Baby Steps is a wild game that makes more sense when you realize who made it. This game is the result of the work of its three main developers Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Maxi Boch. They’ve worked together and individually on games like QWOP,Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Ape Out, and others. This makes Baby Steps feel like a natural evolution of this weird branch of indie games where navigating environments in unique ways is both challenging and enjoyable.
One simple mistake can undo 10 minutes or more of progress, forcing you to start over. It’s an experience that really makes this game the one true walking simulator… despite how that genre was coined to demean a burgeoning brand of adventure games, focused more on its narrative than puzzles which gate your progress.
Baby Steps (“the one true walking simulator”) is such a joy to play after you get past your initial baby steps while learning how it controls. While other games either encourage you to constantly sprint or supplement the walking with narrated story, this makes walking an analog mechanic. You have a lot of control over the minute ways of manipulating your body and legs to get over, under, around, and through the many obstacles in your path from beginning to end.
Walking in-game mimics real life. Move your body forward with the left stick in conjunction with moving your legs by holding the left or right trigger to control the corresponding leg. I admit, it takes a while to get used to the rhythm, and it requires you to be competent at moving through the world. Until you master these steps, you’ll fall down and flop around so much that it can get frustrating if you’re not used to games built on unusual mechanics and tedium. There are some extra hidden controls in the settings that let you lower or raise your feet when moving your legs, and that can help give you more control in those tight spots when you’re reaching across gaps. I mapped those to the triangle and X buttons for easy access when needed, which I’d recommend if you want to have some extra tools in your arsenal.
The plot here is pretty simple. Nathan is a mid-30s failed son living in his parents’ basement. He gets transported to a weird world–like an isekai anime–where people can’t die from high falls and such. It’s full of hills, mountains, and various bodies of water that require him to keep walking and progressing to each campfire base. There, he encounters increasingly odd people who make him uncomfortable enough that he’ll say whatever to get them to go away. I won’t spoil what’s actually happening, but Nate is looking for a way home. On this journey, he learns more about what he’s capable of and the sort of person that he is.
Sometimes Nate is a fussy baby when he falls over.
There is also a meta commentary on checklist exploration games with another character, Mike. He has a map that marks all points of interest for him and has all of the equipment he needs to get around faster than you, giving the experience TheTortoise and the Hare vibes. I could cite some other notable literature that the story is aping for in some of its more surprising moments, but that would probably spoil some of its best and wildest moments that I want you all to enjoy. There are tons areas that often have new characters that you may only see once or twice, but they stand out for the non-sequitur moments that they add to the game.
The world of Baby Steps is one that seems like a big open space, mostly filled with a clever touch–while your main progress is always to your north, the environment that you explore off to the east and west of your starting point loops in a natural way. This makes exploring off of the beaten path worthwhile for the amount of side content that this game has. I could certainly be wrong about that, but I’ve found a lot of little challenge areas with a stack of cans you can knock over, signs asking for the return of an item to the nearby fire tower’s lost and found box, hats hidden away in unlikely areas that you can wear and lose when you fall down a hill, and more fun little spots where you find some of the weirdest parts of the game. The game is broken up into areas, which I’ll categorize as the space you’re exploring between campfire checkpoints, that can take you back to the Nate’s basement to give you a clean point to end your session or jump back in to continue the journey the following morning. From there, you usually see a fire or some other light source that should show you the general area leading to the next area’s campfire. I suggest exploring and seeing what fun stuff there is around the world.
While it may seem like there is only one path to get through these areas, the devs often have at least a few other ways to get around, especially later in the game from what I’ve seen of others talking about the points of interest they came across as they progressed through the game.
I’m excited for the speed run potential of the game, especially for events like Games Done Quick where I expect to see those lovely jerks getting past all of the areas that caused me plenty of trouble like it was nothing to them. The speed run record will either be something ridiculous like 15 minutes, or it’ll be a fun couple of hours of finding the perfect routes that circumvent the most challenging areas with such mastery of the controls that make the game shine at its best.
