Customer Reviews

The Neverhood

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

When I was first shopping for a used copy of The Neverhood, I was confused by the page you're reading now; it says "Neverhood 2000 by SouthPeak Interactive," and I knew that the original game was released in 1996 by DreamWorks. Was this a sequel that I should also be looking for? I did some research, and found out that in 2000 SouthPeak was going to release a newly polished version of the old game, using higher-resolution photography that wouldn't look so grainy. Unfortunately, they never released it. The reviewers here, including me, have all played the original game, The Neverhood.

Now that that's cleared up...The Neverhood is a unique point-and-click adventure game done entirely in claymation. You guide a placid clay person named Klaymen around a brightly-colored world with very few other creatures in it, solving puzzles and slowly unraveling the story of how this world was created, what happened afterward, and what Klaymen must do to save it. While you're in a puzzle room, you have a third-person view of Klaymen and the objects around him. While you're moving Klaymen between rooms across the clay landscape or having him operate a machine, you have a first-person view through his eyes.

All the while this crazy music is playing --- lots of weird twanging noises and mumbly nonsense lyrics, but really catchy songs. The soundtrack by Terry Taylor --- who apparently is a "Christian music" artist most of the time --- was actually released as a separate CD, and I intend to pick it up one of these days...

Most of the puzzles in this game are pretty strange, relying on abstract visual and other associations; I had to take notes on a few of them in order to keep everything straight. There are several places where you do something that only affects an area far away, so you have no idea what you've done until you happen to walk by and notice it. There's one seriously complicated puzzle that I solved by thinking about a long story that you get to read at one point in the game. When I was done I looked up some solutions online to see if they took the same approach --- they didn't, not at all, but hey, my solution worked...See what your results are!

Hardcore adventure gamers may dislike this game for being so illogical and quirky...but it's full of charm and highly original style, and almost anyone can play it. For me, it was definitely worth the high prices that used copies now go for.

I loved this game. I must admit, I couldn't finish it without help from the website, but it's the only one that I really wanted to play whenever I had the time. I've tried Myst (took too long) and other games (Lost in Time, etc). And I also played Carmen Sandiego when it first came out, but The Neverhood had sly humour, problems easy enough to solve but not too easy, and funky music. I'm 55 by the way, so I think it's a game anyone can enjoy.

You know how some experiences --- be they movie, television or, God forbid, real life --- enter your vocabulary? Some phrase from Monty Python transformed into a code that tells just the right story for a moment. A snatch of music from the Empire Strikes Back that plays in your head each time your boss (teacher?) comes in. Camp as it is, the Neverhood is full of these spectacular moments. Humorous, catchy, absurdist, and beatifully rendered in clay. The puzzles are solid although rarely great, but the visuals, music, interface, and FEEL of the game are superb.

Two warnings: (1) Be patient in the opening scenes; the interface really is excellent although sparsely documented. (2) Not to spoil anything, but when you see the writing on the wall, you might check how long it is before you decide to read it.

Now, how am I going to get this music out of my head?

(Doo, doo, doo-doo, doo... doo, doo, doo-doo, doo, ditty-doo...)

The theme has been used before- a game with riddles to solve based on things around you in your world. Unlike the really old games like Zork, this came probably a little bit after the cusp of riddle games became more graphic. The actions all serve a purpose from beginning to end, and the music and environment are all so strange, crazy, and unique, but so much fun. So individualistic for a game. The clay images$, limited budget, and how the game was made bring a natural realness missing in most games. The production is so unbelieveable good despite all the factors working against the creators. The music is so wacky, but fits so perfectly with the game. A secret that just didn't make it far. It made it to mainstream for a very short time, but went very unnoticed. The characters make little to no sounds and there is no talking or pretty much no talking. This places focus on everything else around. It can be hard to figure out, but if you like playing 1 player riddle games or have a really good friend who likes to play these kind of games with you, this is the one to have. It should be a mainstream classic, not an indie unknown "classic."

I got lucky to get the game early on as I had bought it in a package deal getting a new computer. I was also lucky cause the sales associate was trying to get me to buy a different package instead w/o Neverhood, Age of Empires (before it got big), and Dilbert's Desktop Games.

