Game Review
Fall Guys Can and Should be Better
Fall Guys is a new popular multiplayer game that pits 60 players, or “fall guys” in a competition, or “show” as the game calls it, where there are 5 total rounds, and players are eliminated each round.
The types of minigames range from many different types of races, to a multi-ball soccer game, to memory games.
I played about 15 minutes of the game before I returned it. The game itself is designed quite well. The game’s Wipeout-like aesthetics and gameplay, as well as a microtransaction system that rewards players with in-game coins for just playing the game gives it an enjoyable and silly feel that I have not seen in any other game other than TF2, and this game is way different from TF2.
The game is fun, the mechanics are the easiest I’ve ever seen to pick up, the minigames are very well designed, the physics are fair. But there is one large issue that made me return the game: players are eliminated.
Battle royale is a type of gameplay seen in a wide range of games, such as Fortnite, PubG, Apex Legends, and newly Fall Guys. I am of the opinion that battle royale is a terrible type of game for two reasons: it is frustrating, and it is slow to teach players.
Specifically with Fall Guys, on average, every 1 out of 60 games a player plays will be a win, the other 59 out of 60 (98.33%) of games will be a loss. It is plain frustrating to a player to be loosing what is essentially all of the games they play.
Fortnite, had to add ranked matchmaking into casual because whatever streamer in the match which played the game as two full time jobs would win every single time.
When I played my first match of Fall Guys, I lost during the first round, and got eliminated; however this was to be expected since I had no prior experience and spent half of the time trying to jump. I got through the first round but got eliminated at the second.
I do not remember how many rounds I played, but in the last round I played before I returned the game I got to the second-to-last round. Because I got eliminated in that round, all of my work in the previous rounds meant nothing; I lost all the same. I Alt+F4ed out of the game and immediately returned it with a negative review.
A point-based system, which awards individual players on their performance, will both remove this source of frustration and teach them how to do better. If done right, a player can see exactly what they did to earn points, they can learn what to keep doing, and what is not helpful. In the game’s current state a player is only provided with if they “qualify” or if they are eliminated.
It’s frustrating, random, and a waste of a promising game.
Award players for top percentile of time made through different sections on race maps, award players for defending balls and also making balls individually in soccer, award players for pushing others off the map.
Please, developers of Fall Guys, change the game so players are awarded points, I do not want this game to last three months and promptly die because players become frustrated, or bored with the very restricted learning curve.
