Blast from the Past 4: The Neverhood

by MickM | 09-11-2008 | Blog 222 views

I used to rent some of my games at the local library and what I did, was go there every week and get a few cool games. One of those weeks, I happen to come across a game called The Neverhood, which looked really awesome.
Back then, I was playing with klay myself so I thought I'd give it a shot.
And it was amazing!

The Neverhood is the perfect example of the old 90's adventures and how versatile they can be. Unlike your average Monkey Island, Neverhood took place in a world that was created outside the computer-world just with klay. Every object, animation and movie was created with Klay, then recorded and later placed in the game.

If you've seen the making of, you can see people building huge sets of environments where our Klaymen walks through. APart from this unique style, the game also game a new meaning to adventures in the sense that this was also one of the first games that had such bizarre puzzles and commbined with the silly music and bizarre world, you are really being sucked into the whole Neverhood experience.



"Hey Klaymen!"
Klaymen is the hero of our adventure. We meet up with him as he wakes up in one of the rooms on a strange world where it's not sure what your motives are.
But as a player, you don't care because right at that second, you will be pleased by the visual style, silly animations and funny starting puzzles.

Puzzles vary from simple soundpuzzles to trial and error to walking from A to B or even puzzles that can be solved by dumb luck.
Everywhere you go, you will be slapped in the face with the awesome humor that this game holds.



Hoborg's dream
You then discover hidden blocks lying around that you can insert into a machine that creates a movie out of it. Find all the blocks and the machine tells you the story about the Neverhood and your creation.

You are constantly teased to continue and try everything that you might want to do and there is even a possibility to read the entire story pasted on a plaster wall in the endless room.



Olly Oxen Free Tee-hee
This combination of humor, style and story is what animator Doug TenNapel did great. The man behind EarthWorm Jim's style is behind this masterpiece as well.
You may have noticed already, but if you're still not convinced, I strongly recommend getting ahold of the game to see for yourself. Once you see the animations, you will know ;)

If you're a fan of either EarthWorm Jim or Doug TenNapel's work, or just want try play of of those immersive adventures again, I can really recommend this game.

Steven Spielberg also had a part in the story and production and I just read that the next years will be very important for Neverhood-fans because of the fact that a movie is being made based on the wonderfull world of the Neverhood!