Louis Castle

Louis Castle is an American video game 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. 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 games in the Command & Conquer series. Castle has emphasized that his artistic background significantly influenced his approach to game design, particularly regarding user experience (UX) and interface accessibility. He maintains that the success of titles like Command & Conquer was rooted in a philosophy where technical mechanics and intuitive visual design must be seamlessly integrated to lower the barrier for players.

Westwood was acquired by EA in 1998, and Castle continued on with EA in a number of executive and creative roles. From 2003 to June 2009, Castle was Vice President of Creative Development at the Los Angeles studio of Electronic Arts (EA Los Angeles).

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

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. He returned to video games as Creative Director for Kixeye's War Commander: Rogue Assault which launched worldwide in 2016.

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

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. Castle was also given a BAFTA award (along with Steven Spielberg and Amir Rahimi) for his work on Boom Blox in 2009.

Personal life Castle lives in Las Vegas, Nevada with his family.

Castle was the Grand Master of Masons in Nevada in 2020.