Kotaku: Castle Crashers

Custom Castle Crashers You Will Never Own

Stuart Houghton — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 13:20:00 MDT

Teddy Troops are typical examples of that strain of kidult 'collectible' not-really-a-toy that they sell in those shops that also sell skateboarding clothes to people who don't own boards, and never will.

Soon, the economic downturn will mean that such frivolous purchases will be beyond the spending power of anyone not likely to be on MTV Cribs but until that fateful day, people will keep buying the grumpy military-themed bears and - with luck - customizing them into awesome Castle Crasher merch like this.

Custom Castle Crashers Teddy Troops [Albotas - thanks to BrownKidd for the tip]

Summer Of Arcade Massive Success

Mike Fahey — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 11:20:00 MDT

So Microsoft's Xbox 360 Summer of Arcade promotion has come and gone, a five-week blitz of the best that Xbox Live Arcade has to offer, all part of a commitment made by the company at E3 to shift their focus more towards quality rather than quantity. According to a media alert issued today by Microsoft, the push was a massive success, with a 58% increase in Xbox Live members purchasing games over the course of the month, shattering the monthly revenue high for XBLA by 67%.

Out of the games released, Castle Crashers is being heralded as a stand-out title for all of XBLA, while Braid wound up as the highest-rating XBLA title of all time, with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 and Bionic Commando: Rearmed also making the top 10. That leaves poor Galaga Legions. There there, little retro redux. We still love you...just not as much. Hit the jump for the full text of the press alert!

The Numbers are in: August was a Scorcher for Xbox LIVE Arcade

Sure, we are coming off a long, hot summer, but it was Xbox LIVE Arcade that really made things sizzle. Critics agree: With the season’s best games released over the span of five weeks, the Summer of Arcade brought new players to the Xbox LIVE Arcade service in record pace. “Castle Crashers” “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2,” “Bionic Commando: Rearmed,” “Galaga Legions,” and “Braid” delighted gamers of all pedigrees and drove the most successful season on record for the downloadable games service.

Over the course of the five-week Summer of Arcade program there was a 58 percent increase in unique members purchasing titles, and August broke the monthly revenue high by 67 percent. August was also the first time that an Xbox LIVE Arcade game landed in the top 3 most-viewed pages on Xbox.com. The reason for all of this success? The games were really good.

“Castle Crashers,” an adventure title that came to the service on Aug. 27, currently sits at the No. 1 spot for the Top 10 Xbox LIVE Arcade games being played on the service today. In fact, it is being called a stand-out title for all of Xbox LIVE Arcade. “Braid,” a puzzle-platformer released on Aug. 6 quickly climbed the charts to become the No. 1 highest-rated game of all time on Xbox LIVE Arcade. “Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2” and “Bionic Commando: Rearmed” also have spots in the Top 10!

“At E3, we committed to re-focusing the Xbox LIVE Arcade business, vowing to release bigger and better games while focusing on quality and not quantity,” said Marc Whitten, general manager of Xbox LIVE. “The debut of the new strategy proved to be a huge success, with the Summer of Arcade making August the highest grossing month to date. But the focus on quality games doesn’t stop with the Summer of Arcade. We have plenty more great titles coming out in the next few months and beyond that we think will continue to fuel this incredible momentum.”

The service is geared up to continue on the record-breaking path with even more blockbuster titles, like “Portal: Still Alive,” “South Park” and “R-Type Dimensions,” slated to hit Xbox LIVE Arcade in the coming months.

Looks like this winter could be heating up…

Castle Crashers: 250,000 Players Served (Plus Patch Info)

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 23:30:00 MDT

Here's a feel-good story for the day. Castle Crashers has now found its way into 250,000 homes, an incredible number considering the scope of the project and the fact it's still a litle broken. Just goes to show what fun times can do for a game. Now that the good news is out of the way, time to move on to the obligatory "when's it being patched" info. Lead artist Dan Paladin has told Gamasutra that while there's still no expected release date for an online patch, the team are working through Microsoft's certification process, and that they "really appreciate everyone's patience and support".

The Behemoth: Castle Crashers Hits 250k Players, Fixes Coming [Gamasutra]

Download The Castle Crashers Soundtrack For Free

Stuart Houghton — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 17:20:00 MDT

While you sit around waiting for the Castle Crashers multiplayer to start working, why not take the time to grab the game's soundtrack which has been uploaded to Newground.com in MP3 format.

