The Neverhood

The Neverhood
Developer(s) The Neverhood, Inc.
Publisher(s) DreamWorks Interactive
Distributor(s) Electronic Arts
Designer(s) Doug TenNapel
Mark Lorenzen
Artist(s) Mike Dietz
Ed Schofield
Mark Lorenzen
Stephen Crow
Composer(s) Terry Scott Taylor
Platform(s) Microsoft Windows, PlayStation
Release date(s)

Microsoft Windows

  • NA: October 31, 1996

PlayStation

  • JP: April 23, 1998
Genre(s) Point-and-click adventure
Mode(s) Single-player

The Neverhood (also called The Neverhood Chronicles, released in Japan as Klaymen Klaymen) is a 1996 point-and-click adventure game developed by The Neverhood, Inc. and published by DreamWorks Interactive. The game follows the adventure of a claymation character named Klaymen as he discovers his origins and his purpose in a world made entirely out of clay. When the game was originally released, it was unique in that it featured all of its animation done entirely in claymation, including all of the sets, rather than 2- or 3-dimensional computer graphics, like many other games at its time. The gameplay consists mostly of the player guiding the main character Klaymen around and solving puzzles to advance in the game. As the player advances through different areas of the game, there are various video sequences that help advance the plot. In addition to being unique, The Neverhood aimed at being quirky and humorous, as is evident by the characters, the music, and the plot sequence of the game.

Plot

The titular Neverhood is a surreal landscape dotted with buildings and other hints of life, all suspended above an endless void. However, the Neverhood itself is bizarrely deserted, with its only inhabitants being Klaymen (the main protagonist and player character), Willie Trombone (a dim individual who assists Klaymen in his travels), Klogg (the game's antagonist who resembles a warped version of Klaymen), and various fauna that inhabit the Neverhood (most infamously the 'weasels', monstrous, crablike creatures that pursue Klaymen and Willie at certain points in the game). Much of the game's background information is limited to the 'Hall Of Records' which is notorious for its length, taking several minutes to travel from one end of the hall to the other.

The game begins with Klaymen waking up in a room and exploring the Neverhood, collecting various discs appearing to contain a disjointed story narrated by Willie. As Klaymen travels the Neverhood, he occasionally crosses paths with Willie, who agrees to help him in his journey while Klogg, who is spying on Klaymen from afar, tries to threaten Klaymen into giving up his quest. Eventually, Klaymen's quest directs him to Klogg's castle, and for this Klaymen enlists the help of Big Robot Bil, a towering automaton and a friend of Willie's.

As Bil (with Klaymen and Willie on board) marches to Klogg's castle, Klogg unleashes his guardian, the Clockwork Beast, to intercept Bil. The two giants clash and Bil proves victorious, but as he forces open the castle door for Klaymen to enter, Klogg gravely injures Bil by firing a cannon at him. Klaymen manages to get in, but Bil loses his footing and falls into the void with Willie still inside. Alone in Klogg's castle, Klaymen finds a terminal, and should he collect all of Willie's discs, the full extent of his tale is revealed; the Neverhood itself is the creation of a godlike being named Hoborg, who created the Neverhood in the hopes of making himself happy. Realizing that he was still alone, Hoborg creates himself a companion by planting a seed into the ground, which grows into Klogg. As Hoborg welcomes Klogg to the Neverhood, the latter tries to take Hoborg's crown, which Hoborg forbids Klogg from doing. Envious, Klogg manages to steal Hoborg's crown, rendering Hoborg inert in the process, and the crown's energies disfigure Klogg. With Hoborg lifeless, any further development of the Neverhood ground to a halt.

Having witnessed this, Willie (himself and Bil being creations of Hoborg's brother Ottoborg) discovers that Hoborg was about to plant a seed to create another companion. Willie takes the seed and plants it faraway from Klogg, with Willie hoping that whoever grew from the seed would defeat Klogg. That seed in turn grew into Klaymen. Afterwards, Klaymen manages to reach the throne room, with Klogg and a motionless Hoborg waiting for him. Klogg tries to dissuade Klaymen from reviving Hoborg by tempting him with Hoborg's crown. From here, the player may choose to take up Klogg's offer or take the crown to revive Hoborg. If the player chooses to take the crown for himself, Klogg gloats at his apparent victory, only for the crown to disfigure Klaymen similarly to Klogg. The now-villanous Klaymen overpowers Klogg and declares himself the new ruler of the Neverhood.

