Fall Guys Season 2: How Knight Fever Was Made

Just before Fall Guys came out, we discussed the creation of one of its hardest games, Slime Climb, with lead game designer Joe Walsh and junior level designer Joseph “JJ” Juson. Two months later, as we approach the release of Fall Guys Season 2, we invited the pair back to talk through a level that might just take Slime Climb’s crown. Yesterday, we were pleased to exclusively reveal a new level, Knight Fever, and you can watch footage of it in action below. But what went into creating this medieval gauntlet of spikes, scythes and drawbridges? This is how Mediatonic created Knight Fever, your new favourite level to fear. [ignvideo url="https://www.ign.com/videos/2020/10/05/fall-guys-season-2-exclusive-knight-fever-level-reveal"]

What Is Knight Fever?

Joseph “JJ” Juson: Knight Fever is, I guess, familiar in a sense that it's a race level. It's one of our big 60-player, race-to-the-finish-line, be top 75% [events]. We knew that this was going to be dropping after people had got to grips with these kinds of levels, and had got quite good at them, and so we thought, “Let's make one for these players who've conquered everything else so far and do a really hard version of that.” On a smaller scale, we have a lot of new obstacles in Season 2, and a lot of these are showcased in this level. So we have rotating spike logs, and we have these scythes that swing really fast, and we have these massive log swings with spikes on them that are trying to get you. So when we were looking at this level, it was really about, “How can we show these off in a difficult way, and also in a way where it's back-to-back obstacles?” I think, more than our other races, you can fall off at any point – there are some bits that I still find really hard and I'm falling off all the time.

The Inspiration

Joe Walsh: There are just a couple of obstacles in game shows that we'd seen when we were researching Fall Guys in general. One of the things we looked at is Richard Gere in The First Knight – he goes through this epic swinging obstacle course of swinging scythes and that was in our brains, like, "That's pretty good. We should probably use that." Then the other one is this TV show called Raven that used to exist back in the day, and it had this thing called The Way Of The Warrior, where the person who was rubbish at Raven would get a go at completing this obstacle course in order to qualify. For those who don't know, it's a kids’ TV show with a high fantasy style and an amazing Scottish host. It's just a great obstacle course with some really scary-looking obstacles. I think we just had really good ideas for medieval obstacles that felt too good to put into the launch game, because it felt like we could do a whole season just around medieval stuff. Knight Fever is like a greatest hits of all of our favorite medieval obstacles from these shows that we like. [caption id="attachment_2417405" align="alignnone" width="1600"] Knight Fever concept layout.[/caption]

The Concept

JJ: The first step of working on a level like this was basically taking those obstacles and brainstorming around different sections that would fit them. There are some obstacles where it feels very natural, what you're going to be doing with them. The scythe for example – at least to start with, you're going to be running through a row of these scythes. And then it was kind of like, “OK, well how do we make that interesting? How do we make that feel like Fall Guys?” Because we obviously still want it to feel like it's a game show, and this is an obstacle course. So, I spent a few days doing that and put together a document of some ideas for sections with these obstacles. The obstacle designs were so good that it was like they kind of made themselves. We realized quite early that there was a lot of balancing, basically. You're either running along a beam and avoiding scythes, or you're running along a beam and avoiding the swinging log, or you're running across this spike log and it's like, “OK, well it's a bit overboard on balancing, that's all you're doing.” So we then took it back a little bit and looked at different ways to use these obstacles that weren't necessarily just about staying on a tight beam. One of the things I knew, even actually before we started, probably before we even had the obstacles, was I knew that I wanted a drop halfway through the level, like a slimy drop. Kind of reversed to the end of Hit Parade where you're going up and there are the things moving across – let's give people the opportunity to just go down as a fun moment halfway through. So that kind of forms the basis of the structure. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="3840"] Knight Fever's obstacles.[/caption] Once we had that on paper and we were happy with that, we went into the blocking out phase and I would make these sections separately. It's an interesting way to make a level, especially a level like this that’s pretty big and quite long – you have no idea how any of the sections are really going to play or feel until you have the whole thing together. I could go down that little slide on its own and it's like, "Well, great. Does it feel like I earned that in the level and does it feel like it's actually fun in conjunction with the other stuff?” So you have to make it all to then know if these sessions are going to work. We had one section, which had these giant logs swings, and it was kind of like a maze that you would be going through, under the log swings. On paper it looked quite cool, it felt like you'd be able to make some interesting choices and jump across. Then when I actually got in the [level] editor, it probably should have been something I saw before, but the log swings were just hitting each other, because they were massive and there was no space. It was so cramped and it just didn't really work as a section. I was playing around with it a bit, but I think you get that inherent feeling now, I think having worked on these levels for a long time, you just know, “This doesn't Fall Guys and it's not going to work.” I think we realized, we don't need that many because they're so big and so tricky to get past, that two is enough. So we have this massive half pipe with loads of holes in it, and you've got to avoid these giant log swings. I think it's much more enjoyable than the original section we wanted to make. Joe: [Knight Fever] is more of a skill check, I think. It's definitely harder and I think it creates this nice image of storming the castle, which is something we talked about really early on – we wanted the finish line to be these two big crenelated towers and it's like a hoard of badly dressed, wacky, overweight Fall Guys charging through. It just seemed like the right thing and we wanted to, just for this one at least, really funnel players together and have them getting in each other's way and tripping over each other and stuff like that. [caption id="attachment_2417404" align="alignnone" width="3000"] Knight Fever concept art.[/caption]

The Future

JJ: I think when you think you've mastered how to make a Fall Guys level, it changes because people master this stuff and get better at it and are like, "Well, where's the new challenge? What's the next new thing for me to tackle in this game?" Part of [dealing with] that is we've been doing this level variation stuff where we've got different versions of the levels we know. I think having these new obstacles, the Season 2 drop isn't the end of how we can use this stuff. It just gives us a really good platform for the future. Joe: I do think we're asking more of players with Season 2, for sure – both in these levels and then later on when we bring these obstacles elsewhere in the game – I think it's going to be really exciting to see people try and master these ones. JJ: If every race level was as hard as Knight Fever, I don't think the game would be as fun as it is, but I think when you can sprinkle this into the mix of levels that are already there, you really give different play styles and different people the opportunity to shine or have fun – I think that's really cool. One of the things we're thinking about when we're making our levels now, which is different, is how we’re going to remix this more down the line. We know exactly how the system works and we know what's fun. We know what people like. I think the thrill of it is those surprises, moments that you didn't expect to see in this level because you know it so well.