I managed to keep this hat for a few hours until I lost it falling over a wall.
With the focus on the world of Baby Steps, the game looks great and features a lot of good environmental design that fills up your surroundings with plenty of points of interest that I loved visting. It really shines as you progress through the area and reach a higher point, then look back and see how far you came to get there.
Nate is an especially impressive part of the visual style with his onesie getting soiled with sweat if you’re walking around without falling for a while, or it’s soiled with mud and dirt if you’re falling over a lot, which tends to stay dirty until you reach a river or a pond that can wash it off. Until now, I’ve never been as impressed with game clothing tech as I was with he first Uncharted. I like to see how well the dirt washes off of Nate’s onesie, only for the part that is soaked… though I usually fell into most bodies of water, and that kept me from really testing that out more often.
The music is a cool part of this game since it’s not a big orchestral score or anything like that. Instead, you get various animal, bug, and environmental noises collaborating to make for some fun beats to add to the vibes. The voice acting is also very well done. Nate has that weasel-y nerd voice that complements his social awkwardness well. You also get plenty of remarks from Nate when you fall down hills or fall over that often align with the things I was saying about the mistakes I made controlling him.
Baby Steps is an amazing game that very much fits my vibe in the simulation genre where the main mechanic is satisfying and the journey is just as enjoyable. It’s not a perfect game, but it does so much right that I can’t wait to play more of it at my own pace. For the record, Devolver suggested it could be beaten in about eight to 10 hours and my playthrough took about 16 hours with over 47,000 steps which is well above those estimates. The trophy and achievement list is full of vague goals that require a lot of skill and exploration, so don’t expect to get all of them on your first run. I managed to get three of the thirteen trophies and I came nowhere close to the trophy for beating the game in under 10,000 steps nor beating the game on time, which I don’t know what that means. That’s how much of a slowpoke I was even with how much I was rushing for the latter half of the game, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
Baby Steps is a wild game that makes more sense when you realize who made it. This game is the result of the work of its three main developers Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Maxi Boch. They’ve worked together and…
Baby Steps is a wild game that makes more sense when you realize who made it. This game is the result of the work of its three main developers Bennett Foddy, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Maxi Boch. They’ve worked together and individually on games like QWOP,Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Ape Out, and others. This makes Baby Steps feel like a natural evolution of this weird branch of indie games where navigating environments in unique ways is both challenging and enjoyable.
One simple mistake can undo 10 minutes or more of progress, forcing you to start over. It’s an experience that really makes this game the one true walking simulator… despite how that genre was coined to demean a burgeoning brand of adventure games, focused more on its narrative than puzzles which gate your progress.
Baby Steps (“the one true walking simulator”) is such a joy to play after you get past your initial baby steps while learning how it controls. While other games either encourage you to constantly sprint or supplement the walking with narrated story, this makes walking an analog mechanic. You have a lot of control over the minute ways of manipulating your body and legs to get over, under, around, and through the many obstacles in your path from beginning to end.
Walking in-game mimics real life. Move your body forward with the left stick in conjunction with moving your legs by holding the left or right trigger to control the corresponding leg. I admit, it takes a while to get used to the rhythm, and it requires you to be competent at moving through the world. Until you master these steps, you’ll fall down and flop around so much that it can get frustrating if you’re not used to games built on unusual mechanics and tedium. There are some extra hidden controls in the settings that let you lower or raise your feet when moving your legs, and that can help give you more control in those tight spots when you’re reaching across gaps. I mapped those to the triangle and X buttons for easy access when needed, which I’d recommend if you want to have some extra tools in your arsenal.
The plot here is pretty simple. Nathan is a mid-30s failed son living in his parents’ basement. He gets transported to a weird world–like an isekai anime–where people can’t die from high falls and such. It’s full of hills, mountains, and various bodies of water that require him to keep walking and progressing to each campfire base. There, he encounters increasingly odd people who make him uncomfortable enough that he’ll say whatever to get them to go away. I won’t spoil what’s actually happening, but Nate is looking for a way home. On this journey, he learns more about what he’s capable of and the sort of person that he is.