If the player chooses to revive Hoborg, Klaymen distracts Klogg and manages to put the crown atop Hoborg's head, reviving him. As Hoborg thanks Klaymen, Klogg attempts to ambush them both, only to set off his own cannon which blasts him out of the castle and into the void. Returning to the building where Klaymen first started, Hoborg continues populating the Neverhood and orders a celebration when he is finished. However, Klaymen remains sorrowful over the loss of Willie and Bil, and Hoborg decides to use his powers to save Willie and Bil (to Klaymen's delight). The game ends with Hoborg telling Klaymen "Man, things are good".

Development

Doug TenNapel came up with the idea of a plasticine world in 1988, creating approximately 17 structures.[1] Due to his dissatisfaction with the way David Perry ran Shiny Entertainment TenNapel left the company in 1995. Two weeks later he announced at E3 that he started his own company The Neverhood, Inc., which consisted of a number of people who worked on Earthworm Jim and its sequel.[2] Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Interactive, which had recently started, needed fresh and unusual projects and TenNapel approached Spielberg with the idea of a claymation game, with Spielberg accepting it for publication.[1] The Neverhood, Inc. made a deal with DreamWorks Interactive and Microsoft, and the game went for development. After a year of work, The Neverhood was finally released to the public in 1996.[3] The game elements were shot entirely on beta versions of the Minolta RD-175, making The Neverhood the first stop motion production to use consumer digital cameras for professional use.

Soundtrack

The game's soundtrack was composed and performed by Daniel Amos frontman Terry Scott Taylor and went on to win GMR Magazine's "Best Game Music of the Year" award. Tom Clancy's video game composer Bill Brown called The Neverhood Soundtrack, "The Best of any of them (video game soundtracks)."[4]

Ports and Legacy

A PlayStation port of the game titled Klaymen Klaymen was made and released to Japanese audiences only, with some minor changes to the PC version such as longer loading times between room to room and the removal of The Hall of Records area. The Japanese release of Skullmonkeys, in turn, received the appropriate name Klaymen Klaymen 2.

In June 2011, it was announced via Facebook and Twitter that some of the original developers of The Neverhood are currently negotiating for exclusive rights to release the game on modern platforms such as iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Android phones, Android tablets and Windows Phone.[5][6]

As official support had ceased, e.g. updates for modern OS and hardware, a fan group created new compatibility fixes in the "Neverhood restoration project" in 2013.[7]

In July 21, 2014, ScummVM version 1.7.0 was released by the ScummVM project which added support for the Neverhood, allowing to run it on many supported platforms including Linux, OS X, Windows and Android OS.[8]

The game and it's designs later became the inspiration for sci-fi romance anime television show Kaiba.

Reception

Reception
Aggregate score
AggregatorScore
GameRankings87.00%[9]
Review scores
PublicationScore
Adventure Gamers[10]
Game RevolutionB+[11]
GameSpot4.9/10[12]
Entertainment WeeklyA[13]

Critical reaction

The game received an average score of 87.00% at GameRankings, based on an aggregate of 7 reviews.[9] The game's Facebook page "Neverhood Mobile"[14] posted a link to an independent YouTube video review uploaded in 2011, which ranked The Neverhood in "the top 5 greatest (video) games of all time."[15]

Sales

The Neverhood sold only about 42,000 copies. An additional 600,000 OEM copies were purchased by Gateway and pre-installed on their computers.[16] Over the years it turned out that The Neverhood also received a huge fan base in Russia and Iran as a result of the massive bootleg copying and distribution of pre-installed games on PC's.[17]

Awards

Computer Gaming World gave The Neverhood the 1997 Special Award for Artistic Achievement.[18]

Animation Magazine's film festival "World Animation Celebration" awarded the game "Best Animation Produced for Game Platforms" in 1997.[19]

Sequels

A sequel to The Neverhood was released in 1998 for the PlayStation, entitled Skullmonkeys. It was not a point-and-click adventure game like the first installment, but rather a platform game.

