Crystal Castles

Crystal Castles is a 1983 maze video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. for arcades. The player controls Bentley Bear, who must collect gems located throughout trimetric-projected rendered castles while avoiding enemies, some of whom are after the gems as well.

The game was programmed 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). While he was developing the graphics that involved the unique backgrounds, the game began to evolve into what became Crystal Castles. The game also has warp zones to higher levels and an ending, which were not typical in arcade games in 1983.

Following the game's release in arcades, it was released for the Atari 2600 home console and various home computers. Critics often complimented the game for its unique graphics. Bentley Bear appeared in educational home computer programs from Atari, as well as in Atari Karts (1995) for the Jaguar. Lanzinger left Atari after developing the game and, following his attempt to get the rights to the character, developed the similarly styled game Gubble (1997).