The game will probably install on a Vista computer, but you may have trouble on say a Windows 2000 computer. It's nice to know that Vista may have considered the ability to play games that originally worked on say Windows 95 or Windows 98 only, or I just got lucky.

NEVERHOOD, a claymation game, stood sadly for years in its WIN95 box among my other dead games. Today, in 2008, I took down the box and tried the game in DOSbox 0.72, in my Win98_SE VM, and in XP & Vista. Much to my astonishment, this old shoe runs without difficulty in XP, but not in the emulators. I make a practice of saving the oldies-but-goodies games, even though many of them will never run again unless I dig through my basement for a WIN95 carcass and give it the sparks of life (It Lives! It Lives!).

NEVERHOOD is a charming, leisurely-paced point and click adventure game. The puzzles are funky but logical, and the game has a point to it. I recommend it to young and old alike as a wonderful diversion from the world of the first-person shooters and the horde of pimply-faced adolescents who make them so salable. The fact that it will run under XP Pro in is original WIN95 form makes it available to all.

Yesterday I was arranging my old CDs box, I found this CD along with lots of beautiful and sad memories. I said to myself, lets give it a try, and yes, it works !!! and I started playing it just like if I was before almost 6 years (life passes away very fast).

Guess what !? It's still FUN to play and all puzzles are like new to me :)

But why the developers are not making other versions of this game anymore ?

I hope they come up with something new like this in the next years.

hello.
i got this game last tuesday from a friend.
i started playing it like b4, when i knew nothing, but then i got intrested in finishing it. i had so much fun it was so unbeliveable. it's good even 10 years after it's release
i can't tell you how much i had fun, so overall, i had fun + madness cus some parts are freakking hard!

This game is long and slow and incredibly frustrating, and worth every minute! We got a second hand copy without any directions or anything with it. Fortunately there are hints online, but there is nothing quite like the thrill of figuring out the puzzles all on your own. We also looked forward to the new discoveries in each part of the world and checking out all the surrounding stuff to see what we might discover... And it's just as fun to play again even after you have reached the end! I also highly recommend the soundtrack featuring all of the ingenius tunes from Neverhood and Skullmonkeys: [...]

it's pretty amazing, I am here in the year 2006, 10 years after when this game was realesed (1996) and yet it is so fun, the whole clay concept is really neat, and the music? wow, this game has it all.

Out of all of the puzzle games I've ever played, this was not only the most challenging, but also the most fun.

The msic is unbelievabley creative and good, and I'm hunting around for the game soundtrack right now. If you are a fan of puzzle/adventure games, (Riven, Monkey Island, etc.) You should go get this right now. I would recomend getting it here off amazon, or on ebay.

"The Neverhood" is a great game. My family got it a little while back when I was 6 or 7 years old. I started playing it when I was around 8 years old, and really loved it. It's a nice, challenging game-everything is beautifully sculpted with clay-with lots of puzzles and something exciting around every corner...and interesting in every turn.

In this game, you are played as Klaymen, a clay person that walks around trying to solve puzzles. You soon find out that you're trying to save Hoborg (the creator of the Neverhood), who lost his crown from Klogg, the evil villain of the Neverhood. Your destination is to get to the castle, to save Hoborg. You do this by solving puzzles; they open doors, close doors, escape places, teleport yourself, take a car, which at the end you'll be brought to the castle, where you try to save the history of the Neverhood.

In the Beginning, you solve great puzzles, such as the "H puzzle", slaying a monster, start collecting all 20 tapes (you collect them throughout the game), trying to match sounds and music, walking down a looong hallway with the history of the Neverhood written on the walls, shooting a cannon, draining a big lake. If you need any help, your friend Willie will send you mail in your mailbox (located where you started the game, go down the ladder).

In the Middle, things get a little more complicated. You're in a lake, and you're in a room, which has a radio, which you need to turn to the right channel to open the door. You shrink yourself, make yourself big again, use these "teleporters", teleport yourself onto a clump of land, and collide the two halves (one of which you were on at the Beginning of the game) of the Neverhood together, give the mousie his cheese, and shoot Robot Bil (with the cannon at the lake) in the head.

In the End, you're in the castle. You need to get the 20th tape, find 3 keys, and stick them into the castle door. At the end, it runs into a stunning climax-you'll have to see it for yourself! I'm not tellin' you the ending! :)