Pendulo Studios: History and Key Facts

Pendulo Studios S.L. was a Madrid-based video game developer founded in 1993 by Ramón Hernáez, Felipe Gómez Pinilla, Rafael Latiegui and Miguel Angel Ramos. Since the company's 1994 debut project, Igor: Objective Uikokahonia, it has specialized in graphic adventure games. Pendulo first achieved mainstream prominence in Spain via Hollywood Monsters (1997), which met with critical and commercial success in the country but was never released beyond Southern Europe.

The company broke into the international market with its third game, Runaway: A Road Adventure (2001), whose hit status in Europe contributed to the reenergization of the adventure game genre. It also saved Pendulo from bankruptcy, following the closure of its publisher Dinamic Multimedia. Thereafter, Pendulo created two sequels to Runaway; the series collectively had sold more than 1.5 million units worldwide by 2010. After the release of Yesterday in 2012, Pendulo entered another period of financial uncertainty, but in 2014 signed a deal with Microids that led to the creation of Yesterday Origins, Blacksad: Under the Skin and other titles. Following the poor sales performance of Tintin Reporter – Cigars of the Pharaoh, Pendulo Studios ceased operating in March 2025.

As of 2019, Pendulo Studios was Spain's longest-running active game development company. The company has been cited as a major force in Spanish game development, particularly in the adventure genre. In 2017, the Spanish publication HobbyConsolas declared Pendulo "synonymous with graphic adventures in Spain" and one of the country's most significant developers.

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