The Behemoth
The Behemoth is an American video game development company that was created in 2003 by John Baez, artist Dan Paladin, and programmers Tom Fulp, Brandon LaCava, and Nick Dryburgh. Dryburgh and LaCava later left the company. The Behemoth development studio is located in San Diego, California. The company is known for producing simple games with Paladin's signature 2D style. Its games are also known for their heavy arcade inspirations, especially among their early games, emulating genres common on the Neo Geo in particular (which Tom Fulp is a noted fan of).
The mascot and logo for The Behemoth | |
Type | Private |
---|---|
Industry | Interactive entertainment |
Founded | May 27, 2003 |
Founder | John Baez Dan Paladin Tom Fulp |
Headquarters | , |
Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | John Baez (CEO) Dan Paladin (CFO) Tom Fulp (secretary) |
Products | Alien Hominid Castle Crashers BattleBlock Theater Pit People |
Number of employees | 9[1] (2008) |
Website | thebehemoth |
History
During August 2002, Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin collaborated in creating the Flash game Alien Hominid for Newgrounds. The game has since become extremely popular and generated over twenty million hits. Later in the year, Paladin was working on developing a console video game when co-worker Baez approached him. He was a fan of Alien Hominid and asked Paladin if he was interested in developing the game for consoles. When Baez offered to produce the game, Fulp and Paladin eventually agreed, recruited LaCava and Dryburgh, and formed The Behemoth in 2003.
Their first console game, Alien Hominid, gained critical acclaim by the media and the members of The Behemoth quickly gained status as indie developers focused on bringing old-school styles of video games back into mainstream gaming. Some of the minigames from Alien Hominid were ported to iOS in 2011.
The Behemoth's second game, Castle Crashers, was released August 27, 2008, originally for the Xbox Live Arcade service, eventually re-releasing for the PlayStation 3 on August 31, 2010, and Microsoft Windows/OS X on September 26, 2012. Since its release on Xbox Live Arcade, Castle Crashers has become one of the most downloaded games, with over 2.6 million copies sold as of year-end 2011.
A third title, BattleBlock Theater, was released on April 3, 2013. The Windows, Linux, and macOS versions of BattleBlock Theater were released on Steam on May 15, 2014.
Pit People, is a turn-based strategy game that was released for early access on Steam and was released for Xbox One on January 13, 2017. It was released on March 2, 2018.[2]
The Behemoth had long teased a "Game 5", which was announced in January 2020 as Alien Hominid Invasion, which the developers said was not a remake or remaster of the original Alien Hominid but introduces new mechanics as an arcade shooter.[3]
Games
- 2004: Alien Hominid (PlayStation 2, GameCube, Xbox, Game Boy Advance, Adobe Flash Player)
- 2007: Alien Hominid HD (Xbox 360)
- 2008: Castle Crashers (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4)
- 2011: Super Soviet Missile Mastar (iOS)
- 2011: Alien Hominid: PDA Games (iOS)
- 2013: BattleBlock Theater (Xbox 360, Microsoft Windows, OS X, Linux)
- 2015: Castle Crashers Remastered (Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PS4, Nintendo Switch)
- 2018: Pit People (Xbox One, Microsoft Windows)
- TBA: Alien Hominid Invasion (Xbox One, Microsoft Windows, Nintendo Switch)
References
- Taunting The Behemoth: Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin Cry Out
- https://www.destructoid.com/at-long-last-the-behemoth-s-pit-people-finally-has-a-release-date-490975.phtml
- Devore, Jordan (January 30, 2020). "The Behemoth's Game 5 is Alien Hominid Invasion". Destructoid. Retrieved January 30, 2020.