This new 3D platformer from the Sonic Mania devs is everything I love about the '90s classics packed into a single game

After Sonic Mania finished development in 2018, the group of platformer fans turned professional game devs who brought that excellent retro revival to life went off to found their own studio called Evening Star. Now they're building their own original game in Penny's Big Breakaway, and after spending a few hours playing a meaty demo it's clear that this is a labor of love that's learned all the right lessons from decades upon decades of platformer design.

Penny's Big Breakaway is a 3D platformer that puts you in the shoes of a street performer named, well, Penny, who's on the lam from swarms of penguin cops after her big audition for the local emperor leaves the ruler in his underwear. It's got the gentle psychedelic vibes of something like Nights into Dreams, but it's got a toybox look all its own, with little Lego-like construction workers building blue and fuschia cityscapes, or beachgoers enjoying peach sands against pink ocean waves.

The gimmick here is that Penny has a yo-yo - or rather, she has Yo-Yo, a living creature that's basically a set of dentures on a string. You can use Yo-Yo to dash, to double-jump, or to ride across wide open spaces. There's the option of a simplified, button-based control scheme to do all these actions, but the depth of this game's movement is in its default mode, where you use the bumpers to jump and the right stick to control Yo-Yo.

Yo-Yo dojo

Yo-Yo will shoot out in whatever direction you press the stick, and this opens the door to some of the most robust movement mechanics I've ever seen in a platformer. Double-tap in a direction to shoot Yo-Yo out and pull yourself forward into a dash, pull the trigger to start riding, carry that momentum up a ramp, shooting up the side, swinging off of Yo-Yo in midair for an ultra-long leap. It feels fantastic when you get into a proper flow, and a Tony Hawk-style combo meter gives you an incentive to keep that flow going.

Maybe the best bit of praise I can give what I've played of Penny's Big Breakaway is that it feels like it fell out of a different, weirder time in 3D platformer design. There's no direct analog for exactly how it plays, but the dynamic camera and experimental movement options bring to mind cult classics of the N64 era like Chameleon Twist.

There's a sizable learning curve to making the most of those Yo-Yo abilities, but Penny's Big Breakaway is smartly structured to basically let you make your own difficulty. The levels are mostly linear with little branches off to sides where you can look for little sidequests or collectables to gather. It's basically the structure of a modern Mario game - just reaching the end of any given stage isn't terribly challenging, but if you want to stretch your platforming skills, there are a small number of more taxing challenges to undertake on your way to the goal.

A speedrunner's dream

I found myself slowly exploring each stage, spending 10 or 15 minutes slowly poking around the corners of a level to find the secrets - then I'd immediately want to go back and plot the efficient course to finish the stage in just a couple of minutes. I'm not normally drawn to time attack modes, but this feels like a speedrunner's dream, and with levels so tightly designed around your movement abilities, going back for more is extremely inviting.

The devs at Evening Star might've dropped the nostalgic IP when they moved from Sonic Mania onto Penny's Big Breakaway, but a similar ethos shines through: take the best parts of a classic genre, throw 'em into a blender, and come up with a game that somehow ends up being greater than the sum of its parts. This one is already rocketing straight up my wishlist, and I can't wait to play the rest when it hits Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X and S, and PC in early 2024.

There are loads of upcoming indie games to be excited for in 2024.