Sometimes Nate is a fussy baby when he falls over.
There is also a meta commentary on checklist exploration games with another character, Mike. He has a map that marks all points of interest for him and has all of the equipment he needs to get around faster than you, giving the experience TheTortoise and the Hare vibes. I could cite some other notable literature that the story is aping for in some of its more surprising moments, but that would probably spoil some of its best and wildest moments that I want you all to enjoy. There are tons areas that often have new characters that you may only see once or twice, but they stand out for the non-sequitur moments that they add to the game.
The world of Baby Steps is one that seems like a big open space, mostly filled with a clever touch–while your main progress is always to your north, the environment that you explore off to the east and west of your starting point loops in a natural way. This makes exploring off of the beaten path worthwhile for the amount of side content that this game has. I could certainly be wrong about that, but I’ve found a lot of little challenge areas with a stack of cans you can knock over, signs asking for the return of an item to the nearby fire tower’s lost and found box, hats hidden away in unlikely areas that you can wear and lose when you fall down a hill, and more fun little spots where you find some of the weirdest parts of the game. The game is broken up into areas, which I’ll categorize as the space you’re exploring between campfire checkpoints, that can take you back to the Nate’s basement to give you a clean point to end your session or jump back in to continue the journey the following morning. From there, you usually see a fire or some other light source that should show you the general area leading to the next area’s campfire. I suggest exploring and seeing what fun stuff there is around the world.
While it may seem like there is only one path to get through these areas, the devs often have at least a few other ways to get around, especially later in the game from what I’ve seen of others talking about the points of interest they came across as they progressed through the game.
I’m excited for the speed run potential of the game, especially for events like Games Done Quick where I expect to see those lovely jerks getting past all of the areas that caused me plenty of trouble like it was nothing to them. The speed run record will either be something ridiculous like 15 minutes, or it’ll be a fun couple of hours of finding the perfect routes that circumvent the most challenging areas with such mastery of the controls that make the game shine at its best.
I managed to keep this hat for a few hours until I lost it falling over a wall.
With the focus on the world of Baby Steps, the game looks great and features a lot of good environmental design that fills up your surroundings with plenty of points of interest that I loved visting. It really shines as you progress through the area and reach a higher point, then look back and see how far you came to get there.
Nate is an especially impressive part of the visual style with his onesie getting soiled with sweat if you’re walking around without falling for a while, or it’s soiled with mud and dirt if you’re falling over a lot, which tends to stay dirty until you reach a river or a pond that can wash it off. Until now, I’ve never been as impressed with game clothing tech as I was with he first Uncharted. I like to see how well the dirt washes off of Nate’s onesie, only for the part that is soaked… though I usually fell into most bodies of water, and that kept me from really testing that out more often.
The music is a cool part of this game since it’s not a big orchestral score or anything like that. Instead, you get various animal, bug, and environmental noises collaborating to make for some fun beats to add to the vibes. The voice acting is also very well done. Nate has that weasel-y nerd voice that complements his social awkwardness well. You also get plenty of remarks from Nate when you fall down hills or fall over that often align with the things I was saying about the mistakes I made controlling him.
Baby Steps is an amazing game that very much fits my vibe in the simulation genre where the main mechanic is satisfying and the journey is just as enjoyable. It’s not a perfect game, but it does so much right that I can’t wait to play more of it at my own pace. For the record, Devolver suggested it could be beaten in about eight to 10 hours and my playthrough took about 16 hours with over 47,000 steps which is well above those estimates. The trophy and achievement list is full of vague goals that require a lot of skill and exploration, so don’t expect to get all of them on your first run. I managed to get three of the thirteen trophies and I came nowhere close to the trophy for beating the game in under 10,000 steps nor beating the game on time, which I don’t know what that means. That’s how much of a slowpoke I was even with how much I was rushing for the latter half of the game, and I enjoyed every moment of it.
by Chris Selogy
