Baby Steps

Baby Steps is an infuriating ordeal of intentionally awkward physics that’s brutal, unbelievably stupid, and downright awesome.

Baby Steps walks a fine line between frustration and accomplishment to provide a walking simulator and climbing experience quite unlike anything else.

A Sisyphean challenge after which you'll never take pressing W to walk for granted again.

It's impossible to hate a game that offers experiences like these.

Some will enjoy struggling to climb sandy dunes and laughing at their friends falling down the same cliffside for the hundredth time, but no amount of creative appreciation will change how I felt playing Baby Steps. Every time I put the controller down, I dreaded picking it back up.

Baby Steps is more than it first appears, offering up a heartfelt story about a man grappling with his insecurities as he's forced to keep going. The intentionally tricky walking and climbing is a lot of fun to grapple with, and there's plenty of silly stuff to discover in the open world setting. Your mileage may vary due to various factors, not least the amount of punishment you'll take as you scramble up the mountain, but it's a journey worth taking for those willing to persist.

What we have at the end of the day is a strange, silly game that is a little too sure of itself to stick its landing effectively. It stretches itself too thin to be consistently funny and its story is clumsily told despite its put-on air of poignance. It has its moments though, and for as grumpy as I was by the end I still look back at its early hours with some fondness. Watching a dumpy nerd slide down a muddy hill is pretty funny the first few times; it just doesn’t stay funny as long as Baby Steps wants it to.

Baby Steps is unconventional in every way: a strange and unique gameplay style, a difficulty that is sometimes fun and sometimes frustrating, and sarcastic dialogues that hide deep messages beneath the surface. It’s an experience that may make you laugh or may leave you discouraged, but it will definitely be unlike any other game you’ve played before.

The title by Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy offers a contemplative and poetic journey where every stumble belongs to us and makes us responsible for what happens to us. It is an experience that transforms the resignation of existence into acceptance of the wonderful experience that is life, or the simple need to find a bathroom and a new sofa. Walking, stumbling, getting frustrated, and trying again. That's not just playing: it's accepting the art of living.

Baby Steps is a masterpiece of game design and storytelling. It takes the "Foddian" genre and adds a new layer of open-world freedom and emotional depth. You will hate it, you will love it, and you will not forget it. Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I left my hat somewhere up on the manbreaker.