Description
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).
Alternate Titles
- "クレイマン・クレイマン ～ネバーフッドの謎～" -- Japanese spelling
- "The Neverhood Chronicles" -- Unofficial title
- "Klaymen Klaymen - Neverhood No Nazo" -- Japanese PSX title
Part of the Following Groups
User Reviews
The Press Says
| Joypad |
Oct, 1998 |
8 out of 10 |
80 |
Forums
Trivia
Animation
According to
Douglas TenNapel,
The Neverhood required 3.5 tons of clay and was comprised of 50,000 frames of animation. The production took five animators over a year to complete the game.
The animators used traditional stop action cameras and digitized the analog film to maximize the quality of the photography.
Development
Steven Spielberg was a big fan of Earthworm Jim, and requested that Douglas TenNapel, creator of the character, design Klaymen in a similar fashion.
Japanese version
The Japanese Playstation version has a flew slight changes. First up, the speed of the game has been doubled. Klaymen walks around the 2D scenes much faster. The walkaround sequences are now much faster also.
The Hall of Records scene (that's the 10-or-so minute walk back and forth across the whole world with the history written on the walls) has been removed completely, probably because it would take too long to translate all of it into Japanese. But, you can still look out the window at the end of the room and see that you have crossed half of the whole world.
References
When you're in the open square with the house with the letter H on it, go inside and solve the puzzle. Keep trying until you get it. Go past the disk-reading machine and leave the lights off in the long, long hallway. Go all the way to the end to the window, and look at the bottom-left corner of the screen. That is
Mark Lorenzen's name, one of the designers.
Rating
Although considered a kid-friendly game, The Neverhood still received a Teen rating from the ESRB for Comic Mischief and Mild Animated Violence.
Technology
This was the one of the first games designed to run under DirectX. It came with the DirectX 3.0 install. The game would run under Win NT.
Website
In December 2001,
The Neverhood's official website was taken down. The president of Boomerang Studios saved it for the team and uploaded it to www.neverhood.co.uk in January 2002.
Awards
- Computer Gaming World
- May 1997 (Issue #154) – Special Award for Artistic Achievement
- World Animation Celebration
- 1997 - Best Production for a Video Game
Information also contributed by
Apogee IV,
David Mackenzie,
Itay Shahar,
Scott Monster,
Tiger Frampton and
Zack Green
