From the creators who brought you QWOP and Getting Over It, comes a new adventure where every step brings you victory, and every fall a lesson in humility. It might be perhaps the strangest game you’ll play all year, but it’s also one of the most brilliant.
Baby Steps is a frustrating, hilarious, and ultimately profound experience that proves the most rewarding journeys are those where every single step is a hard-won victory.
One Step Forward, A Thousand Steps Back
The premise of Baby Steps is simple in concept, but a lot more challenging and frustrating in practice. You play as Nate, a middle-aged man who was mysteriously teleported to an odd universe. There’s not much to really go on in terms of how or why, and all Nate wants to do is find his way back home. To do so, he must venture into the unknown, walk across water, and climb every mountain top he sees in hopes that the answer is somewhere out there.
Along the way, he’ll meet a rather interesting cast of characters, with the dialogue mainly being improvised lines between Foddy and Cuzzillo. It’s not meant to be a “serious” story by any means, as it leans heavily into some rather absurd, and at times, crude humor. Not all jokes will land, but that’s part of the beauty of comedy, as it’s not meant to make everyone laugh. I certainly got plenty of light chuckles out of the conversations that Nate has with some of the characters, and the stumbling and mistakes of lines that are kept in are rather fitting for this obtuse world.
There’s definitely a story, a little bit more depth than I was anticipating, given the premise. Sure, it’s not going to win any awards or anything, but I think if you can accept the gameplay for what it is, then you’ll end up enjoying it a lot more.
However, fair warning to all: while the game may appear innocent, it is rated M for Mature for a reason. Sure, it uses swear words and has clear drug use, but the biggest issue, and I should be careful using that word, is because of nudity. The good news is that there is a nudity filter that places a black bar over nude characters, and that black bar will really vary in length. Sometimes it’s a small box, other times it’s a long, rectangular one. You can probably guess what I am referring to, and if you thought Game of Thrones was heavy on showing off elongated parts of a human body, well, Baby Steps has it beaten by miles.
All of that aside, the bizarre and crude nature of the story is perfectly matched by the game’s singular and often infuriating gameplay. The title Baby Steps isn’t just a metaphor for Nate’s journey; it’s the literal control scheme. Unlike most games where you push a stick to move, here you’re in charge of every single footfall.
The core gameplay revolves around using the left and right triggers to manually lift Nate’s legs, with the stick being used to direct their movement, one at a time. This harkens back to the developers’ past work, those being QWOP and Getting Over It, where, mechanically, the gameplay is simple yet requires the utmost level of concentration. It’s a design choice that is both brilliant and maddening, creating a constant struggle between your intentions and Nate’s stumbling, ragdoll-like reality.
From the very moment you start Baby Steps, you can understand exactly what kind of game this is as you flop and flair, trying to get back up after missing your first step up a few steps. And while this is undoubtedly the trio’s most accessible game, Baby Steps is anything but that. As with the humor and characters, the world of Baby Steps doesn’t really have much logic behind it. There are makeshift towers, a hell made of boxes, diving platforms that will make you lose potentially hours of work, and a bunch of other stuff.
A lot of this stuff is optional, yet every time I passed by something, I had a weird itch that kept tempting me to check it out. At one point in the game, I had spent about 40 minutes climbing up a structure, just for there to be a diving platform at the top. I had a decision to make: continue with wherever I was trying to get to, or throw all that time away so that I could make a big splash in a pool of water below.
It’s actually polarizing because it’s not a choice you really want to have, yet the game gives you. You’ll spend hours potentially trying to scale a wall, just to reach the very top, and accidentally slip off a ledge, causing you to fall to the bottom, pausing the game, and wanting to throw your controller at the screen as you try to hold back tears. But on the other hand, you’ll spend all that time doing it elsewhere, reach the top, and then see an opportunity like a diving platform, and go, “fuck it, I’ll climb it again,” and proceed to jump.