The tracks are released under a Creative Commons license that allows you to share or remix them as long as you give proper attribution and you don't try to use it for commercial purposes.

As well as listening to the tracks via the site, you can also download them directly using the little floppy disk icon next to the licensing info.

Joyous and free Castle Crashers tunes [Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Castle Crashers Shill For Trader Joe's

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 15:40:33 MDT

Hot from the Not News Department of the Kotaku press room comes word that Castle Crashers is going mainstream. That is, if you consider being prominently displayed in endcap ads at crunchy grocery chain Trader Joe's mainstream. Reader Jose wrote in to say he spotted the stars of The Behemoth's XBLA hack and slasher shilling ridge-cut potato chips and Virgil's root beer. Clearly, this kind of endorsement speaks to the gaming/snacking crowd that shuns high fructose corn syrup.

Castle Crashers Getting New Characters, New Weapons

Luke Plunkett — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 05:30:00 MDT

Right now, The Behemoth are busy fixing the online problems plaguing the fantastic Castle Crashers. Once they're done with that, they'll move on. Move on to giving us all new stuff to play with! Writing on their company blog, they've revealed that at least two new playable characters - the King and the Necromancer - will be made available as DLC, as will at least one new weapon, the chainsaw.

Chainsaw massacre !!! [The Behemoth]

Castle Crashers Title Update Is Coming, It's Coming

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 23:30:00 MDT

Castle Crashers is great. So much fun. Sadly that fun is often tempered by serious technical glitches in the game, from wonky online connectivity to stuff like erasing your entire game progress. It's annoying, yes, but The Behemoth promise (cross their hearts!) that a fix is on its way.

We just got off the phone with Microsoft and we had a great talk about updating Castle Crashers, YES!! Looks like we’re on our way to getting this title update out and the bigger issues like saving and online connectivity resolved, in addition to other bugs that have been reported.

Unfortunately that's as precise as they get, saying they "don’t have a specific time frame yet" for when we can expect the release, but it can't be too far off. Can it?

Title Update is Coming! [The Behemoth]

Castle Crashers Review: Hack & Slash & Fun

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 11:00:00 MDT

The Behemoth’s last game - Alien Hominid - wasn’t fun. Looked good, but wasn’t fun. It was the gaming equivalent of taking your balls, resting them on a table, picking up a hammer then smashing them over and over and over until you sobbed yourself unconscious. The Behemoth’s latest game – Castle Crashers – shares many of Alien Hominid’s traits. It’s lovingly drawn in 2D, it scrolls sideways, you have to kill everything in sight.

So, should you be reaching for the hammer again?

LOVED

Fun – This game is fun. It’s as fun as you remember old side-scrolling beat em ups being, and then some. It can often be funny (when it’s not relying on gross-out jokes), and is always charming, from the teary-eyed sand monsters who guilt you for killing them to the heart-wrenching tale of a villain wedding gone bad and a love unrequited.

Good Looks – It may be under 150MB, and may only be going for 1200 MS points, but Castle Crashers is one of the best looking games on the 360. The game’s dripping with bold, vibrant colours, Dan Paladin’s art style has matured ten-fold and there’s both ingenuity and genuine humour to found in nearly all the character designs.

Depth – There’s a little more depth to Castle Crashers than your average, old-school side-scroller. Your character levels up as you progress, leaving you to assign attribute points in the fields of strength, magic, defence and speed. Not only does this let you tailor your character to your own play style, it lets you specifically upgrade your stats if you’re failing a stage or a boss fight because you’re too slow, or too weak. A wide variety of collectible weapons and animal sidekicks (who each give you a specific boost) to be found throughout the game also flesh the experience out.

Hack, Slash – I said “fun” before. The biggest contributor to that deserves its own spot. There’s a simple, fluid joy to Castle Crasher's combat. Button-mashers are catered for, as the game’s not terribly difficult, but a series of quick, easy combo moves are there for the more experienced player, as well as a satisfying magic attack that can be levelled up to become almost too powerful.

HATED

Rough Around The Edges – Castle Crashers has been a long time coming. It’s as though they spent the extra time polishing the art, music and extra bits, and forgot to fix some of the more important stuff. Like cheap enemy attack routines that can see you killed by an unavoidable onslaught of ranged attacks. And paper-thin characters you need to line up perfectly to register a hit on. And stage art that's too busy, resulting in enemies you can't see, and deaths you can't avoid. Or times when you finish 4 levels, quit, then restart to find the game only remembered you finished 2 of them.

