The Behemoth (Ohga Shrugs)

The Behemoth is an independent video game developer established in 2003 by Tom Fulp, Dan Paladin, and John Baez. Led by Tom Fulp, the company has a leading independent game developer, and has created a number of notable titles.

Origins
Tom Fulp got his start in the video game world by creating the Flash games and movies website Newgrounds.com in 1995. Although the website initially only contained Fulp's own creations, it soon came to showcase a variety of peoples' work using the Flash Portal, where anybody could upload their work.

While running Newgrounds, Tom Fulp continued to create his own games, including 1999's revolutionary Pico's School, arguably the most advanced Flash-based game ever created at the time, and a variety of other projects. Eventually, he came to collaborate with Dan Paladin, an artist, on several games, most notably the 2D side-scrolling shooter Alien Hominid.

In early 2003, John Baez, an employee at a medium-sized console developer, foresaw that the company would soon go under, and approached Dan Paladin with a proposition; to make Alien Hominid into a full console game. Dan Paladin and Tom Fulp eventually agreed. Several other people were recruited, and The Behemoth was born.

Earlier Projects
The Behemoth's first project was a console version of Alien Hominid. The game was unusual at the time in that it was a fully 2D title, featuring Dan Paladin's signature animation style. The game was under development for almost two full years, during which time the basic concept of the Flash prototype was greatly expanded. The console iteration of the game would feature nearly eighteen stages, several boss fights, a multiplayer mode, and minigames.

Upon its American release on the Dreamcast and GameCube in December 2004, Alien Hominid was a critical hit. Critics praised the game's 2D art, refinement of old-school gaming tropes and concepts, and sense of humor. The game was also a minor sales success, selling almost a quarter million copies between the two systems.

As soon as it became apparent that their first game was a success, The Behemoth began work on its next game, Castle Crashers. Initially, the game was meant to be a Dreamcast exclusive, making use of its online functionality. However, as the game's development time went on, and the potential of the 7th generation consoles became clear, it was decided to make Castle Crashers a Revolution/Pluto downloadable title instead. In the meantime, an updated HD version of Alien Hominid was brought to the nascent online stores of the two systems in 2007.

Castle Crashers and Expansion
Later on in the development of Castle Crashers, Tom Fulp recruited members of Newgrounds to help create the game's soundtrack. Impressed by the quality of their work, and realizing that Castle Crashers would end up being a major hit, Tom Fulp decided to expand the company by recruiting popular Newgrounds content creators. These artists, programmers, and musicians included Shawn Tanner, aka Afro-Ninja, Marco Arsenault, aka Evil-Dog, and Luis Castanon, aka Luis.

After Castle Crashers was released in the summer of 2008, it quickly became one of the most popular games of its type ever created, and broke a combined total of a million sales across platforms within a matter of months. It was decided that The Behemoth should not only continue developing games for these online stores, but should also begin developing more than one game at once. The team behind Castle Crashers began work on a new game called BattleBlock Theater, while many of the newcomers would create a new team to remake Newgrounds Flash games into console titles, in a fashion similar to Alien Hominid. It was decided that this new team's first translation would be Newgrounds Rumble, based off of the hit Fighting game that featured the stars of several Flash games and movies.

Meanwhile, Castle Crashers continued to be supported after launch. New DLC was created for the game, featuring new characters and weapons, eventually including ones meant to advertise other games from The Behemoth. It was also eventually ported to the PC.

Recent Events
Newgrounds Rumble was released on the Pluto and Revolution in late 2010. The game featured a cast not only originating from Newgrounds.com, but also from other independent games. Although not a huge success on the scale of Castle Crashers, Newgrounds Rumble was a moderate-sized hit, and, like other crossover fighters, introduced a lot of more characters to the general gaming public. Its online play gave Newgrounds Rumble longevity, and the game continued to be a mainstay amongst fighting fans for the rest of the generation.

BattleBlock Theater is due for completion in April 2013. The game will be one of the first major games to grace the Stream's eShop and the Eclipse's SegaNet.

Games Developed

 * Alien Hominid - 2004
 * Alien Hominid HD - 2007
 * Castle Crashers - 2008
 * Newgrounds Rumble - 2010
 * BattleBlock Theater - 2013