star developers of Sonic Mania, and published by Take-Two Interactive's Private Division label.
Set in the fantastic world of Macaroon, the game stars the titular Penny, a street performer who does a mean act with a yo-yo looking to make it big. When Eddie the Emperor calls upon a new act to grace his great palace, Penny enthusiastically jumps to the call and happens upon a mysterious Cosmic String that she affixes to her yo-yo. During the audition, however, the Cosmic String's powers activate and cause Penny's yo-yo to come alive, creating a mess and making a fool of poor Eddie. Having made an enemy of Eddie the Emperor, Penny and her yo-yo now find themselves on the run from Eddie's penguin army, and must now outrun the law, clear Penny's name, and unravel the secrets of the Cosmic String.
Previews: Announcement Trailer
, Animated Trailer
Penny's Big Breakway provides examples of:
- 11th-Hour Superpower: For the Final Boss fight with Emperor Eddie, Taboo enchants Yo-Yo to make the effects of the Bowling Burger and Hot Rod Pepper last indefinitely for the duration of the battle.
- Armor-Piercing Response: When Judge Rufus and Eddie are arguing on the phone, after the former is finally done with Eddie's selfish reasons to end the Gala just because he's embarassed, the judge says one thing that truly sets him off in both a hilarious and fantastic way.Eddie: Nooo! I can't do it! I'll be a laughingstock!Judge Rufus: Then make your new act a comedy.
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: During Judge Rufus' speech to Penny at the beginning of his boss fight, he mentions to her that he is going to give her a "formal trial" in light of her appalling criminal record, her serial re-offenses, and her saucy attitude.
- Artificial Stupidity: The penguin guards never heed any surrounding environmental hazards whenever they make a beeline towards Penny.
- Beleaguered Assistant: Judge Rufus technically works for Emperor Eddie, but an argument over the phone they have indicates that Rufus is pretty frustrated with the emperor's immaturity.
- Bullfight Boss: Emperor Eddie's boss battles (both of them) has him and Penny over an arena; he will try to charge at you to push you out of the arena, but you can dodge and counterattack him to launch him out (you grab the back of his belt to snap him out in the first fight, and use a Bowling Burger to knock him out in the second).
- Cardboard Prison: The ninth world starts with Penny actually getting arrested and locked away in prison. However, thanks to her yo-yo's grapple ability and some convenient overhead bars, she can easily escape her cell.
- Checkpoint: Large snapping overhead cameras indicate the checkpoint.
- Clear My Name: As shown in the trailer, the whole plot is about Penny wanting to prove her innocence, after her yo-yo made a fool of Emperor Eddie. She sort of succeeds at the end, but she still gets assigned to community service for the mayhem she accidentally caused, to say nothing of the fact that she spent the whole game evading arrest.
- Combos: Riding on a yo-yo and doing various moves allows Penny to rack up combo meter, increasing the score.
- Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: Electricity emitters appear in scene 3 as an obstacle. Some stay still, others move around.
- Cyclops: The second boss, Mr. Q, only has one eye inside an upside-down triangle on a spherical head with No Mouth.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Penny ends up befriending Sheila — who was angry at Penny due to her inadvertently ruining her chance at the audition by cutting in line — after she fixes her submarine during her boss fight.
- Disproportionate Retribution: For the crime of accidentally disrobing him in public, Emperor Eddie orders Penny to be locked away for ten thousand years. By the end, Rufus acknowledges that it was an overreaction to what was a unique set of circumstances and lowers Penny's punishment to "One Whirling Wafer's worth" of community service.
- Double Jump: Penny can perform a small mid-air somersault with her yo-yo.
- Felony Misdemeanor: Penny's accidental disrobing of Emperor Eddie at the audition has her immediately declared a felon by Judge Rufus, with Eddie sentencing her to ten thousand years in prison. Though by the end, Rufus, now recognizing that the incident was caused by unique circumstances instead of being intentional on Penny’s part and seeing her aid with Eddie's act, decides to lower the punishment to "one Whirling Wafer's worth" of community service instead.
- Flame Spewer Obstacle: In scene 4 and a few others (like Lawburg), there are flame emitters. Some emit flames periodically, others constantly.
- Friend-or-Idol Decision: Once Judge Rufus realizes that Yo-Yo is the true culprit, he offers Penny the chance to go back to her life as an innocent and free woman in exchange for the yo-yo. Penny does consider this, but after Rufus tries to snap Yo-Yo's string and take away its magical abilities after deeming it a destructive threat, she ultimately chooses him over her freedom.
- Formerly Fit: Eddie used to be quite the muscular strongman back in the day, as shown in flashbacks to back when he and Taboo were performing together. However, nowadays, he's become incredibly chubby, which is implied to be due to him falling into depression after Taboo left him. He hasn't lost all of his strength, though, as the mid-game and final boss fights against him shows.
- Grappling-Hook Pistol: The yo-yo itself has magical grappling hook powers. One of its more common uses is to magically affix itself in midair, allowing Penny to swing on her string like a pendulum to cross long distances or pull herself across the air as a makeshift air dash. It can also hook onto objects such as spinning poles and wires.
- Humongous Mecha: Industrial has a giant robotic version of the penguin guards.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Blue surfaces with arrows move the player in the direction of the arrow.
