Fall Guys released on August 4th and is easily one of the best concepts for a game I’ve seen in a while. A multi-round battle royale in the vein of shows like Wipeout and Ninja Warrior that feels like a massively multiplayer Mario Party tournament.
For those of you unaware, Fall Guys plays like a competitive platformer with 60 players competing in various rounds with around half eliminated each time, leading to one ultimate victor. The challenges include racing through an obstacle course, collecting more eggs than other teams, scoring goals in soccer, and more. Each match is unique due to the variety of games and you never know what you’re gonna get.
The game is an absolute blast and I’ve been having a ton of fun with it, server issues aside. I highly recommend checking it out and could genuinely see it being game of the year material, but there are a few design issues holding the game back. I’m still writing my analysis of The Last of Us Part 2, but in the meantime I thought it would be fun to go through some of the issues with this game that the developers could fix to make the experience infinitely better. With that said, let’s get started!
UI/UX:
To start off, as great as the UI is, I think the UX needs some work. After losing a round, the player is able to exit the game while watching the pill characters fall off of a platform. However, if you miss this window you’re stuck in spectator mode until the next round has begun. The wait is pretty annoying and there needs to be a way to exit the spectator mode at any time so that users can hop right back into a game.
Speaking of which, when the player loses, they shouldn’t be sent to the rewards screen automatically, but rather given the option to do so or to requeue for another match. It’s a simple fix that allows players to get back into the action sooner.
And while we’re discussing spectator mode, I have no idea why, but when you’re partied with other players and begin to spectate the game doesn’t automatically set the camera on your party members, but on a random player, requiring you to look around and find your friends. It’s a minor annoyance, but it’d be a nice addition to make. A free-roaming camera option in spectator mode would be pretty cool too.
There are also a couple of small changes that could be made to improve the moment to moment experience. Things like having tails glow when they’re within grabbing range, making the timer louder and noisier when time’s almost up, and giving players an option to outline their fall guy at all times to make them easier to find in the crowd would work wonders for improving the experience.
One simple change that would make a huge difference would be the addition of a timer on the platforming games. Each of these modes ends after an unknown amount of time regardless of how many players have finished the course. A timer would help players know when to take big risks and when they’re safe to wait and think of a plan.
Lastly, the servers. I know the team is relatively small and they’ve done their best to keep things running and be open and honest about the process. Personally I understand and it doesn’t really bother me. What does bother me is being kicked out of a match and losing any credits I got from my placements.
The game needs to be adjusted to give a minimum number of credits to players each time they win a round of the game, not just when the match ends. Combine that with an apology system that grants some credits when a server fails or the player can’t connect to a match and I think a lot of the frustrations caused by lost prizes would be relieved.
Game mode changes:
When it comes to the games themselves there are only a few I’d change. Hexigone, Fruit Chute, Jump Club, and all of the platforming obstacle courses are nearly perfect for what they want to achieve with little to no changes needed. They’re all heavily skill and strategy-reliant, with functioning controls and great level design, exactly what this game needs.
There are also games like Door Dash and Tip Toe, which can seem random, but involve a lot of strategy. Much like See Saw, these games put the player in a constantly evolving prisoner’s dilemma, where they’re forced to decide whether to take a risk, trust others, or attempt to manipulate the outcome to get by. These do have an element of luck, but players with enough skill should find themselves winning more often than not.
There’s also Roll Out, Block Party, and Perfect Match, which are all pretty solid, but could use a difficulty increase to knock out a few more players in each round. A simple speed increase on each of these games would probably suffice, with maybe a larger set of barriers or smaller playing field to really force everyone into knocking other players away. If you want things to get really crazy, replace the grab button with a punch for these games and the strategy and chaos would be a blast to experience.
As I said before I do really love this game and given that out of the 24 minigames present I’ve already mentioned 15 as fun, that’s a pretty good track record. With that said, let’s move on to some others that need a bit more work.
First off, the tail grabbing games. In these modes, some players are given tails with others told to steal them. The team with the least tails or players without tails when the timer runs out are eliminated. In concept, I like this mode a lot, but it can feel really unfair at times.
For example, when it’s the last mode in a match, the player that starts with a tail has a huge advantage, just needing to run away while the others are given no such opportunity. Alternatively a player could hold onto their tail for the entirety of a match only to lose by having it stolen right at the very end. It’s pretty frustrating, but I have a solution.
The game should be reworked to start with every player having their own tail, gaining a point for each second that goes by. From there, players can attempt to steal tails from others to increase the number of points gained each second. This way players all start out on even footing and results in players who did the best overall moving on, with no surprise endings. If there’s a tie, just give the win to the player who stole the most tails overall, and if that’s also a tie have a coin flip or sudden death mode.
I’d also throw in some invincibility frames after having a tail stolen and after stealing a tail to prevent players from just piling up and stealing everything from a single player. If the player is invincible for one second, then they’re at least rewarded for their efforts in stealing the tail before it can be taken away. I’d also suggest turning off grabbing teammates in every team game. There’s no situation in which grabbing a teammate would ever be helpful, so this mechanic only serves to make team games more frustrating.
