Today, by sheer accident (and with a little encouragement from Youtube Suggestions), I stumbled upon an old PC game which, fifteen odd years ago, I really wanted to own the full version of yet could only ever have the pleasure (and pain) of indulging in its demo.

I’m talking about the obscure work of merged media known as The Neverhood. I love stop-gap animation, especially claymation - the soft textures are really reminiscent of amateur home-made work. However, The Neverhood was never an amateur project, and was certainly a first in the videogame world. No other game could claim to have married such a flexible and dynamic art form to an interactive experience with such finesse. It garnered the support of Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks; and paying homage to the cartoon genius of Tex Avery and Friz Freleng, The Neverhood is truly unique in the world of videogames.

As an over-complicated ‘point and click’ adventure, it didn’t fare well in GameSpot’s review when it was released. Nevertheless, I still salute it as an innovator in bringing videogames closer to a definition of art. Here’s a memorable clip from the demo: