PAX East Spotlight: The Behemoth Booth was the Friendliest Place at PAX East 2020

By Lowfat

The Behemoth booth sat at the base of the escalators leadingfrom the Boston Convention Center’s main entrance down into the main floor ofthe exposition hall. The other video game and tapletop companies could be foundon the floor, too, but one thing in particular made The Behemoth worth visitingfirst: Café Behemoth, a one-hour press-only meet-and-greet breakfast providedby members of The Behemoth.

The long table of various coffees was accompanied by an evenlonger table of bagels and spreads – and cookies for a decadent after-breakfastdessert. An assortment of butter, jams, and other spreads rounded out theoffering. Members of the press were invited to chow down as they talk to theBehemoth development team and play their games.

Co-founder and artist Dan Paladin was kind enough to walk mearound his booth and showcase The Behemoth’s catalog of games, each of whichwas displayed in its own custom cabinet, including the quirky Back OffBarbarian (think an updated Q-bert with loads more personality) and the strangelybrilliant Super Soviet Missle Mastar [sic], whose cabinet featured two mini LCDscreens with looped military footage from the 1950s, three industrial buttonswitches, and a bowling ball-sized trackball. It’s a fun mobile game but trustme when I say it really shines as a strangely addicting arcade.

The highlight of the morning, despite the generous breakfast,was getting to play the demo for the upcoming Alien Hominid Invasion,Behemoth’s first true sequel (see our preview article for more info). Danlamented that, although he acknowledged fans’ cries for sequels to each of TheBehemoth’s other games (requests came loud and clear and often), choosing todevelop a game solely because of external demands just would not have feltright. Never say never, of course, but The Behemoth feels most comfortable developingand releasing games that its members feel excited to work on, not just gamesthat might be lucrative at the time. 

Dan compared working on a video game to grouping 1,000 assumptionsof what the audience might like. Everything is put together in one pot and thisprocess often results in a “huge yarn ball of [poop]” that then has to beunraveled into something coherent, a process that sounds as fun in itsconception as it sounds daunting in its execution. But the end results arealways worth the effort.

Especially when that effort comes with bagels and creamcheese.

Special thanks to everyone at The Behemoth for their hospitality!