I did it plenty of times, even if there was actually nothing earned in-game for it, I think it just plays into our nature of wanting to explore, to see what’s over the next hill, even when we know it’s a terrible idea. It’s that same impulse that makes a kid want to climb a dangerously steep slide, or a driver take a shortcut on a road they’ve never been on. The game presents these optional, often pointless challenges and, despite the obvious risk of losing hours of progress, something inside you just says, “Why not?” You know the fall is coming, you know you’ll be mad, but the sheer absurdity of the moment makes it worth it.
Just Lean Into It
This is the real genius of Baby Steps, where it transcends a platformer and becomes a psychological experiment. The game understands that our curiosity and desire for simple, momentary thrills often outweigh our common sense. It turns failure into part of the fun, and rage into a shared experience. Ultimately, Baby Steps is a game about embracing the ridiculous, laughing at your own misfortune, and finding a sense of twisted satisfaction in a journey that is anything but easy.
The one thing I will say about Baby Steps compared to QWOP and Getting Over It, is that it is technically a more accessible experience. The game is a bit of an open world, and there’s no map to guide you through it. I do wish there were at least a map so you knew where you had been and yet to go, but that’s also part of the charm. You have complete freedom of where you want to go and how you get to the main objective, and the beauty of this is that if you’re finding something to be too hard to do, you can walk another direction and find alternatives.
You’re still going to run into a challenge, but the game doesn’t lock you into the most challenging path. I remember one such instance, I was making my way through a bunch of obstacles, and got so absorbed into doing it the way I thought was right, that I didn’t even notice about 20 feet away that there was just a random, safer path. I felt pretty dumb, but I’m glad the game wasn’t always forcing me through something. I had options, some easier than others.
If you’re wondering if the gameplay goes beyond walking and climbing, the answer is “no” in quotations because, control-wise, it really is that. However, the way things are set up, with hazards and such, walking in many ways becomes a puzzle with a balancing act.
Here lies the true depth of the gameplay. The environment itself is the puzzle. You’re not just walking; you’re constantly evaluating the terrain, calculating your next move, and trying to predict how Nate’s ragdoll body will react to every shift in balance. A seemingly flat rock can have a treacherous slope. A series of platforms might require perfect timing to avoid falling into the abyss. The game presents these challenges through its world design, forcing you to think and react in a way that feels unique.
This is where Baby Steps truly distinguishes itself. It’s a game that demands your full attention, but not in the way a fast-paced shooter does. It’s a methodical, infuriating, and ultimately brilliant test of your patience and spatial awareness. The struggle is the point, and the reward is the pure, unadulterated satisfaction of conquering an obstacle that seemed impossible just a few minutes ago. It’s a game that will make you laugh at your own failures, curse at the screen in frustration, and ultimately feel a sense of accomplishment when you finally reach the top of that mountain—one perfectly placed, agonizing, baby step at a time.
Walking a Fine Line
From the moment Baby Steps was first announced, I knew there was a chaotic, frustrating, and hilarious experience waiting for us. It turned out to be all of that and more. And sure, many are going to view it as a “streamer”-geared game because of how easy content can come from it. However, if you truly take the time to examine Baby Steps for what it actually is, you’ll discover something more. It’s not just a collection of viral moments; it’s a game for a specific kind of player—one who can appreciate the genius in its infuriating simplicity and the profound satisfaction in its difficulty. For those willing to embrace the falls, the crude humor, and the brutal journey, Baby Steps is a game you won’t want to miss. It proves that the most memorable adventures are often those where every single step is a hard-won victory.
Score: 9/10
Pros
- Simple gameplay, extremely challenging to master.
- The humor isn’t for everyone (let’s face it, you can say this about anything), but if you’re into some edgy, crude, and crass humor, it’s here.
- Open-world design that allows players to choose where they go. Handles free exploration very well.
- A pretty alright story.
Cons
- Having no map can be fine, but losing hours of progress and realizing you want to go the “right” way can sometimes be frustrating. Or wanting to back track to a location can be tedious without a clear direction.
Baby Steps review code was provided by the publisher. You can read MP1st’s review and scoring policy right here.
