Looking for a fun read, Jeff Tanton, creative director of Fall Guys developer Mediatonic, posted a long and entertaining tweet thread today about the history of the chaotic party royale game. It's basically the origin story of Fall Guys.

The thread details the first pitch for Fall Guys in January 2018, when it was called "Fool's Gauntlet."

According to Taunton's tweet, the original Fall Guys were tougher and more competitive, with no second chances or respawns; the Fool's Gauntlet pitch document says: "If you get knocked off your rope by another player, sorry, game over." Some Fall Guys rounds, such as Jump Club and Roll Out, end if you fall; other Fall Guys minigames, such as Tip Toe and See Saw, allow multiple respawns if you slip off the edge.

Fool's Gauntlet is offered as a 100-player game, "moving from teamwork to treachery, players chip away at the weak and assemble skeleton teams at their best performance for the final challenge. The "Fall Guys" (formerly known as "Stumble Chums") we eventually got was a 60-player game, scaled back from the 100-player version because, as Tanton says, "beyond a certain size, the game becomes neither readable nor fun."

Tanton also told the Game Developers Conference that he pitched "Fall Guys" to about 10 publishers. The game was published by Devolver Digital, which had published Mediatonic's "Hatful Boyfriend," but the other nine publishers are probably regretting not signing on by now.

There is much more in the thread, including game levels, early concept art for the Fall Guys bean characters, and lots of praise for Mediatonic's artists, designers, coders, and staff. You can read the entire thread from top to bottom.