It’s been a long time since we talked about Clive ‘N’ Wrench.
This indie 3D platformer had a Kickstarter campaign back in 2015 that didn’t succeed, but unlike the other 3D platformer we were talking about at the time, the game’s development remained active, with frequent updates on Twitter and Patreon.
Now the first public alpha demo of Clive ‘N’ Wrench is available.
This demo includes part of the hub world, two of the game’s levels (“The Chimp, the Bag and the Bunny” and “Bunny, I Shrunk the Chimp”), and one boss battle. Right now it only has controller support, with mouse & keyboard support to follow.
I tried out the demo and found it to have a lot of promise, even though being in alpha means it’s still a little rough.
First off, it just looks beautiful. The character models are great for this style of game, and everything feels like an homage to classic 3D platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, which is exactly what I signed up for.
It was fun to dive into, and I really liked the world design. The music also sounded like it came straight out of those older games.
On the other side of things, the camera gave me the most issues. That’s partly because I couldn’t find an option to invert the camera, but it also seemed to have a mind of its own, zooming in way too close or pulling far back at certain points despite my attempts to control it. While the controls were generally good, jumping got a little strange and floaty whenever I’d try to pull myself up onto a platform.
But this is just an alpha demo, so the game still has a long way to go. From what I played here, I think Clive ‘N’ Wrench will be a fantastic throwback to classic 3D platformers once it’s been polished.
Are you going to try the Clive ‘N’ Wrench demo?
