Doug TenNapel, creator of Earthworm Jim and one of the most creative graphic novelists on the planet, is working on a new video game. He announced some of the details on Facebook this week.
Through the years Neverhood fans have asked for another game, and I’m partnering with my EWJ and Neverhood buddies Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield to make a full sized, PC and Mac point and click adventure game in clay and puppet animation. New characters, but in my usual style.
TenNapel’s “usual style” is mind blowing. The Neverhood debuted on the Dreamworks Interactive label in 1996. It was a point-and-click adventure built entirely in clay and animated via stopmotion. Here’s a taste, and keep in mind that he did this in 1996 on PCs that can’t even compete with today’s smart phones for processing power.
Again, he pulled this off on hardware that’s barely a calculator today. I still play SkullMonkeys every now and then on the PS3. It holds up extremely well. The humor does, too, as does its story of good vs. evil. It’s hard to put into words just how insane and fun both games are, how great the characters are, how funny they are, and how far ahead of their time both games were. And, when so many video games are excessively violent and filled with profanity, how good TenNapel’s games are.
Now, for some more good news. The same mad genius who wrote the soundtracks for both the Neverhood and SkullMonkeys, Terry Taylor, is scoring the new game too. For even more good news, TenNapel is taking suggestions for the new game from fans of the previous games.
Here’s where you come in. What would you, the Neverhood fans, want to see in a new game? We’ll read every suggestion and actually try to make all of the good ideas happen!
I. Can’t. Wait.
By the way, if you want to check out his graphic novel work, I recommend Ghostopolis and Earthboy Jacobus. TenNapel has hinted recently that the latter may be made into a movie.
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