My grandma used to tell me a story every now and then. It had to do with back when I was very little and I was visiting her in her old house – where I happen to live now, funnily enough! – as I was just starting to try and walk. According to her, we were out and about and just getting back when she said I kept clinging on to the neighbor’s fence, still standing up, but not wanting to keep going. She recalled that the next door neighbor, an elderly Asian lady who granny seldom spoke to, just got out of her house and told me: “hey kid, you’ll spend your whole life walking, there’s no hurry to start doing it!”.
When telling me the story, grandma always did it quietly cluckling, but she always makes a point to say how angry she was at her neighbor at the time and how dared she say that to a little kid. Now, it’s been twelve years since granny’s passed and it’s been that long since I’ve last remembered that tale. Baby Steps instantly flashed it back to my mind. A game about a layabout dropped into an unknown world where he has to face his social anxiety and the greatest challenge of all: putting one foot in front of the other and moving about.
Back when the game was originally announced, I was instantly into the idea of Baby Steps. After all, I absolutely adored Octodad, another one about awkwardly doing everyday activities by means of a videogame controller. The hijinks that ensued when playing Young Horses’ now classic – it’s been more than ten years since it was released, can you believe that? – are some of my most cherished gaming memories, so I was sure it would be the same with Baby Steps, by the trio Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy.
More or less, it captures that feel of having a rough go at doing the most mundane of things, and the game’s certainly got a good sense of humor about the whole ridiculousness of the situation as fumbling about as Nate, the 35-year old mumbler in a onesie is easily this year’s most unique gaming setting to be sure. While I don’t want to directly compare the two since overall Octodad tries to go for a more cartoony approach than this, I can’t help but stick the two together thanks to their core mechanic and how it’s implemented.
Now, I’m no stranger to developer Bennett Foddy and the rest of the gang’s games. Getting Over It is one of the craziest (in a very good way) games I’ve ever played, thought Ape Out was a whole bunch of chaotic fun, and hell, that Twitch game with the track and field runner gets me every time I see it at a Games Done Quick event. So knowing that the guy was working on this new game was a guarantee it would be pretty out there in more ways than just the controls.
And I was right to set my expectations as it’s exactly what I expected, a game where you could easily spend hours just trying and failing to master movement, exploring the weird would you’re instantly dropped in after pressing start for the first time, and just attempting to figure out what is, if there’s any, that is, an objective you could be going for, like in any game. Surely, there’s no one in it asking you to kindly do anything, and while there are some very slight hints such as signs and seemingly random items thrown around, you are mostly free to fumble with Baby Steps for as long as you want.
Fumble you will in it to be sure. Nate is a physics object turned into a videogame protagonist, basically. His two feet are mapped to the triggers of your controller, and by pressing them, you’ll lift the corresponding lower appendage. By tilting the analog stick forward, it’ll constitute a step, which you’ll have to hope and nail the timing with the other foot and keep moving. Or fall to the ground. Don’t worry if that happens often, it’s the whole point of Baby Steps, to both its merit and detriment, and those will depend on your overall patience when playing it.
There’s a mindset you have to get into when jumping into Baby Steps and with the rest of Mr. Foddy’s work. The humor is there in the form of jokes, but you’ll get many more laughs with the situations you get yourself in for sure if you take it, well, in stride, and not to be serious about the whole thing. For every achievement, as I would call simply making it to the stop of some stairs, for instance, you’ll tumble down a mountain most of the time, and that in and of itself is this game at its best, squeezing your fun out of it, trying to complete the most basic of feats with your feet.
Technically, Baby Steps is probably the developer’s most elaborate game in all departments. The sound is very bare with very little in the way of music – there’s some cool sound effect turning into a simple song at the beginning which is quite neat – and a bit of voice work in the form of very weird and self-deprecating dialog between an unwilling to interact protagonist and those around him. Visually, it’s sprawling for what it is, and Nate looks silly as is the whole point of Baby Steps, in that it certainly succeeds to live up to its name.
As with the story that I started out the review with, you’ll definitely want to learn to walk in Baby Steps in order to see how crazy of a situation you can get yourself in while playing. It’s the sort of game that will have you trading accounts with friends and just chuckling about it all. Just try not to be too serious about it and you’re bound to have a good time with the game. And trust me, for every fall you’re bound to want to get up and try, try again.
