GamesPenny’s Big Breakaway makes me wish I’d spent more time playing platformers before Penny’s Big BreakawayWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
GamesPenny’s Big Breakaway makes me wish I’d spent more time playing platformers before Penny’s Big BreakawayWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works.
(Image credit: Evening Star)
Despite passing through an intense Sonic the Hedgehog phase when I was around nine years old, I wouldn’t say I gotta go particularly fast. Over the ensuing two decades I’ve rarely sought out the classic pastime of accelerating a cartoon mascot to inhumane speeds. I’ve been content leaving platforming to speedrunners, kaizo enthusiasts—really, anyone who doesn’t share my talent for finding the exact trajectory the playershouldn’ttravel. But thanks to how good the yo-yo parkour in Penny’s Big Breakaway feels, I’m rediscovering the long-neglected platformer who lives in my heart.
And frequently sending him into a pit. It’s fine.Considering indie developer Evening Star’s roster of former Sonic Mania devs, it’s no surprise that Penny’s Big Breakaway is a showcase of platforming design talent. It was obvious as soon as I saw the traversal abilities of Penny’s magic, living Yo-Yo, and how they form a toolkit for stringing together high-speed acrobatics across the game’s sugary, fluorescent landscapes.Using its default, developer-encouraged gamepad control scheme, Penny’s Big Breakaway is a twin-stick platformer: Jumping is on either shoulder button, the left analog stick moves Penny, and the right stick deploys Yo-Yo. Holding the right stick in a direction throws out Yo-Yo and sleeps it in place. Sleeping Yo-Yo in midair makes it an anchor for Penny to swing with its string like Spider-Man. Double-tapping the right stick, meanwhile, throws Yo-Yo and pulls Penny to it, launching her in that direction.A couple more pieces complete Penny’s platforming puzzle. Hitting jump in midair will backflip Penny to extend her airtime and, if necessary, cancel out or redirect her lateral momentum. From any of Yo-Yo’s right stick maneuvers, hitting one of the triggers will transfer into a Radial Ride, where Penny drops Yo-Yo to the ground and rides on its axle for as long as her momentum lasts. Crucially, the Radial Ride lets me combo into my next string of Yo-Yo tricks, acting like a Tony Hawk-style manual to weave together inputs in an unbroken sequence.Penny can only perform each of those platforming stunts once in a single jump. Put together, those pieces turn the game into a juggling act of maintaining Penny’s speed through the rhythm of Yo-Yo swings and launches, mixing in tactical backflips and Radial Rides to extend combos and avoid environmental hazards. Oh, and to avoid the ceaseless imperial penguin legions pursuing Penny, who’s recently become an enemy of the state after disrobing the emperor at his yearly gala. It’s a whole thing.
It took me a couple worlds' worth of levels to learn the routine, but pulling it off feelsgood.Each area has its own gimmick, and there’s a strong satisfaction when I’m able to mold my platforming combo line on the fly to accommodate whatever new molten pool or water spout Penny’s run into. I hardly ever finish a stage in a game and immediately replay it, but I was regularly hitting the retry button just to take another crack at a sequence I was sure I could execute more cleanly.
Image1of14(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)
Image1of14(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)
Image1of14
(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
(Image credit: Evening Star)
While I’m happy to blame myself for plenty of frustrations, I do have to chalk some up to the game itself. There are blemishes to be polished away before the game’s release sometime this year, like the occasional stray, invisible bits of level geometry that interrupt my traversal combos and bring Penny to a sudden screeching halt.
Other annoyances, like the side objectives and collectibles scattered throughout the stages, I’ll probably have to continue gritting my teeth over. Each level has three “dilemma” encounters: NPCs somewhere along the way that have a short task for Penny to accomplish. A construction foreman might have Penny carry an alarm clock over to wake a worker who’s sleeping on shift; a husband might ask her to collect five flower bouquets within a time limit, because his anniversary is in literally 20 seconds. Most I was happy to bang out, but others were a pain—specifically ones that required resetting a checkpoint to retry, rather than just walking back to the starting point.I’ve reached a point where I’m willing to skip over NPC dilemmas that I don’t one-shot because it doesn’t cost me anything except some points off my score at the end of a stage. Harder for me to stomach are the three coins also hidden in corners and side paths of every level. Nothing wounds a man’s ego like reaching the end of a stage after some truly immaculate yo-yo work only to realize he missed a special collectible coin in the process.
The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals
More about games
My Summer Car, the absurdly detailed Finnish life sim about vehicle maintenance and drinking in your underpants, smashes into 1.0 after nearly a decade in Steam early access
My Summer Car, the absurdly detailed Finnish life sim about vehicle maintenance and drinking in your underpants, smashes into 1.0 after nearly a decade in Steam early access
LatestWormhole is an impeccable arcade revival of Snake that plays like it fell off the back of Derek Yu’s vanSee more latest►
Latest
Wormhole is an impeccable arcade revival of Snake that plays like it fell off the back of Derek Yu’s van
Wormhole is an impeccable arcade revival of Snake that plays like it fell off the back of Derek Yu’s van
Wormhole is an impeccable arcade revival of Snake that plays like it fell off the back of Derek Yu’s van
See more latest►
Most Popular
18 games the PC Gamer team can’t wait to play in 2025
The Witcher 3’s now 2-year-old bonus quest is our first taste of the ‘vibe’ CD Projekt is going for in The Witcher 4
2024 was the year updates for old games beat out all the new ones for me
Train like you game with this adventure-inspired workout
‘It’s simply impossible to make a difficulty level that’s just right for all players’: How Final Fantasy 14’s lead battle designer has been playing a precarious balancing game for Dawntrail’s dungeons and raids
Please join me in getting super excited for all the cool looking survival games coming in 2025 (and beyond)
Competitive shooters are at a crucial crossroads in 2025: ‘sweaty’ teamplay vs. casual fun
Call of Duty’s $28 Squid Game skins are the perfect crossover for our capitalist dystopia, and Activision knows exactly what it’s doing
These are the 14 biggest upcoming RPGs of 2025—get ready for another amazing year for the genre
Five new Steam games you probably missed (January 6, 2025)
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review4Ikea Utespelare desk review5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
HARDWARE BUYING GUIDESLATEST GAME REVIEWS
1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
1Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
1
Best Steam Deck accessories in Australia for 2025: Our favorite docks, powerbanks and gamepads
2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
2Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
2
Best graphics card for laptops: the mobile GPUs I’d want in my next gaming laptop
3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
3Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
3
Best mini PCs in 2025: The compact computers I love the most
4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
4Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
4
Best 14-inch gaming laptop: The top compact gaming laptops I’ve held in these hands
5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
5Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
5
Best Mini-ITX motherboards in 2025: My pick from all the mini mobo marvels I’ve tested
1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review
1Thank Goodness You’re Here! review
1
Thank Goodness You’re Here! review
2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review
2Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review
2
Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island review
3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
3WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
3
WD Black SN850X 8 TB NVMe SSD review
4Ikea Utespelare desk review
4Ikea Utespelare desk review
4
Ikea Utespelare desk review
5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
5Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
5
Asus ROG Harpe Ace Mini wireless mouse review
