In the Arcade flyer, the narrative states that Bentley Bear went to the land of Crystal Castles to gather gemstones.

[4] The Atari 2600 manual alters the narrative slightly in that, after taking a nap, Bentley found himself in a huge castle where he was trapped by Berthilda the Witch.

[6] Different enemies follow unique patterns, such as trees that try to find the quickest path to Bentley and are stunned briefly if he jumps over them.

[7] Each level has four waves; the fourth one features Berthilda the Witch, whom Bentley can defeat when he wears the magic hat located in the maze.

Lanzinger had been programming on his own since 1971 and dropped out of a mathematics degree at the University of California in Berkeley to pursue a career in scientific research.

[8] Upon arrival at the company, Lanzinger had to choose from a book on approved projects and picked one titled Toporoids, a variation of Atari's Asteroids (1979) arcade game.

Lanzinger and some co-workers began thinking of ideas for the game and developed a Fairy tale theme such as moving trees and a witch from The Wizard of Oz (1939).

[12] Towards the end of development, Lanzinger said Atari management had strongly encouraged him to change to a joystick control scheme.

Two graphic artists employed by Atari contributed to the art, including Barbara Singh who created the majority of the motion objects and Susan McBride who also added a few.

[13] Crystal Castles for the Atari ST was programmed by Andromeda Software, a company based on in Hungary.

"[28] In Electronic Games 1985 Arkie Awards, Crystal Castles received a Certificate of Merit in the Coin-op Division.

[30] In 1984, several ports for Crystal Castles were announced, including the Commodore 64, Apple IIe, IBM Personal Computer, and VIC-20.

re-reviewed the budget re-release; while finding it repetitive and difficult to control, ultimately they wrote that "the Pac-man concept still has a lot of strength (look at Pac-Mania on the Amiga) and this is one of the best versions around.

"[36] Following Crystal Castles, Lanzinger began development on an arcade machine based on the film Gremlins (1984).

He visited the set, but left Atari after a dispute with them over residuals paid to coin-op developers for sales of home conversions.

[8] In an interview published in 2022, Lanzinger commented "I was young and naïve and felt that I owned Crystal Castles.

[8] Lanzinger initially worked on one making a follow-up with new levels and giving Bentley Bear the ability to jump twice as high.

[13] Lanzinger wrote a two-page memo to his bosses stating that if video games are aspiring to tell stories, they should have satisfying conclusions.