The Neverhood game was famous for being animated by the method of stop-motion animation - characters were made from wire armatures and then modelled with clay and other materials. It was published by Dreamworks Interactive. Joe Potter designed The Neverhood logo. The Neverhood UE4. Late 2016 I decided to go indie and make games of my own. As a launch project to get warmed up (and test myself), I decided to recreate a portion of a favorite of mine, The Neverhood. 3D Models, Textures, Animations, Game Logic, Lighting, Shaders, it was all made custom for this project based on the original, and is rendered.
The Neverhood looks and plays like a Gumby dream. It's an engaging Myst-style point-and-click puzzle game crafted with beautifully rendered claymation graphics. The result is an engrossing and entertaining exercise in mystery-solving with an eye-popping look (by the design team that created Earthworm Jim) that's fun to play but a little more fun to watch.
Flog Klogg
Shitting between a first-person view and a side-scrolling view, you guide the game's hero, aptly named Klaymen. through a series of puzzles as he endeavors to defeat Klogg, the evil ruler of the Neverhood. The controls are very simple: You point and click on any of the surroundings and in most cases the A.I. does the rest, causing Klaymen to automatically interact with various objects and devices.
This is no twitch game, so brain power, not quick reflexes, is what you need. While some of the puzzles are perplexing, none of them have solutions so obscure that you'll burst a blood vessel trying to solve them. The premium here is on exploration, but the absence of a 'smart cursor' that changes shape when it passes over clickable objects certainly ups the challenge.
An Audio/Visual Feast
The Neverhood's fantastic graphics steal the show. Klaymen and his world were actually sculpted from clay. A dizzying range of seamless facial expressions and physical antics brings Klaymen to life. He runs, jumps, spits, belches, and swings his way through the game. The other characters in the Neverhood are also visually arresting.
Of course, not everything is perfect. The claymation graphics look great in long and medium camera shots, but some images grow a little fuzzy during close-ups. That's a very minor quibble, though, in this otherwise exceptional-looking game.
The sound effects are simple; featuring a nice variety of interactive noises, such as bells, oficers, and footsteps. Jazzy music enlivens the game's pace at key moments, but is thankfully absent when you're faced with perplexing situations (like the hall of records that seems to go on forew) that require deep concentration.
Heyday of Clay
The Neverhood is an excellent adventure/puzzle game. Challenging puzzles and situations will provide you with hours of play, and Klay-men and his cohorts supply plenty of character--thanks to superb claymation graphics. You'll wish the Neverhood would never end.
ProTips:
- After the monster in the courtyard chases you back to the house, he knocks a match off a shelf. Light the dynamite man and push him toward the monster. The monster eats the dynamite man and explodes!
- Go to the puzzle on the wall and move the pieces around until you form an 'H' When you do, the door opens.
You are Klaymen. Klaymen wakes up in a building in the strangely empty world of Neverhood. Initially, he does not know where he is or what he has to do, but as he explores the area, he finds mysterious disks. Each disk contains a fragment of a recording; gradually, the backstory is revealed as Klaymen finds more and more disks. It would spoil too much to reveal the exact plot, as finding it out is part of the game.
The Neverhood is a point-and-click adventure game, notable for its claymation graphics. It uses a simple interface: you move and interact with the world by clicking on the screen. There is no inventory screen, though Klaymen can find a few items he can pick up. There are few inventory-based puzzles; most of the puzzles involve solving riddles and interacting with the environment.
Generally, the game is seen from a 3rd person perspective, but when moving between locales, you see the world through Klaymen’s eyes (but you have a limited freedom of movement).
Game Info
- Genre: Adventure
- Developer: Neverhood, Inc., The
- Year: 1996