Fall Guys — More Grabbing and Less Talking

When you’re stuck at home because there’s a pandemic outside…

Last time, I took the opportunity to talk about how shutting the hell up (for lack of a stronger, more impactful term) during the game eliminates the toxicity that usually grips the game’s community and innovates the gameplay. Dead by Daylight isn’t the only game that accomplishes that because Fall Guys is also to blame for a quiet online experience.

COVID isn’t news to anyone, as it is everywhere nowadays. Half of the world is in quarantine (or all of it… I’m not sure anymore), and you can’t leave the house. Worst of all, there’s nothing to do, and boredom hits hard. Luckily, Mediatonic knew just the solution, as all they had to do was invent Fall Guys. Since then, being stuck at home didn’t feel so bad because whoever came up with this idea has to be a genius.

I’m not sure whether Fall Guys has a story, but it doesn’t need one since it’s just a fun game overall. Not that there is much to know, since all you ever do in the game is get jumbled up with a bunch of other players (up to 60, to be exact), racing to get to the first in line in a series of minigames inspired by childhood games like Tag or The Floor is Lava — all in the style of Wipeout, which is nothing but a montage of people hilariously falling into the water. (So much for the game show). Best of all, the design and appeal of the game are as family-friendly as possible, as there seem to be no signs of grittiness or cruelty, two elements that are very common in today’s gaming culture. But as fun as it might be, even I moved on after, what, a month? I just have more important things to tend to. I want to give it another chance, especially when you consider that you never actually talk to anyone… at any point in the game.

60 people competing for a worthless crown

You enter a game, get queued with 59 other people who have different ideas of “fun”, and try to beat them in a series of minigames, all the while dealing with the trolls every time you reach the finish line in a race (the ones that keep grabbing you). Of course, there’s no option to communicate with other players beyond grabs and emotes directly. I suppose that if there were some way to tell them in a very conspicuous manner of “stop grabbing me”, then they might find it in themselves to comply. Good thing it’s a video game because “grabbing” doesn’t work in real life; that’s something you want to avoid.

The point is: you don’t need to talk to other people to have fun, and Fall Guys proves exactly that. But if there was such a method of conveying speech or written text, could you tell those trolls to stop grabbing? Not that just, but also anything else that you could say in an online game, an ever-present feature in online games nowadays, except for a few, of course.

But that’s ok because Fall Guys is just one of those games that work very well even when you can’t talk to other people. After all, you’re playing by yourself with people who happened to be in the game with you, as there is no sense of teamwork whatsoever, except when playing certain minigames, of course. But the biggest problem of all is the grabbers at the end of every race. I just want to tell them to stop, but the game won’t allow me even that.

This is a problem between people

I think this is something that the developers need to address in how the players communicate. Some people don’t enjoy it when the game allows trolls to hinder your experience. But then again, I only ever played the game for a month. So, what do I know?

However, if there were something to be done about it, then a simple in-game gesture would be simple, telling others “No, thank you” or something like that and not just an emote, the purpose of which is purely cosmetic. That or the developers should just remove the grabbing feature, only making it available during that one game when you need to grab tails. That one’s ok.

Of course, now I realise that I should probably play the game again to better understand what it’s like now. Then I’d have a better solution.

Do you have a solution for us?

Because clearly, a guy who hasn’t played in a while has no idea what they’re talking about. That’s one thing I should take next time when offering my own solutions. But there’s so little time, and I don’t have enough of it for every game, so I just pull out of my memory what it was like. Those of you who know better than me about Fall Guys, so you tell everyone what the best solution is.

In Conclusion…

Fall Guys is a fun and innocent game that is still present and should definitely be played by the masses. Its greatest appeal is, in fact, its family-friendly aesthetic, but the game itself is also fun. Anyways, play it if you haven’t already because I’m about to play it again… maybe.

Fall Guys is just an example of one game that works well with barely any communication, but that’s because you’re mostly just there for yourself. If anything, there should be some minimal means to talk (like the emotes), at least in a way that tells people to stop being jerks. If not, then the developers should remove that feature from the game (I wonder, did anyone else ever consider that).

As for next time, I’ll probably talk about that one game where communication is key… the key to using your wits.