The Whirlygig: Why ‘Fall Guys’ is Worth Playing
Fall Guys is extraordinarily devoid of complexities. At its core, the collection of mini-games packaged into a larger battle royale only has a few mechanics: you can run, jump, dive, and grab. In a lot of ways, it feels like an ode to the simplicity of game design as it existed in games like Super Mario Bros or Tetris. There’s something magical about the low barrier to entry, as it only takes a few minutes to get a sense for how the controls work. The enjoyment is in figuring out how to best use these handful of mechanics across over twenty mini-games – most of which serve as small sandboxes for the 3D platforming. Some games are better than others, but they all embody the same concept: an unfastened space to goof around and compete in. Fall Guys is worth playing, and I think I can explain why by looking exclusively at my favorite mini-game: ‘The Whirlygig.’
If you have ever been a child, you know what it’s like to race someone. The concept is pretty simple: you both start in the same proximity, a non-partisan party counts down from three, and you run as fast as you can to the finish line. If you get to the finish line before your opponent, you win and they lose. There’s nothing quite like the immense gratification of beating someone at a race, even if the only time it would ever actually mean something is if you were both to be chased by a crocodile or bear. That’s a lot how ‘Whirlygig’ feels to me, only you’re racing against about 60 other people instead of one. 40 of those people “win” and 20 “lose,” knocking them out of the battle royale and sending them packing. The crocodile, in this case, is your pride.
For most of ‘The Whirlygig,’ you just need to run. All of the teletubby looking players waddle step by step closer to the finish line, which takes anywhere between a minute or two to complete. There are some obstacles in the way, too. The first of which are a series of swinging bars that require a timed jump to pass. Or, at least, that’s what I thought. Fall Guys employs an unrealistic but precise physics system. Using this physics system, I learned how to fling my jelly-bean avatar forward. Not only was it faster than the traditional run and jump, it was distinctly more satisfying. It’s a lot easier to think about Fall Guys as a sandbox, rather than a world with a distinct set of rules.
After the quartet of swinging bars, ‘Whirlygig’ presents you with a small moving sidewalk – like the kind you’d see a middle-aged businessman frantically running down in an airport – and two yellow blocks. In front of the blocks is a wall, and two get over the wall you need to hop on the blocks. The best part is that these blocks are small and only a handful of egg-shaped avatars can fit on them at once. It’s not totally dissimilar to the scene in World War Z where the zombies just pile on each other vertically. You can also jump up and grab the edge of the wall if you’re daring enough. The fascinating part here is that if you can get off to a good start, it’s easy to side-step the pandemonium altogether. It also serves as an opportunity to catch up, for anyone left behind early.
Once you’ve climbed the wall, the windmills (or “whirlies,” as the name might indicate) come into play. The first one is slow, but also the most dangerous. Through the whirly is a path forward, but on either side of that opening is a closed gate. There’s enough space to run through at full speed, or dive, if you’re feeling wild. Even better, however, is if you want to ignore the boundaries altogether. Instead of going through the gate, I found myself able to use the whirly’s momentum to shoot me over the gate entirely, avoiding the crowd beneath me. It’s slower to do it this way to be sure, but it’s much more fun to feel like a raindrop getting smacked off of a windshield.
It isn’t until the final stretch run where things get interesting again. ‘The Whirlygig’ separates into three separate paths toward the finish line: safer routes to the left and right, and a faster but more dangerous route right up the center. Fall Guys is really good at keeping things interesting up until the last second, and a lot of that has to do with its level design. The safer routes are almost always more compelling if you simply want to move onto the next round, especially since most players want to mirror behavior they see on American Ninja Warrior, but it does come with the risk of being surpassed. On either side are a handful of floating discs with rotating bars on them.
Mistime a jump and one of the bars will fling you into the purple slime, sending you back to the latest checkpoint. Going directly up the center means running down another moving sidewalk and timing a very fast whirly. If it hits you, you’re likely to get launched from the platform and into the slime or back into the right or left path. It’s faster, but inherently more dangerous. And that’s emblematic of a lot of what Fall Guys does. It offers plenty of options, all with a matching risk and reward. At the end of the three paths is a unifying platform that requires a jump through a final slow, and much more spacious, whirly.
Because the whirly moves so slowly, there’s a tendency for a log-jam of balloon-shaped avatars before you can jump. Jump at the same time as too many others and it’s easy to get bounced from the platform, into the abyss. Oftentimes, especially if you’re fighting for one of the last spots to move on, other players will wait on the other side, ready to block your path forward. This is where the last of Fall Guys’ central mechanics come into play: the grab. If you grab another lightbulb-shaped avatar, you can bounce them in the opposite direction. Do this right after they’ve jumped over the chasm of slime, and you can send them right back down. Just beyond is the finish line.
Fall Guys is really good at creating these sandbox style mini-games, many of which are in the format of a race. Others are team-based activities, like steering a giant soccer ball down a winding path together or protecting and stealing eggs from opponents. Things can get chaotically buggy and even lead to disconnects. But even after a dozen hours, repeated playthroughs of the same mini-games remain fresh. The resulting chaos in the final moments of each is a high of fun that’s always worth chasing. Fall Guys does a lot with just a little, and hearkens back to those competitions on the playground. Winning is fun, and losing just makes you want to try again.
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