Following the sequel, another Japanese PlayStation game set in the Neverhood universe called Klaymen Gun-Hockey was made. A Japan-only sports action game, it was based on the characters of the Neverhood, but was not developed by the designers of the original games; it also did not feature the previous releases' distinctive Claymation design techniques. The game is a variation on air hockey, only played with guns instead of mallets. Was developed and published by Riverhillsoft, the publisher of Japanese releases of the Neverhood series.

Klaymen is featured as a secret fighter for the PlayStation game BoomBots, also developed by The Neverhood, Inc.

On March 12, 2013, TenNapel announced that he had partnered with former Neverhood and Earthworm Jim artists/animators Ed Schofield and Mike Dietz of Pencil Test Studios to develop a "clay and stop-motion animated point and click adventure game".[20][21] While stating that the game would not be a sequel to The Neverhood, TenNapel reiterated that the game would consist of his unique art style and sense of humor, and have an original soundtrack by Terry Scott Taylor. The game is called Armikrog. Armikrog was released on September 30th, 2015. [22][23]

Film

On June 25, 2007, Variety reported that one of Frederator Films' first projects would be a claymation feature film adaptation based on The Neverhood. Doug TenNapel, the creator of the videogame, is aboard for write and direct the film.[24]

References

  1. 1 2 "Review of The Neverhood Chronicles". Game Revolution. 2004-06-05.
  2. ↑ "Welcome To The Neverhood". Awn.com. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  3. ↑ "Internet Archive Wayback Machine". Replay.waybackmachine.org. 2008-05-16. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  4. ↑ "Terry Scott Taylor". Daniel Amos band website.
  5. ↑ Neverhood MobileAboutTimelineAbout. "Neverhood Mobile - Résumé". Facebook. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  6. ↑ "Klaymen (@NeverhoodMobile) op Twitter". Twitter.com. Retrieved 2012-10-14.
  7. ↑ Neverhood restoration project on sourceforge.net (accessed August 2015)
  8. ↑ "ScummVM 1.7.0 "The Neverrelease" is out!". ScummVM. Jul 21, 2014.
  9. 1 2 "The Neverhood for PC". GameRankings. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  10. ↑ Saighman, Jim (2003-10-24). "The Neverhood review". Adventure Gamers. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  11. ↑ "The Neverhood Chronicles Review". Game Revolution. 2004-05-06. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  12. ↑ Hutsko, Joe (1996-10-24). "The Neverhood Review". GameSpot. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  13. ↑ Cheng, Kipp (1996-11-29). "PC Game Review: 'The Neverhood'". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2013-09-02.
  14. ↑ "Neverhood Mobile". Facebook.com. Retrieved June 23, 2014.
  15. ↑ Jerma985 (Dec 28, 2011). "Enlighten: The Neverhood". Retrieved June 23, 2014.
  16. ↑ "Exclusive – The Neverhood's Mike Dietz 'The Industry Is Stuck In A Rut'". igameresponsibly.com. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  17. ↑ "Funny Interview with Doug Tennapel! Armikrog on Kickstarter!". WelovegamesTV. Retrieved 2013-10-06.
  18. ↑ CGW 154 (May 1997)
  19. ↑ "WAC Awards for 1997".
  20. ↑ "The Official Neverhood Facebook Page". Facebook.com. Retrieved 2013-03-12.
  21. ↑ "The Neverhood Game Will Get a Worthy Successor". Mountspace.net. Retrieved 2013-03-22.
  22. ↑ "The Neverhood creator working on a new claymation point-and-click adventure". Eurogamer.net. Retrieved 2013-03-15.
  23. ↑ "Neverhood creator developing a full, stop-motion animated adventure game". PCgamer.com. Retrieved 2013-03-14.
  24. ↑ http://variety.com/2007/digital/markets-festivals/toon-trio-starts-frederator-1117967622/
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