Runaway: A Road Adventure is a 2001 graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Dinamic Multimedia. It follows the story of Brian Basco, an American college student on the run after he unwittingly saves a murder witness named Gina Timmins from assassination by the New York Mafia. Searching for clues about a mysterious crucifix linked to the murder, Brian and Gina embark on a cross-country journey through the United States while pursued by two Mafia hitmen. The player assumes the role of Brian and explores the game world while collecting items, solving puzzles and conversing with non-player characters.
Inspired by the road movie genre and films such as Pulp Fiction and Raising Arizona, Pendulo Studios began Runaway in 1998. The team abandoned the nonlinear and parodical nature of its previous title, Hollywood Monsters, in favor of a more straightforward and adult-oriented approach that blended humor with drama. Runaway initially featured hand-drawn 2D graphics; production problems necessitated a switch, one year into development, to pre-rendered 3D characters with toon shading. The change caused major delays, exacerbated by a shortage of qualified character animators in Spain: the country's recovering game industry had a limited talent pool. Runaways small core team of nine members was supported by part-timers and freelancers during development.
Runaway was highly anticipated in Spain, and it won awards and positive reviews upon its July 2001 release. Early domestic sales were strong, but Runaways distribution and international debut were scuttled when Dinamic Multimedia closed that September. Forced to downsize in response, Pendulo fought for roughly one year to buy back Runaways rights; the developer finally secured global publishing deals during 2002 and 2003. DTP Entertainment and Focus Home Interactive had significant success with Runaway in Germany and France, respectively, and the game sold 600,000 units across Europe by 2006. Runaway was well-received by German publications such as PC Games, and a panel of journalists and industry figures in France named it one of 2003's best titles. Reviews in the United States were mixed.
As Pendulo's first international hit, Runaway financially revitalized its developer. Pendulo built on the game's design and visual style in future projects, and became Spain's longest-running game developer by 2019. Although adventure games were in decline before Runaways global release, publications in Germany, France and Spain reported that the game helped to reenergize its genre. Runaway has been named one of the best Spanish games and best adventure games of all time, but also cited as a polarizing title; in Germany, it inspired the popular term "Runaway Syndrome" to denote poor adventure game design. The game spawned two sequels—Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle (2006) and Runaway: A Twist of Fate (2009)—and formed a series that sold over 1.5 million units worldwide by 2010. Hidden Runaway, a spin-off, followed in 2012.
Gameplay
Runaway: A Road Adventure is a graphic adventure game controlled with a point-and-click interface, in a style that has been compared to LucasArts adventure games. Using a mouse, the player navigates the player character through the game world and interacts with hotspots, such as items and non-player characters. Interaction with hotspots is context-sensitive. For example, if the cursor transforms into a magnifying glass while hovering over a hotspot, the player may click to learn more about the object highlighted. When the cursor transforms into a hand or speech balloon, it indicates that a hotspot may be manipulated or spoken to, respectively.
To progress in Runaway, the player gathers items, solves puzzles and converses with non-player characters; the game contains no action-based or time-limited sequences. Most puzzles involve the use of items, which are stored in an inventory subscreen. Items are often hidden in the game world and sometimes require pixel hunting to locate, and certain items may only be found by examining the same hotspot multiple times. The player must occasionally combine items in the inventory to solve puzzles. Conversations, handled by picking dialogue options from a menu, provide puzzle hints and other assistance.
Runaways player character is unable to die, and progression is linear. The game follows a system in which the player character refuses to collect certain items before their use is made clear in the plot. As a result, the player must solve many puzzles in a specific order. When the player progresses enough, a cutscene will play to provide information and to further the plot.
Story In New York City, the college student Brian Basco prepares for a cross-country road trip to his new school, the University of California, Berkeley. Before he can drive out of the city, he collides with a woman named Gina Timmins who runs in front of his car, and Brian delivers her to a hospital. Gina tells Brian that she is a lounge singer, and that her father, a government employee, had just given her an ancient and mysterious crucifix for safekeeping. Made men from the Sandretti crime family, Gustav and Feodor, had then kidnapped him and demanded information about the artifact as she had watched in secret. The thugs had unintentionally killed him, causing Gina to reveal her presence and be chased into the street; Brian had unwittingly saved her life by hitting her. Gina finishes her story and succumbs to sedatives administered by the hospital staff. Intrigued, Brian decides to help her evade the Mafia, and he outwits a Sandretti hitman who arrives to murder her. After Brian starts a fire in Gina's room, the two flee to a museum in Chicago, where Brian believes that his archaeologist friend Clive can tell them more about the crucifix. As they arrive, a Mafia informant outside the museum alerts Gustav and Feodor.
