Blacksad Under The Skin

Blacksad Under The Skin is an video game that is to be released on September 29 before it was delayed and later to be released on November 5 in 2019.

## Synthesis

The 50s, New York City: Joe Dunn, owner of a boxing club, is found dead.

Meanwhile, rising star Bobby Yale, due to take to the ring for the most important fight of his career, has mysteriously disappeared.

Sonia Dunn, Joe’s daughter, takes over the gym and must deal with its financial woes. She hires private detective John Blacksad to investigate Yale’s disappearance. This sinister case will take our investigator to the darkest, most dismal depths of New York.

With its anthropomorphic characters and its incredible 1950s feel, BLACKSAD: Under the Skin promises all the eerily dark adventure of a detective novel, just like the eponymous comic book series.

Conduct the investigation in your own way. Make use of węd and influence the outcome of the case.

## Plot

The story begins with the murder of a Lynx named Joey Dunn, who is a manager of the Boxing Gym in New York. Blacksad a Private detective gets hired by Dunn's daughter Sonia to investigate if it was a murder or suicide. He gets words from a blind goat on four people and one of them had the murder weapon (Chest Expander).

Blacksad then sorts out his suspects from O'Leary a Coyote who runs a gambling/mafia operation, Cassidy (under the guise of a Texan billionaire) who runs gambling and a Boxing rival of Dunn with his minotaur Al Stone.

After Blacksad deduced that neither of the two conspired to murder Joey Dunn and notices that a woman Mary Purnell is hiding Bobby Yale after being believed to be the murderer. After a talk with Yale, he is met with a lizard doctor who was in Yale's room. Sonia would've killed Yale hadn't been for Blacksad's words of advice of not knowing the culprit right away. Both met Tim Thorpe an old friend of Joey Dunn, who is a lion bound to a wheelchair and a former quarterback. Blacksad then gets the story from Weekly about the athlete's hidden success.

Mary Purnell was seen dead in the crime scene and notices that the gym office was ransacked, then he went to the apartment to find clues that the killer was there before the gym. He had a talk with Thorpe about the photo from WWII showing that He, Dunn, Mitchell (The Doctor), Craig Spannow a chimpanzee, and a chameleon who died in the war. Blacksad returned seeing Sonia regretful of her thoughts on both her parents to be attacked by an Anteater named Randal Leigh, revealing to be Joey's killer and one of Blacksad's assailants. Blacksad and Smirnov, an old friend of his interrogated the arrogant anteater, who was shot by a mysterious sniper.

Blacksad then discovered that Spannow was looking for "the Surgeon" who Blacksad believed was Angus Mitchell, thus revealing Angus pretended to be a doctor. He then went to the docks and dealt with a stallion Navajo named Gill, who was defeated and then gives Blacksad the key to the lab. Blacksad then realized why Yale had that brief heart attack or the rigged games in Helen Moore's winning came from a drug. He also meets a young german rat named Brunhilde with disease and her father who tried to cure her. Angus Mitchell is revealed to be part of a drug operation, who murders the two rats and tries to escape but is locked in by Gill. Spannow saves Blacksad only to die from the side effects of the drug.

As Blacksad heads to Thorpe for his money, he notices the "Surgeon" was none other than Thorpe himself. who was faking his own injury to cover his tracks, also the sniper who killed Randal Leigh. As he was gonna expose Thorpe, Thorpe tried to shoot him and Smirnov only to be killed by the one who trusted him, Sonia. Sonia with guilt commits suicide and leaving Blacksad with a sad way to close the case. (One of multiple ending possibilities in the game).

## Gameplay

Blacksad: Under the Skin is an adventure game that takes place in a three-dimensional game world. Its gameplay has been compared to the work of Telltale Games, as well as Team Bondi's L.A. Noire and Frogwares' Sherlock Holmes: The Devil's Daughter.

Blacksad does not feature an inventory, and, unlike in Pendulo Studios' past games, it forgoes a point-and-click interface in favor of direct character control.

Gameplay is choice-based and the player's actions alter the player character's alignment with other characters in the world. The direction of the story will change based on the player's decisions.

Blacksad features quick-time events, timed conversation sequences and scenes where the player must search for clues in the environment.

During investigations, John Blacksad's heightened feline senses allow the player to slow down time and perceive visual clues in their surroundings, which are then added to the player's clue index. From here, the player may combine clues to form conclusions, both to progress the main story and to solve optional side-quests.

## Characters

* John Blacksad
* Sonia Dunn
* Mrs. Colbert
* Weekly
* Craig Spannow
* Mary Purnell
* John Smirnov
* Helen Moore
* Jake Ostiombe
* Eugene Colbert
* Frank Cassidy
* Tim Thorpe
* Paulie iguana

## Development

Blacksad: Under the Skin is under production by the Spanish company Pendulo Studios,[9] the country's longest-running game developer.

