Next Level Games is a Canadian studio best known for its partnership with Nintendo on such games as Super Mario Strikers, Punch-Out!! for Wii, and Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon. It has also dabbled in licensed properties for non-Nintendo platforms, like with Spider-Man: Friend of Foe for Xbox 360 and PS2 and Captain America: Super Soldier for PS3 and Xbox 360. In fact, the company's entire history has centered on adapting pre-existing properties, thus it's a shame to learn that it was working on an original title only to have it canceled.
Unseen 64 has a collection of concept art for Clockwerk, a Wii, PS3, and Xbox 360 project in development during 2011. The game was to be about Otto and Herman, a pair of elderly clock tower caretakers who spend their last day before retirement trying to kick out the gremlins that have taken over the tower. It was to be "a puzzle platformer with combat elements," and the main hook was that the caretakers could inflate their suits in order to float or roll on the railings.
Next Level Games was able to sign on with a publisher. However, it was later discovered that another game within the publisher had a similar concept to Clockwerk. This unfortunate coincidence led to Clockwerk's getting scrapped.
The game certainly looked quite stylish — in the concept pieces, you can see how the team played around with the art style's degree of realism. I would love for the team to return to the idea in the future, even if the game had to be adapted with pre-existing characters. Otto and Herman have similar builds to Mario and Luigi, so maybe Nintendo could turn this into a Mario spin-off.