Clive listens to Brian and Gina's story with concern, and Brian gets Dr. Susan Olivaw, a restorer, to prepare the crucifix for identification. He ultimately uses the museum's database to determine that the object is of Hopi origin. Clive then calls Brian out of the database room with a warning that Gina is in danger. As he exits, Brian is knocked out by Gustav and Feodor, who had offered to let Clive live in exchange for Gina and Brian. Nevertheless, Gustav and Feodor kill Clive and leave with the two captives, whom they transport to a remote cabin in the desert. Brian is interrogated and beaten unconscious, and awakens to find himself alone, as the gangsters have taken Gina to a separate room for questioning. Managing to escape, Brian stumbles upon three drag queens who were abandoned in a broken-down tour bus by their manager. They agree to help Brian save Gina if he helps them escape the desert. Aided by the drag queens, Brian tricks Gustav and Feodor into leaving their cabin, which allows him to enter and rescue Gina. One of the drag queens, revealed to be ex-military, hijacks the gangsters' helicopter as an escape vehicle for the group. The drag queens fly Brian and Gina to Arizona's Hopi region before departing.
As Brian and Gina search for clues about the crucifix, Gina falls and appears to die in a hole near an abandoned mine shaft. Brian is distraught and nearly quits the mission until a mysterious Hopi man appears. Claiming to be the last Hopi chieftain, the man reveals to Brian that the crucifix is a key that opens a sacred, secret Hopi crypt, which lies near a Hopi village beyond the abandoned mine. As the mine is blocked by large boulder and Brian lacks supplies, he is forced to explore the surrounding area. He soon meets Sushi Douglas, a computer hacker; and Oscar, a strong man with a troubled past, who now works for the local folk healer Mama Dorita. Oscar helps Brian remove the boulder at the mine's entrance, and Brian travels through it to reach the abandoned Hopi village. There, he finds Gina alive, although her leg is broken. Brian proceeds to unlock the sacred Hopi crypt and, inside, to once again encounter the Hopi man, who gives him a human finger preserved in a jar of formaldehyde. The man tells Brian that the jar had been placed there sacrilegiously by a now-dead Hopi descendant. Brian and Gina return to Mama Dorita to mend Gina's broken leg, and Brian chooses to employ the healer's services to contact the dead man—whom he believes to be Gina's father—via a séance. Brian serves as a medium and is possessed.
During the séance, Gina speaks to the spirit of a man named Johnny "the Indian", a former member of the Sandretti family, about a large sum of money he had hidden. The spirit refuses to reveal its location. After the séance, Gina admits to Brian that she had lied: she is not a singer but a stripper, and the man she had seen die was actually Johnny. The gangster had offered to run away with her and a $20 million sum he had stolen and hidden from the Sandretti family; after his death, his crucifix-shaped key was her only clue to the money's whereabouts. Brian is hurt by these revelations but decides to help. He learns with Sushi's assistance that Johnny had used his own sister, a nun, to store the money in a bank accessible only via fingerprint scanner. Johnny had then murdered her and preserved her finger as a key. Although Gustav and Feodor soon close in on Brian and Gina's location, Oscar successfully detains the gangsters. Sushi frames Gustav and Feodor via a phone call with the Sandrettis' don, who is led to believe that his men had stolen Johnny's money for themselves and killed Gina and Brian. Afterward, the gangsters are murdered by the Sandretti family, while Brian and Gina successfully withdraw the money from the bank. Brian initially resolves to return to school, leaving Gina and the money behind, but he changes his mind at the last minute and runs away with her to the tropics.
Development Concept and design Following Pendulo Studios' release of Hollywood Monsters in December 1997, the developer started to create a sequel to the game. The first installment had been a commercial hit in Spain, Pendulo's home country. However, Kai Fiebig of Hollywood Monsters publisher, Dinamic Multimedia, explained that Pendulo soon revamped its project. At a meeting to assess the sequel, one of Pendulo's leads suggested a change in direction because of a thriller film he had recently seen, and the core concept for Runaway was born. Art director Rafael Latiegui later said that "the first sketches of what would end up becoming Runaway" were created in summer 1998. The team devised a story based on the road movie genre; early influence was derived from the films Pulp Fiction and Raising Arizona. Pendulo's desire to create a more tightly structured game than Hollywood Monsters inspired Runaways chase-themed plot. For the setting, the team picked the United States over Spain for the recognizability of its locations to a global audience, and for its greater suitedness to the road movie format. Latiegui's recent trip to New Mexico and Arizona influenced the team: he had taken several hundred photographs, which guided Runaways color palette and served as the basis for many in-game locations.