His scientist father has developed a serum that can transform people into animals when it is combined with clay.

Clayton vows to save his father despite his new form and embarks on a journey through his backyard, the Pacific, Japan, Africa, and finally outer space.

Thomas conceived Claymates under the working title "Animal Connection" for the Nintendo Entertainment System before production moved to the SNES.

This proprietary MIDI tool allowed composers to play music and sound effects directly from SNES ROM files to save on memory by only occupying 18 kilobytes of space.

[6] In July 2021, Claymates was added to the Nintendo Switch Online classic games service.