Christian Whitehead And Co Break Away From Sonic With New 3D Platformer Penny’s Big Breakaway

gameranx.com:

Yesterday’s Nintendo Direct revealed a new upcoming 3D platformer, which has an impressive pedigree given it’s the first game out of a new studio.

The game is called Penny’s Big Breakaway, and the studio is called Evening Star. The eponymous Penny is a jester/harlequin type of indeterminate gender, who is pretty handy with a yo-yo.

Penny gets themselves into trouble when they perform for a king, and accidentally tear his clothes off. The king then sends his army of penguins after them, and chaos across a 3D world ensues. Appropriately, the penguin army’s species seem to be royal penguins.

Evening Star’s publisher for Penny’s Big Breakaway Take-Two Interactive’s label for smaller games, Private Division. However, what should really get you excited is the staff roll over at Evening Star.

As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Christian Whitehead, who made his name on the mobile ports of Sonic 1 and 2, and was director for Sonic Mania, is Evening Star’s creative director and lead engine architect.

Also jumping over from Sonic Mania’s staff to Evening Star are CEO and lead producer Dave Padilla, art director Tom Fry, chief technology officer and game director Hunter Bridges, and design director Brad Flick.

Christian shared this statement about moving forwards to an original IP:

“At Evening Star, we have a deep passion for expressive, character-driven games that focus on a concise and satisfying move-set. For our debut title, we challenged ourselves to bring that approach into not only a new IP, but to an entire 3D world.”

If you have played Sonic Mania, you will remember that Christian and his team did make some pseudo-3D stages, in an isometric fish eye lens view. Those were reminiscent of Sonic’s bonus stages in those