It was previously responsible for games such as the Runaway and Hollywood Monsters franchises.

YS Interactive initially assisted the team on Blacksad.

According to Pendulo, the idea of adapting the Blacksad comic series into a game was first proposed by Pendulo's publisher Microïds, directly after the two companies had completed Yesterday Origins in November 2016.

Microïds is owned by the same media conglomerate as Blacksad publisher Dargaud. Although Pendulo had never worked with a license before, the developer's Josué Monchán noted that the team had "been Blacksad fans for a long time" and agreed to the idea immediately.

The team then storyboarded a pitch and submitted it to Dargaud and Blacksad's authors, who approved it.

The project was unexpectedly announced in June 2017 and was initially scheduled for a late-2018 release.

Giada Zavarise of Rock, Paper, Shotgun wrote of the announcement, "In the world of games, the news was received with a shrug. But in the comics scene, people were screaming incoherently."

Gameblog's Vincent Elmer-Haerrig called the plan a "gamble" for Pendulo, as Under the Skin is aimed at "a fringe of players who are both comic-philes and video game lovers."

Pendulo is collaborating with Blacksad creators Juan Díaz Canales and Juanjo Guarnido on Under the Skin.

The developer has described the pair as consultants, while Canales said that Pendulo "ask[s] us about the plot and the visuals concepts."

According to Monchán, adapting Guarnido's visual style has been the team's "biggest challenge" during production.

Guarnido expressed his desire for accuracy to the Blacksad comic's aesthetic, and Monchán called his help and approval "fundamental" to the team's efforts.

The authors reviewed each stage of the 2D concept art and 3D visuals.

Pendulo hopes to balance faithfulness to the comics' art with realism regarding budget and scheduling, as Monchán noted that it was impossible to perfectly recreate the comics' style given the restrictions of game development.

Blacksad's authors also offered input on the game's voice direction.

Canales requested a deep voice for John Blacksad because of the character's heavy smoking; the team hired Barry Johnson of Detroit: Become Human for the English version, and Gabriel Jiménez—voice of Hugh Jackman in Spanish film dubs—for the Spanish version.

With help from the comic's authors, Pendulo opted to create an original story not based on any particular Blacksad installment, but which still takes influence and inspiration from the existing series.

Guarnido has said that "the narrative is strong and we took care that it does not interfere with the stories of the comic series".

The game's story is officially considered non-canonical, and will focus on sports-related corruption and the impact of television on sports in the 1950s.

Monchán told RTVE that Pendulo "wanted to address a topic that Guarnido and Canales have not yet touched".

Pendulo's Felipe Gómez Pinilla said that the theme of corruption emerged from the team's research into the era.

It became a central theme in the game; according to GameSpot's Jordan Ramée, the team intended player decisions to hinge on their interaction with corruption in society, either through acceptance or rejection.

Blacksad is Pendulo's first game to use fully 3D visuals. Lead animator Carlos Hernández told Mundo Deportivo that the game's production "has been a great difficulty" for the team, particularly because of its small size.

Pendulo numbered 17 members by 2019.

The team was similarly challenged by the game design: Pinilla noted that Pendulo seeks to recreate the feeling of the Blacksad comics in interactive form, and to "find the mechanics that make you feel like [you are] investigating something" rather than simply observing an investigation.

John Blacksad's heightened feline senses are an attempt by the team to make Under the Skin's detective work unique to the Blacksad universe. Easter eggs that reference the Blacksad books were included as well.

The game's direct control scheme replaced traditional point-and-click controls because the team wanted Under the Skin to suit game consoles, a concern that started during the creation of Yesterday Origins.

Under the Skin's first teaser trailer was revealed in August 2018, around the time of its showing at Gamescom.

It proceeded to appear at the 3D Wire festival in Spain that October.

By February 2019, the game had been in production for over two years.

In April of that year, Blacksad was given a release date of September 26, 2019.

Mundo Deportivo reported at the time that Blacksad was "in the final phase of development".

However, in July, the game was delayed to early November 2019.

Microïds attributed the delay to a desire for increased polish in the final product.

## Reception

***Pre Release***: During 2018, MeriStation placed Blacksad: Under the Skin among the year's "10 most promising" adventure games, while La Vanguardia and VidaExtra listed the game's debut trailer as one of the best to appear at Gamescom 2018.

The following year, HobbyConsolas declared Under the Skin one of 2019's "most anticipated Spanish video games", and IGN España highlighted the game as one of the top graphic adventures scheduled for 2019.

The editors of 3DJuegos similarly named it their 44th-most-anticipated title of 2019 across all genres and platforms, and one of their 20 most anticipated indie games of the year.