Online? Try Offline – The game supports 4-player online co-op. Or, least it says it does. I spent all weekend trying to play a game with no luck. Not a single connection. A patch is promised, and should hopefully improve things, but it stings when a game built around the premise of co-op good times doesn’t let you play any (online, at least) co-op.

This is one of those times when it’s important to remind you that our loved/hated sections aren’t points. A game shouldn’t be judged on how many pros there are vs the number of cons. Because I absolutely adore Castle Crashers. It's bright, it's happy, it's simple, it's fun. It is, much like Bionic Commando was last month, a text book example of how you take a tired, decades-old game style and make it great again.

They just need to get these online problems fixed. Soon, if at all possible.

Castle Crashers was developed by The Behemoth, and published by Microsoft. Released on August 27 on Xbox Live Arcade. Priced at 1200 Microsoft Points. Reviewed on Xbox 360. Played to completion of main storyline. Unable to connect to online multiplayer.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Castle Crashers Gives Alien Hominid A Leg Up

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 07:20:00 MDT

Alien Hominid came out aaaages ago on Xbox Live Arcade. Did OK for itself, but really, as good as it looked it was just way too hard. So it promptly faded away. But this week, it's back! With The Behemoth's Castle Crashers coasting into the top spot on the XBLA sales charts for last week (and deservedly so), Alien Hominid's been dragged along with it, slotting back into top ten in ninth spot. If you dig Castle Crashers, and have seen the "please buy our stuff it helps keep us alive" notices all over The Behemoth's site, you should be quite pleased with yourself.

Xbox Live Arcade Activity For Week Of August 25th [GamerBytes]

Castle Crashers Beset By Problems, Patch On The Way

Stuart Houghton — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:30:00 MDT

Castle Crashers is proving rather popular with the XBLA crowd, but it is fair to say that it has had a difficult first couple of days.

There have been widespread reports of networking problems with some gamers being unable to connect to games and others being completely unable to find online servers. Several instances of Xboxes freezing were also reported in the Xbox.com forums.

To compound the problems, the official Crashers website and forums went down shortly after the game's launch.

In an interview with Joystiq, Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin from The Behemoth acknowledged the problems and claimed that help was on the way.

"There are certain network settings," said Paladin, "where, if you're in a very specific network environment, it won't work with another person's connection and that's what's happening. But that's something we're already addressing by working with Microsoft to get a patch out as fast as possible."

PAX 2008: The Behemoth talks Castle Crashers pricing, patches and performance [Joystiq]

What Are You Playing This Weekend?

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 14:00:04 MDT

Now that I'm back form Germany — and freed from having to resort to the Crosswords app on my iPhone — I'm gonna go hogwild this Labor Day weekend. With a slew of digitally distributed games at my disposal, The Last Guy, Castle Crashers and Team Fortress 2 (with Heavy Update!), I'm thumbing my nose at the traditional retail channel. Suck it, channel!

Thanks to my weekend rock, Owen Good, for remembering to do What Are You Playing This Weekend? when I could not be bothered to remember. Please, let us know what you're gaming the bejeezus out of this long holiday weekend (if you are in the U.S. of A) and forgive me for leaving you high and dry last Friday while at Games Convention.

Castle Crashers Not As Pricey As We Thought

Mike Fahey — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 08:40:00 MDT

While the Japanese Xbox page might have correctly "estimated" the price of Braid, they were dead wrong about Castle Crashers. Behemoth has confirmed the official price of their highly anticipated Xbox Live Arcade game, which will be released at the more Braid-like price point of 1200 Microsoft points - or 15 real life dollar points.

While that still leaves Castle Crashers at a price point higher than your average XBLA title, it's a great deal less than the original listing, which had the game going for 1800 points, or $22.50. Behemoth would also like to remind you that they'll be on hand at both PAX this month and the Tokyo Game Show in October, so stop by and give them hugs. The sweatier the better.