- Indy Escape: The "boss" of the first world is a gigantic mass of penguins rolled up into a ball Penny must outrun while evading obstacles in front of her.
- Lethal Lava Land: Both Moltebeno and Lawburg have this aesthetic, the latter mixing the theme with a Courtroom Episode.
- Level Goal: Multi-tiered circular podiums mark the place where level ends when Penny lands on them.
- Living Weapon: Penny's yo-yo becomes sentient after being equipped with the Cosmic String. As seen in the announcement trailer, it functionally has the disposition of a mischievous puppy and tears Eddie the Emperor's clothes right off his body, exposing his Goofy Print Underwear.
- Lonely at the Top: The case for both Eddie and Taboo:
- Eddie is the King of all of Vanillatown, and Mr. Q states that he used to be a much more fair and forgiving ruler and flashbacks show him to be in very good shape as well. However, after he and Taboo split up, he and his act both fell through the cracks, with him falling into a depressive state and gaining quite a bit of weight since that time. What's more, doing the exact same act of lifting heavy things on stage with no updates to the act or any new ones over the years has gradually hurt his subjects' opinion of him, which has only given him a bruised ego, some latent insecurities, and a much bigger habit of lashing out at people like Penny.
- Taboo, for her part, may have managed to reach true creative freedom and cosmic enlightenment to hone her craft with at her mountaintop home among the stars, but as she herself admits, such a life of solitude and empty sands can really make a person lonely. Even her offer to have Penny stay with her and train her own act under her wing is implied to be more about finally giving her someone else to talk to and perform with again than just giving Penny a place to hide out from the cops.
- Morph Weapon: The yo-yo. In addition to being a conventional melee weapon, it has the ability to transform into a large wheel that Penny can ride at high speed, sprout propeller blades and launch Penny skyward, or inflate into a ball that Penny can whip around to great effect, though all of these require Penny to feed it specific food.
- Non-Lethal Bottomless Pits: Falling off the screen causes Penny to lose 1 hit point.
- One-Letter Name: Downplayed with the second boss, whose name is Mr. Q.
- Personal Space Invader: The basic enemies try to attach themselves to Penny to capture her.
- Power-Up Food: When Penny's yo-yo eats a certain food, it can temporarily transform into something that will come in handy.
- The Bowling Burger transforms it into a massive wrecking ball that can destroy certain walls, floors, and blocks, and ward off large groups of pengos.
- The Whirling Wafers cause it to act like a propeller and can send Penny flying up in the air after she spins it around.
- The Hot Rod Pepper acts as an upgrade of the Yo Yo's One-Wheeled Wonder form and can allow Penny to not only go much faster, but also allows her to traverse through dangerous terrain such as lava and water, and drive up walls.
- Endurian gives Penny brief invincibility. Naturally, it is the rarest power-up in the game and only appears in a couple of levels.
- Psychopathic Manchild: Emperor Eddie is a lighthearted variation of this. He's childishly temperamental and incredibly petty, ordering Penny to be locked behind bars for thousands of years just because she publicly embarrassed him.
- Retraux: The art style seen in the trailers uses a mix of simple geometric shapes and colors. While this is likely meant to evoke the blockier style of early 3D platformers, the developers have cited the bauhaus art movement as another inspiration.
- Shout-Out:
- One of Penny's yo-yo moves is named "Peel-Out" after the "Super Peel-Out" from the 2D Sonic the Hedgehog games. It acts similar to the Super Peel-Out as well, as you have to stand in place to rev it up and it will send you at high speeds depending on how long you hold the button to rev it up.
- During Mr. Q's boss fight, he throws a magic projectile at Penny that she must throw right back at him a few times to bring him down, not unlike the boss fights against Ganondorf in the The Legend of Zelda series.
- Springs, Springs Everywhere: White surfaces marked with red outlines mark the places that bounce Penny up higher. The height they can bounce the player varies. In scene 5, more realistic looking springboards appear.
- Sumo Wrestling: Emperor Eddie's boss fights have him doing this, as he wears sumo attire, and tries to push Penny out of the ring.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: Though Penny is able to make things right with Emperor Eddie by reuniting him with Taboo and helping them to revitalize their act, she and Yo-Yo still evaded arrest and caused quite a bit of mayhem during the game's storyline, so Judge Rufus still assigns her "One Whirling Wafer's worth" of community service to make up for it.
- Trial by Combat: Judge Rufus's boss fight is framed as something akin to this, with him telling Penny right before the fight starts that she has the right to dodge the lightning storm he's about to send her way.
- Unknown Rival: Sheila to Penny. Penny cut her way to the front of the audition line right before Sheila was about to go and barely notices her. Needless to say, once Sheila meets Penny again and recognizes her, she's far from happy.
- Video Game Dashing: Penny can dash using her yo-yo.
- Water-Geyser Volley: In scene 5, there are water streams that send Penny flying upwards.
- We Used to Be Friends: Taboo and Eddie used to be co-performers together. However, creative differences stemming from Eddie becoming weary of Taboo constantly changing their act and Taboo becoming weary of him being weary would cause the two to fight and split apart. They would get back together in the final boss.
- Where It All Began: The penultimate world, "Gala Night", is set in Vanillatown, the first world in the game, all decorated for the annual gala.
- Zerg Rush: This is the main method the penguin guards use against Penny, as they'll often rush to her in large groups to try and capture her.
