Louis Castle
Castle at a BAFTA event in Los Angeles in 2011
OccupationGame designer
Known forCo-founding Westwood Studios
Blade Runner

Louis Castle is an American video games designer. He is known for co-founding Westwood Studios, designing the PC game Blade Runner, and collaborating with Steven Spielberg on the Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party video games for the Wii console based on Spielberg's design ideas.

Career

Castle co-founded Westwood Studios with Brett Sperry in 1985.[1][2][3] Castle has multiple credits on Westwood games, including executive producer, technical director, and art director for the 1997 video game Blade Runner. Castle is also known for his contributions to multiple Command & Conquer games.[4]

Westwood was acquired by EA in 1998, and Castle continued on with EA in a number of executive and creative roles.[4] He was executive producer of Boom Blox and Boom Blox Bash Party, developed for the Wii in a collaboration with Steven Spielberg.[5][6] From 2003 to June 2009, Castle was Vice President of Creative Development at the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts (EA Los Angeles).[7]

On July 15, 2009, Castle joined InstantAction as the new CEO of GarageGames.[8] After InstantAction was shut down in November 2010, Castle went on to become Senior Advisor for Premium FanPage in January 2011,[9] and later joined Zynga as VP of Studios.[10]

Castle took a detour out of the video gaming industry to serve as Chief Strategy Officer for Shufflemaster (which became SHFL entertainment) in late 2011.[11] He returned to video games as Creative Director for Kixeye's War Commander: Rogue Assault which launched worldwide in 2016.[12]

On March 9, 2017, Castle became the head of the newly formed Amazon Game Studios Seattle.[13]

Games

Name Year Credited With Publisher
Fraction Action 1986 artist Unicorn Software Company
Mars Saga 1988 designer, artist, programmer Infocom, Electronic Arts
Donald's Alphabet Chase 1988 designer, artist Disney Software
California Games (Amiga port) 1988 artist, programmer Epyx
BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception 1988 programmer Infocom
A Nightmare on Elm Street 1989 art director Monarch Software
DragonStrike 1990 designer, artist, programmer Strategic Simulations
Goofy's Railway Express 1990 production design Walt Disney Computer Software
Circuit's Edge 1990 art director Infocom
Mickey's Runaway Zoo 1991 designer Walt Disney Computer Software
Dungeons & Dragons: Warriors of the Eternal Sun 1992 designer, programmer Sega
The Legend of Kyrandia: Hand of Fate 1993 art management Virgin Games
Young Merlin 1993 producer, designer Virgin Games
The Lion King 1994 creative director, producer Virgin Interactive
Monopoly 1995 producer, designer Hasbro Interactive
Lands of Lore: Guardians of Destiny 1997 producer Virgin Interactive
Blade Runner 1997 executive producer, technical director, art director Virgin Interactive
Lands of Lore III 1999 executive producer Electronic Arts
Command & Conquer: Tiberian Sun 1999 voice actor Electronic Arts
Pirates: The Legend of Black Kat 2002 executive producer Electronic Arts
Command & Conquer: Renegade 2002 executive producer, designer Electronic Arts
Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars 2007 studio creative director Electronic Arts
Boom Blox 2008 executive producer Electronic Arts
Boom Blox Bash Party 2009 executive producer Electronic Arts
War Commander 2010 creative director Kixeye
War Commander: Rogue Assault 2016 creative director Kixeye

Recognition

Castle was given the second annual Lifetime Achievement Award by the Computer Game Developers Association at the Spotlight Awards in 1999.[14] Castle was also given a BAFTA award (along with Steven Spielberg and Amir Rahimi) for his work on Boom Blox in 2009.[15][16]

Personal life

Castle lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his family.

Castle was the Grand Master of Masons in Nevada in 2020.[17]

References

  1. ^ "Westwood co-founder Louis Castle leaves for InstantAction". GamesIndustry.biz. 16 July 2009.
  2. ^ Hayes, Trevor (October 30, 2000). "Computer games: They got game", Las Vegas Review-Journal, p. D1.
  3. ^ "Amazon taps RTS pioneer Louis Castle to lead Seattle studio". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  4. ^ a b Campbell, Colin (2015-09-18). "Command & Conquer's Louis Castle returns to fight again on the RTS front". Polygon. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  5. ^ "Making games with Steven Spielberg". 2008-02-23. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  6. ^ "EA AND STEVEN SPIELBERG REVEAL BOOM BLOX". GamesIndustry.biz. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  7. ^ Forbes profile
  8. ^ "Lou Castle to Head Up InstantAction as New CEO". Archived from the original on 2012-02-19.
  9. ^ "GamerLiveTV interview, Louis Castle joins team Xiha". Archived from the original on 2011-07-18.
  10. ^ "Former head of InstantAction joins Zynga as VP of Studios". Archived from the original on 2011-03-11. Retrieved 2011-03-06.
  11. ^ Staff, GGB. "Interview with Shuffle Master's Louis Castle". Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  12. ^ "After nearly 3 years of struggle, Kixeye launches its spectacular War Commander: Rogue Assault | GamesBeat". venturebeat.com. 22 December 2016. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  13. ^ McAloon, Alissa (9 March 2017). "Command & Conquer co-creator Louis Castle to head Amazon Game Studios Seattle". www.gamasutra.com.
  14. ^ "Game Developers Choice Awards | Archive | Lifetime Achievement". www.gamechoiceawards.com. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  15. ^ "Louis Castle". IMDb. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  16. ^ "2009 Games Casual | BAFTA Awards". awards.bafta.org. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
  17. ^ "Grand Lodge Officers | Grand Lodge of Nevada". nvmasons.org.

External links

Westwood Studios
Electronic Arts
Dungeons & Dragons
Categories