1200 Points, Behemoth Forums, PAX, and TGS [Castle Crashers Dev Blog]

Castle Crashers And Braid Pricey For XBLA Titles

Mike Fahey — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 09:20:00 MDT

Those of you adding Microsoft points to your account for the upcoming releases of Braid and Castle Crashers this month might want to add a few more than the 800 a shot we're used to. According to the official Japanese Xbox 360 blog, August 6th's Braid will be setting gamers back 1200 Microsoft Points ($15), with Castle Crashes weighing in at 1800 Points ($22.50?) - the most expensive Live Arcade game yet. Note that these are Japanese prices, while also noting that they generally coincide with European and North American prices.

Some will meet these prices with outrage, while I say why not? I've played both of these titles (Braid extensively) and they are completely worth the extra real currency substitute. I've paid $60 for disc-based titles that had a quarter of the entertainment value of these two games. More power to them.

真夏のXbox LIVE アーケード最新 4 タイトルの配信日が決定 [Japanese Xbox Blog via GamerBytes - Thanks ZeroMystic!]

UPDATE:Microsoft contacted Kotaku to clarify some details. Apparently the price of Braid is listed incorrectly, with the correct price being announced Monday, while North American Castle Crashers pricing will be announced August 25th. Note they didn't say the Castle Crashers price was incorrect.

XBLA's Summer Plans - From Geometry Wars 2 To Castle Crashers

Mike Fahey — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:40:00 MDT

It might be the end of July, but over at Xbox Live Arcade the summer is just starting! This week sees the official kick off of the Summer of Arcade, five weeks of blockbuster Xbox Live Arcade releases to help ease us into the traditional fall gaming explosion. They'll be kicking things off with Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 (800 MS points), the sequel to one of the best games on the Xbox 360 period.

Each week after this will feature a new huge title. Next week sees the release of Jonathan Blow's innovative platformer Braid, followed by Bionic Commando: Rearmed (explaining the delay), and the reinvented classic Galaga Legions. Wrapping things up will be the August 27th release of the long-awaited Castle Crashers, from the creators of Alien Hominid. That's right, a game we've been waiting years for is coming out after a game announced two weeks ago. Such is the magic of summer! Sound impressive? Wait, there's more!

During the Summer of Arcade event, anyone who plays even a trial version of these new titles is automatically entered to win one of five weekly 4,000 MS point prizes, as well as a grand prize of 100,000 points, and Xbox 360 Elite console, and a 12 month Gold subscription. Two second prize winners will walk away with 10,000 points and the Gold sub.

Definitely an interesting promotion, with some excellent games attached. It's been a relatively lackluster summer so far for Xbox Live Arcade, with the Puzzle Quest expansion being the only thing I've purchased in the past few months. Looks like they'll be making up for lost points over the next five weeks. Good for them!

Announcing the Summer of Arcade and Geometry Wars Retro Evolved 2 releases this week [Xbox Live's Major Nelson]

New Castle Crashers Screens

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 06:20:00 MDT

Been a long time since we saw/heard anything about Castle Crashers. Been too long. So it's great today to see some new screens for the game (including a couple featuring a Behemoth cameo), which while still without a release date, should hopefully be with us soon.

More Castle Crashers Characters: Ninja and Skeleton

Owen Good — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 15:00:00 MDT

The Behemoth aren't fools, they understand that adding ninjas not only adds awesomeness, it compounds it. (Seriously, try it out. Take any noun, say "plus ninjas," and tell me if it's not awesome. Christmas. Oregon Trail. My cousins' confirmation. Told you.) So word's out via the official blog that you can count on Ninja as another character, and Skeleton as still another.
Ninja carries a sai and a coffee mug, described in a pureley def4. That has to be an inside office joke. The mug is purely defensive. There's also a haze/halo around Ninja in the screens provided by The Behemoth, so does that include invisibility, camouflage or teleporting, or is that just a motion effect? Dunno.

Second character just announced: Skelly, whose weapons seem to include a sword and a bow-and-bone arrow. Plus from gameplay screens, he's either blocking or projecting some kind of energy attack.

Full screens after the jump.

Castle Crashers: Ninja and Skelly [Castle Crashers Development Blog of Love, via Xbox 360 Fanboy]

Completely Completed Castle Crashers Gets Rated Rating of T

Owen Good — Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:00:00 MDT

The highly anticipated Xbox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers has just gotten its gold wings from the ESRB. Xbox 360 Fanboy caught the latest update on the ESRB site, showing that the hyper-cute beat-em-up still gets a T for "blood and gore, cartoon violence and crude humor." Well done, The Behemoth! More assurance that this title is on the way, and it'll be chock full of irony and lulz.

