Cletus Clay

        As an animation student, I am ashamed to say I am not a big gamer. I have never used an xbox, and have only ever used a PlayStation to play Crash Bandicoot, and not since I was about seven years old. As such, this is the area of animation that I have least knowledge of; very little knowledge in fact.

       Since most of my awareness of the games industry comes from what is advertised on TV, or in Empire magazine, that only really encompasses the big, popular, blockbuster releases, and not the smaller, less mainstream games. Joining this course means that I can learn from other student's as they share animations that appeal to them.

        One such example are Anthony Flack's scrolling platform games Cletus Clay and the earlier Platypus. I have always imagined that video games are all digital and, well, made on computers. It had never occurred to me that someone might use claymation to develop  a game, mainly as it sounds like a ridiculous amount of hard work:

 

        What Flack says about the stop motion creating a level of intimacy and eliciting a response from the gamer, similar to a how a viewer responds to a hand made animation, made sense to me. Video games seem to be moving more and more in a cinematic, first person shooter direction, aiming to place the gamer in the midst of the action, yet are so broad in their scope and ambition that many details must become lost in the fray. The more traditional platform format is well suited to traditional stop motion as the smaller environment means that the gamer can take in the whole scene and can appreciate and enjoy the depth and character the clay models contribute to the game's aesthetic. This unusual combination makes the game stand out in a rapidly growing market.