The Next Big Thing[a] is a 2011 comedy graphic adventure game developed by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios and published by Focus Home Interactive.

Pendulo began developing The Next Big Thing in the late 2000s, after years of fan requests in Southern Europe for a sequel to Hollywood Monsters.

The company planned the project as a remake, but decided that the original game's design flaws—and what the developers retrospectively called its "male chauvinist" outlook—necessitated an overhaul.

[3] The player advances the plot by exploring the game world, speaking with non-player characters via dialogue trees, collecting items and solving puzzles.

Liz is young, wealthy and eager to prove herself as a journalist,[8] but, according to Marca Player, she suffers from every psychic pathology, from Asperger syndrome to multiple personalities.

[1] Liz and Dan fill the roles of Hollywood Monsters protagonists Sue Bergman and Ron Ashman, while Professor Fly, the Poet of Pain and FitzRandolph respectively replace Dr.

[1][13] The Next Big Thing begins as Liz Allaire and Dan Murray arrive in Hollywood to cover the Horror Movie Awards, which recognize the achievements of monster actors.

When Liz leaves the party, she sees Big Albert sneaking into the office of William A. FitzRandolph's nearby mansion and decides to investigate; Dan remains behind.

Deducing that he plans to meet with the Immaterial Man in FitzRandolph's warehouse, Liz activates her tape recorder and walks inside, only to find Big Albert unconscious.

Bribing the two most infamous monster actors with the tickets, Dan helps Liz shoot a negative political ad that exposes FitzRandolph, who unwittingly airs it and ruins himself.

[14] The company's initial idea was to create a high-definition remake of its 1997 title Hollywood Monsters,[15] which had been a hit in Pendulo's home country of Spain.

[16] Fan requests for another Hollywood Monsters game had been ongoing for years,[17][18][19][15] and Pendulo had considered the option as early as 1998,[20] only for the project to evolve into Runaway: A Road Adventure (2001).

[19][15] Other factors included Pendulo's desire to break away from the Runaway series,[18][25] and to shorten pre-production and development of its next game by combining a proven concept with the studio's new engine technology.

[27] Seeking a format that could attract both newcomers and existing fans,[25] Pendulo built on the foundation of the first game—retaining its core ideas and opening scenes—and developed the story in a new direction.

[31] According to Monchan, they conceived a purposely "stupid story" and focused instead on dialogue and characterization, dedicating significant time to the creation of Sue's replacement Liz Allaire.

[14] He initially struggled to find a direction for Liz's character, until Hernáez suggested borrowing from Katharine Hepburn's role in the screwball comedy Bringing Up Baby, a longtime dream of Monchan's.

Monchan also drew from Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany's, from Elliot Reid (Scrubs) and Phoebe Buffay (Friends),[14] from his ex-girlfriend, from his "craziest" real-life acquaintances and from himself.

[14] Pendulo included allusions to film history in The Next Big Thing's script and modeled the cast after celebrities and movie characters,[11] traditions at the company.

[27] Among the films referenced in the script are Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Blade Runner, Some Like It Hot, Pirates of the Caribbean and American Beauty.

Instead, Pendulo tried to streamline the gameplay and increase the speed of the player's progression, to create "the feeling that a lot of things are happening at a frenetic pace".

[18][26] Pendulo saw graphical quality as a major selling point for its titles; Monchan later argued that Runaway owed its success in large part to its visuals.

[19] For the art direction, Pendulo maintained what Latiegui dubbed the company's "trademark" 2.5D style—originally created for Runaway—that draws from comic books and animated cartoons.

[39][37] The Next Big Thing was first announced by Pendulo Studios and publisher Focus Home Interactive in April 2010,[40][41] and it initially lacked a release date.

[1] Early previews from publications such as Jeuxvideo.com and 3DJuegos called the games similar,[49][50] but Roberto García of Spain's MeriStation wrote that "from Pendulo Studios the answer was always silence" regarding the connection.

[53] The Next Big Thing's port was created as part of a push by Pendulo to bring its back catalog to iOS devices, in an attempt to weather financial problems.

[71] David Wolinsky of TouchArcade praised Hollywood Monsters' production values and called it a "rock-solid and fun adventure", although he found its comedy "hit-or-miss" and encountered crash issues not present in the computer version.

[2] Writing for HobbyConsolas, David Alonso Hernández hailed the new touchscreen interface as a "great fit" and arguably a better match than traditional point-and-click controls.

[66] Conversely, Harry Slater of Pocket Gamer and Brittany Vincent of Slide to Play both called the new touch controls "fidgety" and imprecise, and dubbed the puzzles illogical.

Its low sales hurt the studio's business opportunities, even in its core market of Europe; Monchan said that Pendulo's publisher lost faith in the team afterward.