Castle Crashers Isn't Only Done, Now It's Rated! [Xbox 360 Fanboy, also the pic.]

Castle Crashers for XBLA "Completely Completed"

Owen Good — Sat, 17 May 2008 13:00:00 MDT

The cartoony multiplayer side-scrolling brawler, promising one of the deepest gameplay experiences of any Xbox Live Arcade game, is finished. So says developer The Behemoth on its official dev blog. No release date as of yet — it will take "a couple months at the very least" to finish QA, certification XBLA bureaucracy, etc. etc.

Behemoth posted some new screenshots, and says the devblog will update with more character profiles even though the game's finished. Any guess what the points cost for this thing will be?

Castle Crashers is Completely Completed[Castle Crashers Development Blog, big thanks to GeorgeLiquor and Spade0013]

Hot Flashes: Castle Crashing The Beard

Michael McWhertor — Fri, 02 May 2008 18:20:05 MDT

While we wait (and wait and wait) for Castle Crashers to make its Xbox Live Arcade appearance, we'll have to settle for a simple, hirsute 2D throwback known as Castle Crashing The Beard. It pits the player against a manly beard of dedication attached to The Behemoth's Tom Fulp, which is the best last name I've heard in years. Perfect for making the last ten minutes of your work day disappear.

Castle Crashing The Beard [Kongregate]

Top Castle Crashers Gamers to Win Bronze Statue

Brian Crecente — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 15:00:00 MDT

The Behemoth, developers behind upcoming Xbox Live game Castle Crashers, plan to hand out bronze Castle Crashers trophies to the top leaderboard slots once the game comes out.

The devs say they hope to show off the statues, which are made of "genuine genuine bronze", during this year's upcoming Comic Con. They also showed off one of the statues gnarly arms. Apparently, casting bronze isn't as easy as one would expect.... I'd expect it to be really hard.

Gnarly Arms [The Behemoth Dev Blog]

Castle Crashers Developers Start Bloggin'

Michael McWhertor — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 17:20:04 MDT

Did you know that The Behemoth's Castle Crashers is going to have a staggering 22 unlockable characters? You would if you simply visited the developer blog all about The Behemoth's follow up to the Xbox Live Arcade hit Alien Hominid! The dev team has put together a regularly updated blog to keep fans drenched in good development news and Dan Paladin art, which we hope means that Castle Crashers is edging very close to completion and that Summer 2008 wasn't a randomly chosen release window. We'll definitely be keeping an eye on it.

Castle Crashers Development Blog [The Behemoth]

Castle Crashers Coming In Summer, New Screens Should Tide You Over

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 20 Feb 2008 20:30:00 MST

Oh, Castle Crashers! I'd nearly forgotten all about you. Been faaaar too long. Nice to see you're coming along...well, nicely. Oh, and what's this? You've got new screens? Excellent. Oh, and what else? A release window? Summer 2008, you say? Well, don't take this the wrong way, but it's about time. We've all grown terribly impatient.

Clip: Castle Crashers Barbarian Bash

Brian Crecente — Wed, 21 Mar 2007 15:00:42 MDT

This new Castle Crashers gameplay footage comes from GDC07. In it you get a glimpse of one of the bosses. It looks hard, but still very button-mashy. Brian Crecente

Castle Crashers... HORRIFICALLY RACIST!

kotaku.com — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:40:42 MDT

For some, Castle Crashers is just a fun looking little Golden Axe-like with the art style of Dad 'N' Me or Alien Hominid. For others? A horrific parable of genocide, in which the Ku Klux Klan take swords in hand to slice and dice the enemy gollywogs, and maybe burn some upside down crosses for extra lives.

Those people? We think they're just hilarious. Loco Roco this ain't, lady!

Thanks to Destructoid for the heads-up! Florian Eckhardt

Clips: Castle Crashers from the Makers of Alien Hominid

Brian Crecente — Thu, 20 Jul 2006 17:00:44 MDT

Holy hotness Batman, Castle Crashers looks amazing. I guess that makes sense, since the multiplayer button-masher was developed by The Behemoth of Alien Hominid fame. The developer just announced that both Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid will be coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Alien Hominid hits this fall, whiile Castle Crahers lands next year. Can't. Wait. Brian Crecente