The Neverhood

Plot synopsis:
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".

Tags: psychedelic

Review:
Only two words can describe this fantastic frenzy of a fun and frisky form of gaming:  "Wow" and "Excellent".I can't describe it to its full extent.
The creators of this game put so much time, effort, and ability into creating Klaymen's world that, although I have played through the game literally five or more times over, I am still amazed.
While the game lacks a solid story when you start, it builds up as if the storyline stretches out to the past and the future.
Klaymen learns of the past as he continues ahead (on to his and the Neverhood's fate).When Klaymen's ultimate journey begins, there is no plot.
There is no story.
There is no big bad guy.
There is exploration and there are puzzles, and plenty of them.
These puzzles are not extremely hard, as in a similar game, Riven.
They are challenging but not beyond total confusion.
One puzzle links to something elsewhere within the world, and when Klaymen figures it out, everything fits together.The plot is excellent (once it quickens), the characters are deep and intriguing, and the gameplay is excellent.
Not to mention the cinematic sequences every so often.
In all, the Neverhood is a must..
In all, the Neverhood is a must..
A fantastic surreal experience.
The Neverhood is one of the most challenging single player games I have ever played, and it hurts me to admit that I never did manage to finish it by myself.
Perhaps this is because it is so different to any kind of game I have ever played and it takes a great deal of logic to unlock its many puzzles and mysteries if you expect to get anywhere in the game.
Nevertheless, this is a fantastic wacky achievement by Dreamworks Studios, featuring childlike claymation and interface but adult-level difficulties in game-play, all interwoven with quirky elements.
No one can successfully capture the mood or style of The Neverhood in a few sentences, but think Wallace and Gromit claymation meets Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, with a touch of Salvador Dali surrealism.
In other words, this is a wacky, colourfully creative mess.
We follow Klaymen as our first-person player on his quest to explore Neverhood (a neighbourhood) and the more puzzles and tasks he completes, the more we get to know about the plot of the game in the form of his mission.
Klaymen collects stone-chips which he can insert in TVs which will then play for a bit to give more history of Neverhood.
Very soon it is evident that the world of Neverhood is an unusual one and the people (creatures) he encounters may not be what they appear to be.Aside from featuring an involving and puzzling plot, The Neverhood is the funniest game ever to hit PC platform.
A game sequence that has stuck with me is when Klayman finds and rewinds a musical box and it shifts to cinematic mode.
A happy jingle starts playing, and Klaymen continues to wind it and suddenly it awakens this huge spider-like monster who comes barging through the wall OUT OF NOWHERE and starts chasing Klay and it is just the ugliest creature I have ever seen in a video game.
This cinematic is absolutely hysterical.
No description will ever do it justice.
You need to play this game now.
Although it may appear to be, I don't think that this game is for children.
I say this because it genuinely freaked the hell out of me at several points and there is just an eerie, almost horror-like feeling shadowing the mood of the game-play.
To emphasize this, there is also a weird out-of-place musical score by Terry Scott Taylor that sounds like it either belongs in a fun-house at a carnival, or it simply sounds like nothing you've ever heard.
Sure, you can laugh at most of the sequences -- but this is best enjoyed by adults or teens, especially since it is so damn difficult.
The Neverhood is a gloriously entertaining, freaky PC platform game that I highly recommend.9/10.
A challenging game with fun stuff.
If you are good at memory puzzles and into a game that is all clay you will like this game.
This game is action packed and a little bit comedy to make the setting.
If you are able to beat the game you can chose two endings a good one or a bad one.
Overall it is a good game and you should but it..
The neverhoOd is at number 1 of my favourite games of all time.
Created in a klay world called the Everhood that may never exsist!
The Neverhood!The creator Doug TenNapel has also created; EarthWormJim, Gear, Soloman FX and Koghead and meatus.
He is a great christian with a band called TRUCK..
I'm a proud owner of an original CD-ROM of the Neverhood, and I have to say, it is one of the best games I have played to date.
I first found the game when I was scuttling through an old demo CD, packed with boring games like pinball, and Ace Ventura, when I came across a game with a man made of clay.
After playing ten minutes through, I set out to get a copy for myself, and ended up scoring one on eBay for 80 bucks (from Israel).
This game is VERY HARD.
So much so that I got to a point in the game where I thought you could go no further.
So I left it for a few days and went back to playing.
I was not even 1/4 of the way though the game.
This game is full of adventure, fun, and humor that'll keep you glued to the computer screen for days on end.
It does more than break the mould.
It does more than break the mould.
It shatters it.10/10.
It shatters it.10/10.
Greatest video game ever made.
No one does zany, abnormally creative artwork quite like Doug Tenapel and his crew, and this piece is living proof.
If you can find this amazing PC game anywhere (like eBay, seeing as it is so rare) you really should buy it.
I've never seen claymation taken to such a great extent before!
It's not a big-budget production and it doesn't have a very common look and feel to it like most other games might (seeing as how it takes you through the adventure in a first-person, puzzle-solving perspective format) but it is fun, intelligent, hilarious and insanely innovative like no video game has ever been before (not forgetting the awesomely offbeat soundtrack by musical genius Terry Taylor.) The only reason I even chose to stop and give this title a comment on this site in the first place is because it's so much more like a movie than a game anyway....
Fanciful game for Windows done with Claymation.
The Neverhood is, in my humble opinion, the best puzzle game for the IBM PC platform ever developed.
It was developed by Doug TenNapel and company and took years to produce.
There is mischief but very little violence.
It is most definitely not a shoot-em-up, nor is it tame.
The music, which reminds one of Leon Redbone on Lysergic Acid Diethylamide, is worth the effort of finding a used copy of this long out-of-print title from 1996.