The Neverhood Chronicles

In the lecture, Claymation (or, clay animation) was briefly discussed. The technique uses stop-start recording and moving the clay figures by tiny fractions each time, and winds up getting about 2 seconds of footage on a good day. Thus I don't think many of us will actually be making use of Claymation.

That is, sadly, going to be the case for me too. However, one of my all time favourite games, The Neverhood Chronicles, is a game made entirely in Claymation - and I feel it is a work of art in itself.

My dad bought it for us and we played it as kids, but he enjoyed it so much that he played the game himself as well. Sadly the game was never a commercial success - although it gained a small cult following.

The game is now abandon-ware, and available from Classic PC Games, and I'm sure, a lot of other places on the net as well. The original website, created and maintained by the game's developers has been taken down; but thankfully a copy of it has been created by some benevolent fans.


This is one of the cut scenes in the game - and I absolutely love it.

Other than the fact that it is made entirely in Claymation, I think the other reason I love this game so much is the strength of the storyline element of the game. The developers went to the extent of even writing a Bible-styled background story to the actual game called The Neverhood Chronicles (hence the name of the game) that spanned 38 screens in the game, which works out to about 150 A4-sized pages of text.

Another interesting concept was that there were various "disks" or "books" that were littered throughout the game, which you could collect as you progressed through the game. You would also encounter several "video players" at various places within the world you explore, and you could put the disks you have been collecting into them, and then you could progressively play more and more of this really long instructional video telling you what your purpose in this world is, and what you should do (to save it).

This is especially important because the game starts off with the character you play sleeping in a room, and then you wake him up and start exploring this strange new world, without a shred of explanation to go on. This, I thought, presented the player with a unique game play challenge that rewarded the inquisitiveness and curiosity of the player very well - which suits the game very well.

The cut scenes that you would encounter at crucial points in the game's storyline were fantastic, and I would play the game just for the reward of the cut scenes themselves.