Then there’s Hoopsie Daisy. Honestly I like the idea, but I think it’d be a lot better as a free-for-all game, with players disappearing after they jump through enough hoops to qualify. When enough players pass or a timer runs out, the game’s over. Simple change to fix an otherwise pretty fun game.
Next up is egg scramble. Here, players are tasked with collecting eggs from a central location and bringing them back to their team’s base, with the team holding the least eggs at the end being eliminated. It’s fun, but can have a couple of frustrations that hold the game back.
For one, I’d suggest putting this mode on the same timer I suggested for the tail grabbing games, with teams gaining points for every second that passes by, just to avoid last minute turnarounds against teams who did well up until the very end. This is less of an issue here since getting an early lead means other teams will have to steal from your base in order to increase their score, but it could be nice. Put this suggestion in the ‘optional’ category.
Also, I’d make the ledges in each team’s base just a bit smaller or replace them with ramps. This way players can more easily steal eggs and it adds a lot more chaos to the game. This, along with speeding up the ability to grab an opponent’s egg away, would result in a lot more frantic action and really pick up the pace of the game.
I’d also suggest adding more eggs to the center of the arena over time. This way, players have to strategize and prioritize getting new eggs over taking them away from their opponents. It adds an extra layer to the game and makes it a deeper, more complex experience overall.
Sadly now we have to talk about the only thing in this game that I outright hate. The soccer games. In concept I think they’re all fine and tasking players with scoring goals or stealing balls to their side is a fun idea (though I’d also suggest putting points on a timer in Hoarders as well). Unfortunately the controls just don’t work.
I get that the game is supposed to be goofy and silly, but when my character dives into a soccer ball I swear it’s a complete crapshoot as to whether it actually moves in the appropriate direction. The hit detection and physics are glitchy, inconsistent, and completely unsatisfying. Honestly I don’t have much of a solution here besides either making the balls smaller, increasing their bounciness and decreasing their mass to make them easier to aim, or maybe using that previously mentioned punch button to give players the ability to really smack these things where they need to go.
Even the diving action itself has a weird delay between me pressing the button and the character diving, which is a problem that needs fixing in every mode. It’s a shame, but the soccer ball games simply do not work and shouldn’t be available in their current state.
New modes & features:
Lastly, I’d like to touch on the addition of new modes and features. The game has plenty to do right now, but with a few small additions it could immensely increase its staying power with minimal effort on the part of the developers.
The first is a practice mode allowing players to become familiar with the game’s levels and try to find their favorite paths to the end, with AI characters optional. It’s something that nearly every other multiplayer game has and would be a great fit for Fall Guys as well.
I’d also suggest adding in two new multiplayer modes- private lobbies and local split screen. These two modes would add a ton of replayability to the game. I could see local multiplayer becoming a big hit at get togethers and parties, with people clamoring for the top spot. And streamers could have private servers set up to play with their viewers. Plus these modes would be easy to add in, just requiring a few additional menus and tweaks. Not to say there wouldn’t be any challenges in adding these modes, but I think the trade off would be more than worth the effort.
Finally, the most demanding change I’ll suggest is splitting up solo and team games into two different modes. This would take a fair bit of time and effort and I can see why the developers didn’t do this. Given that they didn’t realize how popular their game would be, it’s understandable that they wouldn’t want to split the player base at launch, but now that we know the number of users is massive, I think this change is almost necessary to ensure the game’s longevity.
Nothing’s worse than joining a match only to be thrown into a team game where your impact on the outcome is minimal. It’s incredibly frustrating and often feels unfair. So my proposal is to separate the team and solo games into 2 different queues.
Then you could have players squad up into teams of 4, with all 4 of them winning if they make it through the various rounds. Plenty of the solo modes could be added in as well with teams being allowed to progress when one of their members reaches the goal. It could even lead to some strategies where some teammates try to grab onto and hold back opponents while others race to the end.
I understand this is asking a lot, but right now I (and many others on the forums I’ve read) groan every time a team game appears in the queue and this is the only solution I have to fix the issue. No one wants to feel like their fate is in the hands of others, especially in a game like this so giving players this option would go a long way to reducing frustration while playing. It would also make partying up a lot more fun, being able to work with your friends to try and have the entire team move on would be a blast and would lead to as many laughs and cheers as it would screams.
Conclusion:
As I said in the beginning, Fall Guys is a blast and has a ton of potential. I applaud the devs for making the game as good as it is, so please don’t think of this video as me trashing them for the game’s faults. I simply want this game to live up to its potential and see these as the biggest problems that need addressing before they move forward with new modes or levels.
Given that I’ve started learning game development myself I can definitely say it’s not easy. I just think that with a game this good, it deserves to be given every chance it can get to be even better and I hope the developers see this video and take my suggestions to heart.
Hopefully at least some of these changes will be made and the game can go on to have a bright, lengthy future, but I’d like to hear from you- what are your favorite and least favorite things about Fall Guys? What would you change? Let me know in the comments down below and as always, have a mighty nifty day today!