A Battleblock Theater Interview.
Tell the truth. In your heart of hearts, you’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to murder your friend. And by “murder,” I mean, of course, throw them into a pool of acid, and then use their body as a stepping stone to obtain the applause of an ever-ravenous crowd.
Don’t look at me like you don’t know what I mean.
Yes, you, with the funny hat. If you’ve been playing Battleblock Theater, chances are you’ve murdered your share of cats, adversaries and accomplices, all the while cackling your demented butt off.
If you haven’t yet gotten down on The Behemoth’s brutally cute ode to friendship and bloodshed, then for serious: hold on your butts (yes, both of them) and head to the XBLA while you still have butts to hold.
In the meantime, check the HIM chat with The Behemoth’s own Production Coordinator, Ian Moreno below.
Battleblock Theater was in development for something like six years, which is way longer than I normally wait before I set out to murder things en masse. Could you talk a bit about the grand vision behind BBT?
IM: It was definitely a very intuitive process, but one of the things we really felt we had to get right was creating a platform that made jumping fun, and then moving on from there. After that, we added the competition, the arena, and, lastly, the story, which we hadn’t done in such a grand manner before. There really isn’t a “Day 1 Development Log” kind of thing, since the process was so organic from the beginning.
Like most people, I enjoy beating up my friends just as much as I enjoy beating up evil cats, and you guys seem to understand me pretty well. How did your relationship with your fans affect the development of BBT?
On Castle Crashers, we noticed players would start a game just to trade things and then leave the game. So we said, “Okay, let’s add a trading booth.” We also noticed players would save the princess and then beat the crap out of each other, so we created the beat-up mode and competition modes. Basically, we took cues from what people were already doing and integrated them into the game.
How much of the DNA from your older titles (Castle Crashers, Alien Hominid) has carried over into BBT?
Well, the Dan Paladin artwork, obviously. But also, if you were to go back, and play some of the Alien Hominid PDA Games, you would find a ton of influences.
Last question, and this one is more general: Indie developers are having a huge moment right now, as it relates to fan engagement and loyalty. Where does the giant chicken Behemoth fit in the changing landscape of the gaming industry as a whole?
The industry has changed a lot over the last 10 years, and it will continue to do so. Soon enough, the games industry will be more like the music industry, with major artists (AAA titles), independent artists (indie developers), and something in the middle, like mid-indies. I think that’s where we’ll sit. It’s a really exciting time for the industry, though. There will be books written about what’s happening right now, and we’re all lucky to be experiencing it.