"The Neverhood? Neverhood of it before in my life!"
Seriously though, I haven't seen nor heard of The Neverhood up until this point in time, and I am perhaps gladder than I've ever been to see that corrected and to fill in another blank spot in my knowledge of gaming history.
Created by the guy who brought you Earthworm Jim comes the somewhat silly adventure of Klaymen, seemingly alone in the world called The Neverhood. Not much adventuring to be had with nobody to interact with, is there? What's a funny point and click without funny conversation trees?
Oh yeah, this game is a point and click. Aaaaand, let's go!
Fun Times
The Neverhood opens with claymation, stop motion animation made entirely of clay. The logo bounces around the screen a bit, a snake works its way across it, a monkey swinging on a vine smacks into it. It's an opening designed to tell you two things: we don't have to make sense and we're not going to take this too seriously.
And then we're in a room with a sleeping Klaymen. Like Gabriel Knight before it, The Neverhood has its lead actor green-screened into place in front of all the necessary background art, only this time that art and that lead character are made of clay, fingerprints and all.
It looks great. Interactive elements stick out, sure, but to see it moving is a joy. All the expression and characteristics of a 2D cartoon character are present in Klaymen, who is a master of slapstick and silent comedy. Compared to other video game characters at least.
The game starts simply, with logical puzzles and no dramatic fail states. Klaymen bounces back into the action in an instant, whether eaten by a flytrap or punched in the face by what I can only assume is his own front door.
If you need a hint, there's a ladder to the toilet to help you out, but we all know what we do with hints in point and click games...
In no time at all, we emerge into The Neverhood, a strange and strangely empty place full of who knows what, and so you're left to explore it. There will be puzzles everywhere, and the first I found was a dummy with suspiciously placed sticks of explosives.
It's a shame I couldn't reach the matches after switching out the dud parts, but I'm sure we'll be back later. Hopefully, we needed an explosive dummy, rather than a dud...
Well, that was lucky.
Sadly, time was tight and I had to call my first session there, but I was desperately hoping for yet more Neverhood because the quality of the animation is top notch. Klaymen had me almost applauding at his comic antics, let alone grinning and laughing, and this is coming from someone with DVD box sets of Chaplin, Keaton, Lloyd and Laurel & Hardy.
It's all so unexpected, and then you pay attention to the music. The genre is... its own, it seems. There are mumbles and garbled speech and instruments are imitated as much as they are played. It's like someone listened to Weird Al singing "It's hard to bargle naudle zausz with all these marbles in my mouth" and said to themselves "Yes - there's something in that. I'm going to run with it, and make it the happiest, weirdest, unnerving, uplifting soundtrack imaginable."
Frustrations
Much of my frustration comes from not being the right person in the right position to really show you this game. Watch it in motion. Listen to the sound track. All of it. Play it, if you can, because there's nothing quite like it.
But it's not all sunshine and roses. For as humorous as it is, I've watched a couple of reviews and speed runs of The Neverhood which highlight a couple of potential issues.
It's a short game, done in a long afternoon if you're determined, but there are stretches where puzzles seem to take the piss or are overly long for the sake of an overly long joke. One section has you run for five minutes from screen to screen through an unlit corridor, following an arrow carved into the wall pointing to a single object for you to pick up at the end. Which is hilarious. And then you run back. Which is less so.
There are puzzles that don't make too much sense, logically, but with no fail states, they aren't too much of a problem (unless you don't have the patience, I'd imagine). In a weird warped world, they probably make sense in context - I sure didn't catch all the solutions when watching various clips - but it's something to look out for. It's pretty, but it's a point and click.
Final Word
I was very eager to continue playing The Neverhood, mostly because of its presentation, rather than gameplay, but that too is welcoming. It's about as literal a point and click as you can get - Klaymen has an inventory, in his chest, but you won't even be looking at it, let alone examining and combining items in it. If he needs an item and you have it, you'll use it. It's so simple to play around with, and you're playing around with clay figures.
When it drops into a claymation video every now and then, you can't help but to sit back and smile. So much has gone into the development of this game that it really is a shame that it isn't more widely known or easily accessible these days. You have to go out of your way to get it going, and you can count how many people will do that on one hand.
I've not completed it, but I intend to play it again sometime. Will I struggle and give up? Will I resort to a guide? Will I watch it all online? It's probably a 'Yes' to all three, but at the end of the day, I now know about The Neverhood and by God, you should too.
Fun Fact
Three tons of clay went into The Neverhood. Clay well used, I'd say.
The Neverhood, developed by The Neverhood, Inc., first released in 1996.
Version played: PC, 1996, via emulation.
Version watched: PC, 1996 (Lazy Game Reviews, Nick Strader, Jordan Underneath, GeeksOutside)