With the horrors of PAX Prime 2011 fading into distant memory (YOU try lugging around camera equipment for 12+ hours a day, fueled only by limited sleep, 5 Hour Energy, stored beer fat, and beef jerky) it’s time to finally bust out with the previews! Up first is the endearing Battleblock Theater, a co-op/vs. beat ‘em up coming from the makers of Alien Hominid and Castle Crashers, San Diego based indie studio The Behemoth.
I first played Battleblock Theater back at PAX 2010, when The Behemoth was only showcasing the game’s multiplayer mode. I was unaware there’d also be a story mode, which at a whopping 100+ levels and 100+ playable characters is arguably the bulk of the entire game. Fueled by Dan Paladin’s endless doodling, the amount of content is staggering; level designer Aaron Jungjohann says the development of Behemoth titles is constantly adapting to incorporate the whimsical new creatures showing up on scraps of paper and pages across the studio. In fact, Aaron tells me he entered Dan’s office only last week to find an amusing series of desserts drawn to look like ghosts; ice cream, pie, even cheesecake, all done up as transparent, sugary specters ready to unleash calorific doom. As Aaron puts it, “Who knows what’ll be in the game next! Maybe we’ll see a cheesecake ghost boss!” (I’d like to go on record right now saying I’d play the hell out of that).
While playing the new build of Battleblock Theater with Aaron, now on a dual player arcade box instead of last year’s Xbox and TV stations, I was immediately struck by the fluidity of the gameplay. Battleblock Theater‘s biggest triumph is its flow: fans of side scrolling dash classics like Mario and Sonic will feel right at home with the speed and ease with which they fly through each level. Like Castle Crashers, the story mode isn’t limited to one player, however, Battleblock Theater‘s levels will actually adjust and incorporate co-op puzzles based on the number of players, boosting the game’s replayability value.
Those who are already familiar with the Behemoth brand of mischievious charm will be pleased to know that the fun only continues in Battleblock Theater. While I’ve yet to see any poop (damn, Paladin loves him some poop), I will say that even the premise of Battleblock Theater is an enchanting bit of dark humor:
“Having shipwrecked on a mysterious island you find yourself both betrayed by your best friend Hatty and captured by the locals. All of this is happening while being forced into deadly performances. This however, is just the start of your problems.”
giving rise to an end screen where your characters are thrown on a rack and stretched according to how well they did in the level. There’s not much I can tell you about the direction of the story in the…um, story mode… and describing specifically all the mechanisms (like exploding blocks that clear paths, or wings that boost you to higher platforms) would certainly spoil the fun. But I can say they’ve managed to use the platform genre in a way that’s both completely fresh and signature Behemoth, encouraging vertical level exploration, alternate puzzle solutions, and tricky time based maneuvering. Combined with the inventive minigames of Battleblock Theater‘s competitive multiplayer mode, this title stands out as a shining example of its kind, breathing new life into an exhausted game standard.
So now the big question, the question I knew better than to ask during my visit: When’s the release date? Other outlets have listed Battleblock Theater as a 2011 title, but when I spoke with Aaron, he sounded less confident. When I asked about the percentage completed of the game, he told me that he didn’t think they would be able to make the 2011 date, but that at this point in the game’s development, all they needed was “content”. Judging by the build I played, and Aaron’s remarks, I’d be very surprised if the game did not come out by April 2012. Don’t hold me to that. It’s what they call an educated guess. Or in my case, a limited education guess.
Battleblock Theater has so far been announced for XBLA, with no official word on PSN release. And if you’re wondering about DLC, the answer is a resounding yes, though no word on if any will cross over from Alien Hominid or Castle Crashers.
