Jeff Tanton, Creative Director at Mediatonic, has revealed one of the early level ideas from Fall Guys as well as the initial idea for the end of game prize as it wasn’t always going to be a Crown.
Since releasing in early August, Fall Guys has taken over the internet. The incredibly entertaining child-like battle royale looks like anybody could win their first game, but as TimTheTatman proved, that’s pretty far from the truth.
As the popularity has continued to grow, fans want to see more and more. That includes the developer’s plans for the future, as well as what they had mapped out from the beginning.
Jeff Tanton, the Creative Director at Mediatonic, lifted the lid on some of the devs’ earliest plans for the game – which wasn’t going to be called Fall Guys initially, but actually, Fool’s Gauntlet.
On top of his details about the first ideas for a name, the marketing plan to sell the project, and even initial designs of the character, Tanton revealed a few images of some early level design concepts.
The main one centers around a level in the clouds where players would start off at one end, climb a wall, traverse a small downwards ramp, and then deal with a set of rollers and a see-saw.
Once past that, there’s a curved wall to climb and a swing to use to get towards the end. But even there, you’d have to avoid swinging balls to secure a place in the next round.
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https://twitter.com/Jeff_Tanton/status/1296494846862143488
Aside from the early level concept, Tanton also revealed part of their early pitch which would have sene players fight for in-game money, not just a crown.
Instead of one player being the victor, the early idea for Fall Guys would be that the more players that finished the final level, the smaller split of a 1,000,000 coin prize pool you would receive.
Cut to Jan 2018 – and I invite Joe Walsh (@gosujoe) to brainstorm on a completely different internal pitch – something just clicked and he had his epiphany moment midway through.
I got the one-pager for “FOOLS GAUNTLET” a few days later pic.twitter.com/NBU8PeqdqT
— Jeff Tanton (@Jeff_Tanton) August 20, 2020
Obviously, that didn’t make the cut and, for now, players continue to fight it out to claim the crown of being the last player standing.
As for that initial level concept, who knows, we could see something similar in the future but we’ll just have to wait and see what other wacky ideas the Fall Guys devs have got lined up.