PAX East 2013 – BattleBlock Theater

I got hands on with the soon to be released puzzle platforming game from The Behemoth, BattleBlock Theater. It’s great. It comes out tomorrow so I’ll keep it short.

BattleBlock Theater has been on my most anticipated list since it was first teased back in 2009, entirely because of my faith in The Behemoth delivering exciting and entertaining experiences. After getting an extensive look at  it on the PAX show floor, and talking with members of the team I can say with confidence the title lives up to their pedigree and raises the bar for future games.

If you ever get a chance to go to a PAX where The Behemoth has floor space, you would be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t stop by and check out their booth. They have built several, giant arcade cabinets with HD screens,  large joysticks and giant buttons to play their games. Their passion and creativity is show in the cabinets’ artwork while giving their modern games a retro, nostalgic feel. The booth is always crowded but I have never found it to be a long wait. Additionally if you are a huge fan, they offer a ton of awesome figurines and memorabilia which you can then get signed by the team at different periods throughout the day.

BattleBlock Theater started with a focus on two-player puzzle solving where players jump and throw each other around a 2D obstacle course collecting gems. The team wanted to make sure that it was playable alone, so while the general layout and ultimate goals of the levels are the same, jump distances and traversal problems are changed for solo play.

The gameplay is addictive. Most of my time was spent playing the game with another person, and good chunk of that was spent laughing and smiling while throwing my ally to his death, or getting thrown to my own. The game wants you to work together, but encourages you to troll and grief your friend on your journey to solving a level. It evokes a similar type of feeling that New Super Mario Bros. for the Wii gave. Chaos and hilarity with a common goal.

This is the first game from The Behemoth to feature user generated content. During the beta last month was the first time players were exposed to the robust tool allowing them to create their own levels, compile those levels into a playlist and then share these playlists with the Internet. While it has been done before in games like LittleBigPlanet, BattleBlock Theater has a much more focused goal. The Behemoth says they are letting players rate and share these levels and there will be an online playlist option to play the user voted best levels, as well as some hand picked gems.

The Game also has a slew of competitive multiplayer modes where two teams of two face off to earn more gems. These are all chaotic and take a little to get used to. The Behemoth held a Ball Game (similar to basketball) tournament during PAX at their booth and drew in a large crowd with 24 pairs playing the best of three maps in 2 v 2 battles. The whole thing lasted about three hours and the winners walked away with some Behemoth swag.

Games from The Behemoth’s past have made their way to other platforms but they aren’t talking about any other platforms yet. When I mentioned how the Wii U would make editing and creating levels more intuitive they agreed saying it would have some potentially interesting user input possibilities. No DLC in the form of level packs are planned but we can likely expect to see different character packs, and maybe some content to freshen up the level editor after sometime.

Now that we are on the cusp of its release there is a launch trailer highlighting everything that makes this game unique. But until it officially launches, check out their release date announcement trailer to experience the charm: