Skullmonkeys

In the single-player platform game, the player controls Klaymen, a resident of the Neverhood who is kidnapped in order to prevent the destruction of the Neverhood. He can jump, duck, look up, and grab a wide range of items such as a halo (allowing him to withstand more than one hit) and a wide range of quirky and crude projectile weapons. Aside from the assortment of weapons, enemies and bosses can be destroyed by jumping on them, and there are several secret levels (set to 1970s easy-listening music) where bonus points and extra lives can be earned. The levels are in a sidescrolling format, unlike the point and click format of The Neverhood.

Throughout each of the levels, clay balls can be collected to earn points, with extra lives being awarded upon collecting 100. Several bosses are stationed throughout the game to be defeated. The game uses a password feature.

The evil Klogg was banished from the Neverhood at the end of the first game, but has now ended up on the Planet Idznak, which is inhabited by creatures known as Skullmonkeys and an insect race known as YNT. Klogg becomes the leader of the Skullmonkeys and sets off to make "evil engine number 9" to destroy the Neverhood, while Klaymen is brought onto the scene to stop him.

The game was announced in May 1997. Skullmonkeys was a strictly two-dimensional game developed at a time when this format was seen as increasingly outmoded. Project lead Doug TenNapel, however, preferred the 2D format and believed that 3D platform gaming could never work, being always plagued by depth-perception problems. Besides TenNapel, star creators who worked on the game included Mike Dietz (inventor of the animation process used in Disney's Aladdin and Earthworm Jim) and Mark Lorenzen.

Klaymen's motions were penciled first, then used in tandem with a model to record the animation. One method used by the designers to create the creatures in the game, was to take children's toys and cover them with clay to see what shapes were formed. A boss in the game, Joe-Head-Joe, is actually the face of Joseph Sanabria, one of the game's designers. The cutscene clips were created by applying stop motion animation to the modeled clay figures. TenNapel commented, "When I sculpt [clay], I feel very relaxed and comfortable, compared to doing art on the computer where you'll find me scowling and squinting a lot."

Skullmonkeys met with mostly positive reviews. The game's visual style, particularly the unique claymation format and imaginative backgrounds, were almost universally lauded by critics. Shawn Smith of Electronic Gaming Monthly (EGM) wrote that "The attention to detail and continuity of style in SM makes me wonder just how many hours the development team spent on the project". Most critics also praised the soundtrack, and multiple reviews made particular note of the bonus room song.

However, most found that the monotony of the gameplay, with little variety in the enemies and a constant recycling of ideas in the level designs, far outweighed the pleasing presentation. GameSpot said that "what is most frustrating about Skullmonkeys is that it just wears you down after a while." Next Generation commented, "As a concept, Skullmonkeys works. But in practice, the idea has been squeezed into a monotonous series of simplistic levels that drone on and on with little variation between them.