I'm so excited.

Armikrog, the kickstarted spiritual successor to The Neverhood, will be releasing August 18th of this year. It's only a couple more months to go. From the trailer they posted on their Kickstarter update it looks like it will have a lot of similarities to The Neverhood which could be interesting, but it also leaves me wondering.

I really hope they tweaked the game play as there was some really tedious stuff in The Neverhood (which I talked about in a blog I wrote on Giant Bomb years ago). If they find a way to remove the most tedious stuff, and improve on anything else it could only make the game better.

I couldn't find an officially posted youtube video that I can embed here. The trailer on kickstarter is on youtube, but it's posted by some website I've never heard of. It does seem like the same video, so I'm going to post that below (for those that don't know, Kickstarters use vimeo instead of youtube so the official video posted on Kickstarter by Pencil test studios is not embeddable in the same way youtube videos are). Also, if you're a fan of Rob Paulsen you're in for a treat.

I'm really looking forward to this game.

I was already thinking this had been pushed back to 20xx or whatever, so I was positively surprised to learn out it's less than a week from it's release! Pre-ordered it already to scratch my adventuring itch after having just played King's Quest.

I only ever played the demo of Neverhood because the actual game cost too goddamned much in a store, but that experience alone was really memorable. Few songs from that have been stuck in my mind ever since.

Sweet Martha's Vineyard on a cool autumn evening, six more days 'til Armikrog! Six... long... days...

You can now add three more weeks to that!

OH GODDAMMIT.

Ah well. I'd rather the game be polished than put out buggy, I guess.

I mean, what's three weeks when I've been waiting almost twenty years for a Neverhood followup? No offense to Skullmonkeys or Return To The Neverhood or *snort* Klaymen Gun Hockey... but they don't count. I guess this isn't a true sequel either, but it's claymation point n' click, and that's all I need.

You can now add three more weeks to that...again!

@glottery: *slams head against desk*

I'm guessing Creatures 4 and Jetpack 2 will be out before Armikrog at this point.

*imagines Creatures 4 actually being released, and actually being good* Heh... okay, that made me feel better.

@shagge It finally arrived...and it's missing text from the menu buttons, doesn't seemingly have any settings in-game (unless those are visible), has some odd echoing voiceacting and music tracks playing on top of each other! Guess that delay paid off...or maybe it's just my PC. Hopefully something that gets fixed either way.

@glottery: Yeah, just put about 45 minutes in until I got stuck (god, I missed that... these are some Neverhood-ass puzzles right here). I haven't seen any text issues save for the subtitles being completely inaccurate at times and the menu font looking like a placeholder. The music seems fine/awesome, but there are definitely some bugs and oddities with animation and performance.

Despite the issues, however, I'm having a blast. The presence of wall-cars has me intrigued... makes me wonder if this is going to tie in to Neverhood in some way, or if it's just a reference.

Definitely going to try not to binge on this, as I doubt the game is super long. We'll see how my willpower holds out. :P

Ya, I played the first 30 minutes or so today. It's incredibly reminiscent of Neverhood. My only problem is the pointer. Much like the original the pointer is vague (as is the way) and it's not always obvious what you can even click on so I feel like I'm pixel hunting a lot just because I'm not sure what I'm seeing let alone looking for.

Other than that, though, ya this game is totally Neverhood and I love it so far.

Now that my hype has cooled a bit, I do have some [spoiler-free] qualms after playing another 90 minutes or so. (apparently that puts me near the end of the game, which... yikes)

I feel like there's not as much... life... to it, for one. Part of what made Neverhood special was that Klaymen seemed just as baffled/delighted by the world as the player did, and he showed it with every animation. Tommynaut doesn't seem nearly as inquisitive or "alive", nor does the world around him. Beak-Beak's presence helps with that, but only a little.

There are a lot of puzzles that are variations of each other as well, which is a bit disappointing. Not too bad, though, as they've all been fun. Neverhood admittedly had some very frustrating bits, whereas the difficulty ramp feels much smoother here. Still, I'd have preferred more variety in the tasks. Maybe the endgame will deliver on that.

The game feels too linear. The Neverhood felt like a (small) open-ish world to explore. It was linear in reality, but it *felt* open. Armikrog feels cramped and overly guided.

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Now, despite all that, it's still a lot of fun and well worth playing. If Neverhood was Nightmare Before Christmas, Armikrog is Corpse Bride: Really good, but not iconic like its predecessor.

It's still kind of amazing that this game exists at all, and I'm endlessly happy that it does. I do hope that we get a larger follow-up someday.