Fall Guys, the battle royale party game in which dozens of beans try not to fall over, has proven to be the breakout success of the summer. A week after launch, publisher Devolver digital confirmed that the game had sold over 2 million copies on Steam, with some estimating it had been downloaded over 8 million times on PS4. ButFall Guys' path to success had humble beginnings. In fact,Fall Guys' pitch to publishers started with gifs of a cult-favorite Japanese game show namedTakeshi’s Castle— and the rest is history.
In a lengthy thread on Twitter, Mediatonic creative director Jeff Tanton explained in great detail the process of putting a pitch together forFall Guys. Tanton describes howFall Guyscame togethersurprisingly fast, starting with a one-page internal pitch forFool’s Gauntletfrom lead game designer Joe Walsh. The team took that one page and built a pitch deck, a presentation usually made in PowerPoint, in 24 hours. Mediatonic was just that excited about the possibility.
RELATED:Fall Guys Season 2 Reveal Coming at Gamescom
Tanton even shared some of the firstFall Guysconcept art that was put together for that pitch deck, showing how consistentFall Guys' design was even from the beginning. The art even featured a prototype version ofFall Guys' bean characters, top-heavy and with clumsy arms just as they are now. There was even a piece of art showing a prototypeFall Guyslevel that contains some features currently seen in-game, including a seesaw.
Eventually, Tanton gets to the actual pitch forFall Guys. He describes pitching to 10 different publishers duringGDC 2018and how nervous he was, even with Devolver Digital who Mediatonic was friendly with. But Tanton explained that he started theFall Guyspitch with two slides full of gifs fromTakeshi’s Castle, which both cut through everyone’s nervousness and sold the concept ofFall Guysperfectly well.
For those unfamiliar,Takeshi’s Castlewas a game show in which regular people would go through stages of obstacles and challenges. The players would often fail miserably, which was what madeTakeshi’s Castleso unique, fun, and hilarious. OtherTV shows likeWipeoutalso capitalized on this concept, and it’s the same idea asFall Guys, onlyFall Guysevolved it into a battle royale type of competition. It’s so smart it’s a surprise no one else made something similar first.
The full thread from Tanton is well worth checking out. It includes several anecdotes about how certain pieces ofFall Guyscame together, and it’s just rich, in general, with excitement over what the team accomplished and how happy he is overFall Guys' success. It’s astonishing thatFall Guyswas made in just two years, but when it’s clear how excited the games' developers were for it, it’s much more understandable.
Fall Guysis available now on PC and PS4.
