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ClayFighter is a game made by Interplay for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive and the Super Nintendo Entertainment System and this is the first game in the ClayFighter series. The original game was released in 1993 for the SNES and the Genesis/Mega Drive around 1993 and 1994. The Genesis/Mega Drive version was released on the Wii's Virtual Console May 26, 2009 in North America and February 6, 2009 in PAL regions.
Gameplay[]
The game is noted for having character sprites rendered from clay-animated figures, and for having humorous parodies of other fighting games.
Plot[]
A meteor made entirely out of clay crash-lands on the grounds of a humble American circus. The goo from the interstellar object contaminates all of the circus's attractions, transforming them into bizarre caricatures of their former selves, with new superpowers.
Characters[]
- Bad Mr. Frosty
- Blob
- Blue Suede Goo
- Bonker
- Helga
- Ickybod Clay
- Taffy
- Tiny
- N. Boss
Development[]
ClayFighter was developed by the studio Visual Concepts and published by Interplay Entertainment. Visual Concepts president Greg Thomas stated that the game, consisting of silly, clay characters battling one another, was conceived as a "new" and "funny" alternative to the violent yet popular fighting franchises Street Fighters and Mortal Kombat. The developer took the idea to animation experts Ken Pontac and David Bleiman of Danger Productions, based in Brisbane, California. The two companies worked for nearly one year developing ClayFighter. Once the game's eight fighters were finalized, artists at Danger spent several months molding the characters into various positions with different types of clay. For instance, the thinner character Taffy was constructed with a stronger type of clay than the simpler Blob. Also, some characters required more models than others in order to capture all their movements; artists formed about 70 models just for Blob. The characters were then animated using stop-motion photography. A video camera linked to an Amiga computer running a graphics editor digitized the figures. Designer Jeremy Airey described this portion of development, processing usable and scripting language character animations, as very long and tedious. Interplay also aided in the ClayFighter project by creating new character movements with spliced animation sequences; the publisher was also responsible for recording the musical score, voices, and sound effects. ClayFighter's design was originally made to compete with fighting games such as Mortal Kombat, but without the heavy violence and gore that was becoming controversial. Interplay pushed the game saying that the "parents who object to blood-and-guts games now have an alternative title that gives kids the kind of intense action they want to see in fighting games" to draw sales.
Reception[]
ClayFighter was awarded Best Street Fighter Wannabee of 1993 by Electronic Gaming Monthly. They also awarded it Best Sound Effects, as well as awarding it for having the Best Ad.
References[]
External links[]
- ClayFighter at Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- ClayFighter at GameFAQs
- ClayFighter: Tournament Edition at GameFAQs
- ClayFighter at MobyGames