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The Behemoth: Please Don't Take Castle Crashers Seriously
by Staff, Brandon Sheffield, Chris Remo [PC, Console/PC]
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December 12, 2008
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As a pleasant antidote to 'meaningful' games, Castle Crashers creators The Behemoth have been explaining to Gamasutra why the preponderance of pooping cartoon animals in the XBLA hit means something too -- that they "didn't want people to take our game seriously."
The exchange took place during a wider interview discussing the Xbox Live Arcade title, which has sold over 350,000 copies to date, according to some estimates.
Speaking up on the matter were two of The Behemoth's co-founders Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin, who handle programming and art, respectively.
The company itself is split between San Diego and Philadelphia, with around 9 employees, and formerly worked on Alien Hominid, which also sported Paladin's signature visual style.
Here's the relevant passage in full:
"So uh, why you got so many pooping animals [in Castle Crashers], Dan? 'Cause I really like the pooping animals.
Dan Paladin: I think it's funny and Tom thinks it's funny and I think some of it's --
Tom Fulp: Dan came to visit the office so we could have a good jam session. And it was one of those late night type, "You know, let's make all the animals crap" things.
DP: Slap happy. We work cruelly late hours, so when we get slap happy, we make funny stuff.
TF: Sometimes it's like, "Let's just destroy this and make a mess of it." It's funny though. (laughter)
DP: It's the essence of, when you were younger and you had slumber parties and everything was funny at a certain point in the night, because you were all tired. And everyone's like "Hur-hur-hur hah!"
Somebody made a fart noise and no one could help but laugh. I think it's the essence of that in the game. And I think it still reads well because people laugh when they see it. So it's like they get to join in on that.
TF: It's like we stop the camera and it'll be all dramatic, and then Al's gonna crap.
DP: (laughs) We're gonna force people to watch our crap.
We've got all these people talking about advancing the art of games and making everything more serious, so that people take it seriously as mainstream. You're just makin' poopin' animals.
DP: I don't think it should be taken that seriously. It's just for fun. I didn't want people to take our game seriously.
You know, like that they're thinking that there's some kind of statement that we're making in any form whatsoever. People will do that. I think that the more we show people that, we're just having fun and want them to have fun.
I think there should be games that are serious and games that are made to be played and have a good time with.
DP: Yeah, just like movies. You've got your comedies and your dramas."
You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including why they'd never want their team to get much bigger than it is today, how breaking out of the signature style they've adopted could become a challenge, and how working with their own technology is both a limitation and an advantage.
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