Armikrog


Armikrog is a stop-motion point-and-click adventure comedy game by Doug TenNapel in partnership with Pencil Test Studios and Versus Evil for Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux, PlayStation 4, Wii U and Xbox One. It is a spiritual successor to The Neverhood, and is developed by many members of the same team. Like The Neverhood, Armikrog uses clay animation.

Story

The game centers around Tommynaut, a space explorer who crash-lands on a planet called Spiro 5 and ends up locked inside a fortress called Armikrog. Tommynaut needs to solve the mystery behind the fortress while protecting a lost infant named P. Tommynaut is accompanied by his talking, sometimes flying, dog Beak-Beak, who is color blind, so the environment turns black-and-white when he's selected, but he is able to see special wavelengths that Tommynaut can't.

Development

Mike Dietz and Ed Schofield, founders of Pencil Test Studios, teamed up with Doug TenNapel, with whom they worked on Earthworm Jim and The Neverhood, to use Kickstarter to crowdfund Armikrog. The Kickstarter's goal of $900,000, and stretch goal of $950,000 for a Wii U version were exceeded when the funding ended on June 27, 2013.
The game has a voice cast featuring Michael J. Nelson as Tommynaut, Rob Paulsen as Beak-Beak and the PresidANTs, Jon Heder as evil Vognaut, Veronica Belmont as Mother, Bob Baffy as Father, Charlotte Schofield as P, Yumi Iwama, Jeff Minnerly, Bob Doll as the Octovators, and Eddie Fantastic as Numnaut.
The game's soundtrack was composed by Terry Scott Taylor, who composed the music for The Neverhood soundtrack.

Reception

Armikrog received "mixed or average" reviews, according to review aggregator Metacritic. Critics appreciated the fun art style and catchy music, but were disappointed with lots of bugs, poor gameplay and short story. Armikrog received many updates after its release date, the latest being 1.05, fixing various bugs and adding a graphical cursor that reacted to objects with which the player could interact.