Fall Guys

For its chaotic gameplay and visual appearance, Fall Guys received positive reviews from critics. After going free to play, the game was a commercial success. They were selling more than 10 million copies and attracting more than 50 million players.

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General Information Of the Fall Guy's original version

Fall Guys (previously Fall Guys: Mediatonic created the free platform battle royale game Ultimate Knockout). Up to 60 players take control of jellybean-like creatures. And they compete against one another in a series of minigames, such as tag or obstacle courses, that are chosen at random. As the rounds progress, players are eliminated until the last player standing is the winner. The game is based on game shows like Takeshi's Castle, It's a Knockout and Wipeout. As well as playground games like tag and British Bulldog.

Devolver Digital released the game on August 4, 2020. The game is available on Microsoft Windows and PlayStation 4. Epic Games received ownership of the publishing rights following their acquisition of Mediatonic. The game was then free to play on June 21, 2022. And it came out on additional platforms, including the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. It came with full cross-platform play support on all platforms. The game adapted a seasonal battle pass system for monetization, allowing players to customize their avatars.

For its chaotic gameplay and visual appearance, Fall Guys received positive reviews from critics. After going free to play, the game was a commercial success. They were selling more than 10 million copies and attracting more than 50 million players. Mediatonic has released numerous game updates since the game's launch. The current season, the ninth, has an underwater theme.

Development

From the very first step…

Mediatonic was talking about another project in January 2018. At that time, the lead designer of Fall Guys said that it reminded him of game shows like Takeshi's Castle and Total Wipeout. He used that inspiration to create a pitch document for the game that would become Fall Guys. Walsh's pitch featured 100 players competing in a battle royale. That consisted of physical challenges and was originally called Fools' Gauntlet. Creative director Jeff Tanton was initially skeptical that creating another battle royale game would be successful. However, he quickly appreciated the game's potential and forwarded Walsh's pitch to the founders of Mediatonic. Tanton and Tanton explained that Hoang's character designs helped shift the game's focus away from the obstacle course itself and toward the characters.

The initial prototyping process

After Tanton completed the pitch deck, he presented the game at the 2018 Game Developers Conference to ten different publishers. The game's development began six months after Devolver Digital agreed to publish it. Fall Guys began its initial prototyping process with a small team. The team grew to 30 people during development. They worried that there wouldn't be enough content for launch because initial progress on individual minigames was slow. Then the group created a set of pillars that "took the opinions of people out of the occasion" and allowed the developers to "kill ideas faster". It marked a turning point.

A level had to be "different every time."

One of these pillars was ensuring that a minigame was "50-50 chaos and skill".  That a level had to be "different every time." Mediatonic was inspired by game shows and set itself apart from first-person shooter battle royale games by emphasizing variety in gameplay. Mediatonic hoped to evoke the feeling of being on a game show by providing the player with several random game modes. To preserve the "spirit of playground games and game shows," Mediatonic established an internal rule. This one required game modes to be described in three words. The game also underwent numerous other modifications throughout its development.

Overpopulated games "stop being readable or fun", so the number of players reduced from 100 to 60. Mediatonic discovered during testing that players overestimated the number of players. They stated: "We didn't need as many players as we thought to create the crowds we wanted the gameplay to include." According to Walsh, striking the right balance between funny ragdoll collisions and game performance was critical because "as soon as you lose the ragdoll-ness of the character, you lose the comedy." The character designs are similar to the look of vinyl toys. Mediatonic began working on season 2 before the release of the game with level designer Joseph Jason. They were noting that it was more of an "expansion" compared to season 3, where the team attempted to bring new ideas.

Fall Guys’ Reception

Fall Guys received "generally favorable" reviews, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic.

Tom Wiggins of Stuff magazine praised the game, calling it "Super Monkey Ball for the Fortnite generation". Mercury News praised the "controlled chaos" gameplay of Fall Guys, stating it to be utilizing a combination of the elements from the battle royale game Fortnite and the party game Mario Party in such a way that made it "tailored to the coronavirus age". Ollie Toms from Rock, Paper, Shotgun praised Fall Guys for its creative approach as a battle royale game incorporating family-friendly elements. He praised the simplicity of the game and the diversity of content added with each season. He argued that the ragdoll physics can be both exciting and frustrating to play: "What makes and breaks this game is the imprecision of your actions. It's not something many competitive games can get away with in the way Fall Guys does."

The most-watched game

The weekend before release during closed beta, Fall Guys briefly became the most-watched game on Twitch. It was also the sixth-best-selling Steam game and it was available for pre-order.

There are frequent comparisons between Fall Guys and Among Us, in that both are online games that grew in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The addition of Squad Mode in season 4 has been positively received. Kotaku says it evokes a new perspective on intense gameplay, indicating the importance of teamwork. The addition of Sweet Thieves has been positively received. The website Destructoid says "This is the most fun I've had with Fall Guys in forever." and "If you care about trophies, Sweet Thieves is worth checking out. But it stands on its own, too."

The hashtag #savefallguys started trending on Twitter

On 11 October 2022, the hashtag #savefallguys started trending on Twitter. This was to get Mediatonic's attention and ask the company to fix numerous problems. Many problems that fans have with the game include lack of round variety, bugs, subpar events, prices in the in-game shop, how skill-based matchmaking is implemented, and more. On 15 November 2022, the Fall Guy's twitter stated that for the game to stay stable some rounds will be "vaulted". And rounds will be rotated in and out of the vault. Mediatonic has yet to respond about skill-based matchmaking or shop prices.