GAMES
HAROLD HALIBUT
A UNIQUE STOP-MOTION ODDITY THAT ’S A DIFFERENT KETTLE OF FISH
★★★
PC, PS5, XBOX SERIES S/X
“VERY FEW CARTOONS are broadcast live,” goes an old Simpsons joke. “It’s a terrible strain on the animators’ wrists.” But that is exactly the sensation you have when playing Harold Halibut, a remarkable if frustrating new game that gives the experience, perhaps for the first time, of rendering stop-motion puppets as they’re animated live before your eyes.
On this point alone, it feels significant, just as games like Dragon’s Lair or Cuphead gave the sensation of playing a 2D cartoon. German game director Onat Hekimoglu has been working on the concept for well over a decade, creating physical puppets in the real world and then using technology called photogrammetry to scan them into the game software. The end result is immediately striking: this is a world that feels tactile, handmade, analogue. You can practically feel the imperfections of the character models, the scratchiness of their faces, the hand-painted backgrounds. The vibe here is deliberately unpolished —like a cross between Wes Anderson’s animated efforts and Camberwick Green.