Clay Jam Classic developers talk remasters - "We've all been waiting for the right opportunity to get back to it"

• Clay Jam has made its grand return to mobile with Clay Jam Classic
• And now you can play it on iOS and Android in a new form, with added polish
• We put our questions to the folks at Fat Pebble Games to find out what prompted this new version

The mobile industry has changed massively over the past decade. It's one of the big topics in our 20th anniversary retrospective, and it's probably why I wasn't the only one surprised to see Clay Jam return to mobile! This hand-animated claymation runner recently came back as Clay Jam Classic, after more than a decade since release.

So, naturally, it got us curious about what prompted developers Fat Pebble to bring it back to mobile. And what they thought of how mobile had changed since their BAFTA-winning runner first launched way back in 2012. Well, wonder no longer, because we had the chance to put our questions directly to them!

We managed to get answers from all three founders: Chris Roe (art and animation), Iain Gilfeather (technical director) and Michael Movel (design director) to get the lowdown on Clay Jam Classic! So read on and find out more...

To start us off, what prompted you to decide to bring Clay Jam back to mobile? Was there a sort of lightbulb moment, or did it just feel like the right time?

Michael: It was a few things. When we first made Clay Jam, we really did make it with love. We’d just formed a new company together, we were young(ish) and bright-eyed, and we wanted to make something that we were really proud of. 

Chris had been creating weird claymation characters and worlds since he was a kid, in his garden shed, just because he loved it. When he suggested that we make a claymation game, maybe we should have done a market analysis, user-feedback sessions, production strategies and other grown-up things. But instead, Iain and I both just smiled, our eyes lit up, and we said, ‘Bloody marvellous, Chris! Time to get yer clay trousers on and buckle up!’

And we’ve never stopped thinking like that about Clay Jam. It’s a very special game for us. So we've all been waiting for the right opportunity to get back to it. We’ve been in and out of contact over the years, but recently we all happened to be at a point where dreaming about working on Clay Jam again could be turned into a reality, so when we got in touch with each other it felt like the stars had aligned and Jiggery von Pokery (a mysterious Clay Jam character) was bringing us back together!

Then, when we did start looking into reviving it, what we found was even more wonderful. There were literally thousands of messages, emails, Discord servers, petitions, wikis, posts, - you name it - from a community who seemed to love it as much as us. It was very humbling and inspiring. It also felt like Clay Jam was something that belonged to a lot of people, not just us. So the fact that it was missing from all our lives was not on, frankly. We had to do something about it. 

We’ve had a lot of help and encouragement from the community to bring it back along the way. It’s a shared passion and a shared hope, which is what Clay Jam was all about in the first place. That and creativity. And squashing things.

Will returning players find anything different about Clay Jam Classic compared to the original? Or was the intent to stay true to its roots?

Iain: We did want it to stay true to the original since all of us in the community were missing it. For years, it hadn’t worked on newer devices, it had been missing from most stores, and all in all, it had quite a few problems. So the priority was putting some love and care back into the old clay and giving it an extra special spa treatment. 

Aside from that and quite a bit of bug fixing, we did also do a few other things. Many of our players, especially the ones with kids, were keen on having a game without ads or pressure to spend, and a game that could be played offline. Our experience working in free-to-play since Clay Jam also meant we recognised that it was actually a perfect structure for a premium game. So we made the switch. We stripped out all in-app purchases, got rid of ads, made it work completely offline and added a one-off fee up front. 

We also had a mode called Monster Love, originally released as a Valentine’s Day update, which never quite fit in structurally. It felt like an add-on. We’ve tried to integrate that more into the progression of the game. And we’ve brought back the Love Bugs for that mode too. That’s a monster that’s been away for a long time.

Michael: Oh, and we’ve added a few more loading tips, which might not sound like something you’d stick on the front of the box - “NOW WITH ADDED LOADING TIPS!” - but we did like our loading tips, and you can pick up extra lore about the world of Clay Jam from them.

Do you think younger players who didn’t grow up with or play Clay Jam back in its prime will get anything from experiencing it for the first time?

Iain: There are lots of great games out there, but I think we have a few unique things. Most obviously, the looks. We think claymation is pretty timeless, and Chris has the knack of making things that are utterly bonkers, but lots of people still love them. So I think number one would be a really rather strange world, made from real clay and filled with very peculiar characters like the Wibbly Dibbly, Bantam Legs and Party Onion. 

Chris: More than just the looks, though, is the feel. It’s a very tactile game. That was at the forefront of our thinking when we first made it - how can we make this feel like it’s made of clay? So the unique control system comes from that, for example. To steer your character, you literally have to gouge a line in the clay floor for it to follow. To create new monsters, you have to push a big, red clay nose with a satisfying squelch. Everything is made of clay, but we also designed everything to feel like it was made from clay.

Iain: It’s worth mentioning the music and sound effects too. These were all made with love, too, by very talented local artists, Rachel Dey and Steve Collette. Without them, the game wouldn’t have anywhere near the charm it has. Rachel composed and recorded all of the music, and it’s something we get asked about all the time. I’ve been humming the music for the last 14 years! And Steve recorded all the sound effects using real-world objects, not digital recreations. There are some hilarious effects there. There are some quests that you can fail during a level. I sometimes fail on purpose just to hear the reaction from the monsters!

Michael: Also, while there is an endless aspect to the game, the core adventure is completable. You have five hills to rebuild, and each has a Bully Beast to defeat. Defeat them all, and you’ve saved Clay Jam!

I think it’s a game of hope, inclusivity and kindness, too. Which might be a little uncool these days, but we’re proud of it. We’ve had lots of stories from people telling us about how they used to play it with parents and siblings, and how it brought them closer together. Some people tell us how it got them through tough times, or how it sparked creativity in their kids and gave them confidence to explore the world a bit more. It feels like there’s a huge undercurrent of hope and kindness in humanity that’s just waiting to burst out, and it sometimes just needs a small spark to get it going. If Clay Jam can help do that here and there in a small way, bring people together, make them laugh and smile, then that’s marvellous. Or maybe people just like squashing stuff!

Speaking about how long it’s been for Clay Jam, how do you feel about things having changed in the world of mobile gaming, for better or for worse?

Michael: In many, many ways, it’s changed radically. Spending millions on marketing is the norm. It’s very risky to do something new and unique. Premium mobile games aren’t much of a thing. And the players have grown and grown, both in terms of numbers and in terms of how used they’ve become to playing mobile games. It’s built into the culture now. 

Iain: Back when Clay Jam was released, mobile was still a bit of a Wild West. We didn’t really know exactly which way it would go. Free-to-play was relatively new. We certainly didn’t know much about how to make it work. We just wanted to make a game that we’d love to play.

We’ve learnt a lot since then. We’ve worked for a lot of other companies, and we’ve been lucky to be part of some great free-to-play games like Angry Birds 2, Lego Star Wars Battles and Top Eleven. It taught us that we certainly made some big free-to-play mistakes on Clay Jam.

But I think it hasn’t changed in one very important way. People still want to play games that they enjoy. Sure, there are many other components that go into making a game successful, including a big slice of luck. But the core of making any game should be, “Is it fun?”. There is a danger that this can get lost sometimes in the amount of data and analysis that’s available to us these days. But it’s been true from the dawn of time, and I don’t think it’s going to stop any time soon.

Can you tell us a little more about the signature claymation style of Clay Jam? What brought it about, and what made you think it’d work so well for a mobile game?

Chris: I loved drawing, especially ridiculous cartoons. I was fascinated by the weird creatures from the film Yellow Submarine. Then, when I was about 8 years old, my grandad taught me how to shoot a simple claymation with his 80’s camcorder. I was hooked!

I stayed in his shed animating and didn’t speak to anyone for years. Total bliss. I then emerged as a 32-year-old man with questionable social skills and made Clay Jam.

Iain: For Chris, as the artist, he had to physically make everything (including the font) and then animate it frame by frame. He’s also very technical, so he was great at turning that into a digital form while preserving the handmade look. 

Michael: For Iain and myself, we could see very early on how special it would look, so we coded and designed around the idea that this was a clay game first and foremost. It had to look and feel that way. So, for example, we couldn’t have cameras panning all around because we’d taken the pictures from one angle. And there were some technical difficulties making any camera transitions work. But by the end, we were all getting pretty used to the unusual pipeline, and there are many things we’d like to experiment with in the future.

Iain: Fortunately, as well as being a world-class stop motion animator, Chris is also a top-notch games technical artist. He's developed a whole pipeline for getting from a clay photo shoot to a game engine - it's unique, but actually the hard work's been done by the time the game code has to be written.

Since you guys have come back together for Clay Jam Classic, can we expect anything new from the name Fat Pebble Games?

Michael: No. 

I should expand, shouldn’t I?

We’ve actually stopped Fat Pebble. Not for very exciting reasons, although maybe we should make something up. Erm… Fat Pebble were infiltrated by a pan-dimensional malignant being called Geoff, and after a decades-long battle to prevent the complete and utter destruction of civilisation, the earth and of cheese and lemon curd sandwiches, we decided we couldn’t take any chances. We’re winding it down.

Instead, we’ve set up YumYumYukYuk. The same three founders, still with a goal of making deliciously ridiculous games, but with a new name and added Yuk.

Chris: And we absolutely want to make new things. The world of Clay Jam still has a lot of exploring to do, and there are a whole load of other weird and wonderful worlds to discover. We have some ideas, but we have to see how Clay Jam Classic goes first to see what we do next. We’re flexible in terms of hardware and business model. We’re not flexible in terms of making something ridiculous that hopefully brings people together to smile.

Michael: So, the more people that buy Clay Jam Classic, the more ridiculous fun we can all bring to the world! Just saying…
Finally, is there any message you’d like to send out to fans of Clay Jam who’ve been waiting so long for this new version?

Yes, there absolutely is. 

To the fans of Clay Jam, thank you from the bottom of our crusty clay hearts! You have no idea how much it meant to us to read all of those messages and share Clay Jam stories. We’re sorry we’ve been away. Hopefully, this is the start of a big collaboration where we make games, laugh a lot and do wonderful things together! Thanks for not giving up on us!

To those just trying it for the first time, we hope it makes you smile. If it does, come and join the Jammer family, tell us what you think and let’s make some new games. If it doesn’t make you smile, come and join the Jammer family anyway, tell us what was rubbish and let’s see if we can do better next time!

And there you have it! So if you haven't already tried it, Clay Jam Classic is now available on iOS and Android. And if you somehow need swaying to give it a go, check out Jupiter's review of Clay Jam Classic and find out why it earns a thumbs-up from us!