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See that mountain in the distance? You can actually go there!
That concept has become a trope of open world game design, but it takes on a different meaning when I think about it in Baby Steps, the walking simulator from the developers of Ape Out: Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy (of Getting Over It and QWOP fame).
Yes, there’s a massive, snowcapped mountain looming in the distance in the open world of Baby Steps, but unlike when I first set my eyes on Skyrim’s tallest peak, I didn’t find myself thinking, “Wow, I can’t wait to climb that!”
Instead: “There’s no way in hell I’ll ever be able to climb that.” That’s because for the first half-hour of the Baby Steps demo, I was barely able to take more than a few steps without falling flat on my face.
In Baby Steps you control Nate, a couch potato in a grubby onesie who finds himself magically teleported from watching One Piece in his parent’s basement to a small cave at the base of a mountain. The only way out is to start walking, one step at a time.
Literally. In Baby Steps you use the left stick to lean forward and the controller triggers to lift and plant each of Nate’s feet, so you need to physically make every single one of Nate’s steps happen. It’s not as nearly awkward as Foddy’s QWOP, but in parts it can be just as devastating as Foddy’s Getting Over It. I cannot wait to watch speedrunners and streamers try to tackle this one.
I spent most of my time in the demo stumbling, wobbling, slipping, falling, tumbling, and sliding down the mountain—and not even the main mountain off in the distance, the starter mountain. Still, after a bit of practice I learned to walk somewhat speedily, clamber over rocky ledges, climb stairs, shimmy across narrow planks to cross ravines. Even still, I fell a lot.
It’s a hilarious game. Nate is funny when he falls, as his pudgy onesie-encased body slowly gets covered with dirt and mud anytime he takes a tumble. Nate is also funny when he doesn’t fall, just due to the jerky awkwardness of each of his legs being controlled separately.
He intermittently mumbles and swears and grunts and groans as he lurches and stumbles uncertainly across the world. He sweats profusely, and not the heroic type of sweat, but armpit sweat and asscrack sweat.
He’s about the least videogame-y character I’ve ever seen, painfully awkward in his interactions with the world’s other inhabitants. He turns down help from the guy who seemingly wants to give him a tutorial, even when he offers to help Nate find some shoes so he’s not staggering around barefoot.
When I’m trudging along at a steady rate it feels like the world is cheering me on
Another character offers Nate a map—you know, the kind of incredibly helpful item you have in just about every other open world—and Nate refuses, I suspect, just because he thinks it’ll end the conversation more quickly if he pretends he already has a map.
Adding to the humor is Boch’s soundtrack, composed of birds chirping, critters chittering, and other woodland noises. It’s a reactive soundtrack, so when I’m trudging along at a steady rate it feels like the world is cheering me on. When I’m flopping around helplessly in the mud, on the other hand, it almost sounds like the woodland creatures are laughing at me.
Feets of strength
One of the biggest dangers in Baby Steps is what Nate can do with his hands, not his feet. I’ve found a few objects in the open world, one of which was a hat. I got close enough to it that I could press a button to make Nate pick it up and put it on his head, so now I was stumbling through the world with a hat. No map, no grappling hook, no shoes, but at least I had a hat.
But now when I took a hard fall, which happens almost constantly, my hat would come off, which usually meant taking a few extra steps to recover it and put it back on. You can probably see where this is going: At one point on a muddy ledge I took a spill, and the hat slid precariously close to the edge of the cliff, and unwilling to leave it behind I cautiously waddled over to it and put it back on.
Then I slipped and slid right off that damn cliff, losing my hat again as this time it plummeted halfway down the mountain. I would soon follow.
That wasn’t even my worst tumble in the demo. Another time, now hatless, I was psyching myself up to step across a gap between two rocks along a steep, muddy ravine, and before I could even make my attempt, I set one foot down directly onto a small round stone the size of an apple, which caused me to slip.
This is the first time I’ve ever ragequit a demo twice
It had taken me about an hour to get up there. All that progress gone in a few muddy seconds. I’ve thought about it, and I think this is the first time I’ve ever ragequit a demo twice: that little round stone didn’t just happen to be in the perfect spot to make me slip, it had been expertly planted there by a trio of devious developers.
I did manage to eventually stagger back up that cliff and complete the demo, and those same devs had some good news for me when I spoke to them. Although parts of Baby Steps are “harder than Getting Over It by some distance,” the biggest challenges are largely optional.
“To see the whole storyline and get to the end of the game is really a lot more achievable for most people,” Foddy told me.
Perfect. I’m looking forward to stumbling my way further through the world when Baby Steps comes out later this year because I really enjoy watching Nate fall over and have awkward conversations. As for the big challenges, like scaling that towering snowy mountain in the distance, I’ll probably do what Nate would do: sit on my couch and watch someone else do it.
(Note: the clips and screenshots on this page are not from my demo, they were provided by Devolver Digital.)
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Kurt Indovina
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