Nuign Specter

Nuign Specter is a turning point for Jake Clover. His previous games were highly derivative works such as Chook Driver Extreme, Bear Surfin Mega Wave, Roadkill Bonanza 3 -- the kind of thing you could find countless examples of in newgrounds, 'quirky' against a background of hundreds of other games with very similar quirks.

Nuign Specter is an attempt at creating something more mature, and for Jake this means rejecting every cliche his previous output had fallen prey to. The bright farmyard animals of Roadkill Bonanza 3 are inverted to become Nuign Specter's grey, cigarette-smoking wolf. Bright-explosion based gameplay is reduced to the ability to walk slowly left and right. Bright-explosiony atmosphere is replaced with muted colours, cinematic framing and constant flickering.

The previous description might unfairly paint Nuign Specter as a game that 'takes itself too seriously', or as a game that tries to hard to be 'a piece of art'. Thankfully, that couldn't be further from the truth. The abandonment of flash game cliches in Nuign Specter has not resulted in Jake adopting the equally boring set of 'art game' cliches that we might generally encounter in a game labelled as "an atmospheric experiment". The world this wolf inhabits is not a world of dull 'artistic' symbolism or hamfisted didacticism -- it is very much a cartoon world. There are still touches of humour and silly scenarios, but they are deprioritized, they mingle with the cinematic 'noir' pastiche at the forefront of the experience to create something that starts to feel somewhat unique.

There are still a few elements of the game that seem to indicate some remaining artistic immaturity -- the rather unnecessary and sudden piece of action about a quarter of the way through the game seems to indicate a lack of confidence in the more subtle atmosphere and narrative focus that Jake is otherwise interested in maintaining. Nevertheless, Nuign Specter is a fairly interesting game. Some of the games Jake went on to create later are among the best games I have ever played, and it seems to me that this is the point where he began to become the artist he is today.