Crystal Castles (video game)
Crystal Castles is an arcade game released by Atari, Inc. in 1983. The player controls Bentley Bear who has to collect gems located throughout trimetric-projected rendered castles while avoiding enemies, some of whom are after the gems as well.
| Crystal Castles | |
|---|---|
North American arcade flyer | |
| Developer(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Publisher(s) | Atari, Inc. |
| Programmer(s) |
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| Artist(s) |
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| Platform(s) | Arcade, Acorn Electron, Amstrad CPC, Apple II, Atari 8-bit, Atari 2600, Atari ST, BBC Micro, Commodore 64, TRS-80, ZX Spectrum |
| Release | Arcade
March 1984 |
| Genre(s) | Maze |
| Mode(s) | 1-2 players, alternating |
The game was made by Franz Lanzinger and was the first game he ever developed. He joined Atari in 1983 and was initially tasked with making a game like Asteroids (1979). As he was developing the graphics for it involving the unique backgrounds, the game began to develop into what became Crystal Castles. The game is a maze game, which featured more unique elements to the gameplay such as warp zones to allow players to advance in the game, and dedicated ending which was not typical in arcade games.
Following the games release in arcades, it was released for the Atari 2600 home console, and various home computer lines. Critics often complimented the game for its unique graphics. Bentley Bear would show up in educational home computer programs from Atari as well as Atari Karts (1995) for the Atari Jaguar. Lanzinger left Atari after developing the game, and after attempting to get the rights to the character, he developed a similarly styled game with Gubble (1997).