I’ve generally avoided Bennet Foddy’s games, given they are essentially purpose-built frustration generators. But there’s something that intrigues me about Baby Steps. Maybe it’s the inherent slapstick comedy built into the concept of a schlub trying to walk up a mountain with physics-empowered feet. Maybe it’s the fact it’s been co-developed by Gabe Cuzzillo and Maxi Boch, creators of jazzy gorilla slaughterfest Ape Out. Or maybe I just empathise with the concept of a man who doesn’t get enough exercise trying to climb a slope.
Whatever it is, I’m much keener to play this than QWOP or Getting Over It or any of Foddy’s previous efforts. And it turns out there isn’t much longer to wait. Baby Steps has an official release date, and it’ll arrive on September 8.
The announcement was accompanied by a new trailer, which, I’ll be honest, focuses a bit too much on slightly limp improvised comedy about someone watching the player character go to the toilet, and not enough on the wibbly-wobbly barefoot hiking that forms the bulk of the game. But I nonetheless enjoyed the clips of your sweaty, beardy avatar trying (and often failing) to walk across logs, up slopes, and over rocky outcrops.
Improv aside, it seems like a game that’ll elicit a lot of laughs. Indeed, Chris took Baby Steps for a walk around the block back in March, and found it to be supremely amusing, at least when he wasn’t ragequitting from it.
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“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.”
Yet while you’ll be slipping and sliding a lot in Baby Steps, it is designed to be more accessible than Foddy’s previous work. “To see the whole storyline and get to the end of the game is really a lot more achievable for most people,” Foddy explained to Chris when he tested the demo. That said, Foddy also pointed out that some of the optional challenges in Baby Steps are “harder than Getting Over It by quite some distance”, so if you’re a fiend for physics-based traversal puzzles, you’ll also be well catered for.
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