BattleBlock Theater is a co-op platformer about being shipwrecked on an island where cats have imprisoned you and forced you to perform in a theatre for their entertainment. The Behemoth do not do conventional premises.

The narrator is the reason people remember it. He describes every level with the delivery of a man reading a bedtime story he finds hilarious, and the script is genuinely one of the funniest in games. Half the fandom can still quote the tutorial.

The platforming itself is precise and mean, and the co-op is where it shines — levels are built to require cooperation and simultaneously reward betrayal, which produces the specific kind of friendship damage the best couch games are known for.

Dan Paladin's art style, carried over from Castle Crashers and Alien Hominid, is instantly recognisable: sharp lines, wide grins, and gems everywhere.

This collection covers the prisoners, the cat guards and Hatty himself.