Baby Steps reviewed: enjoyably cringe

One of the more unique games of the year, Baby Steps is crazy and cringeworthy. And yet also a morbid kind of fun.

Walking is hard. Walking is an effort. As humans, however, we tend to think of none of this. We just simply walk, and humans move forward much like the way games so often show we do, too: point forward and start.

But the actual act of walking takes effort, sending nerve responses and information to your brain, back and forth, telling your body to move forward using the act of biped locomotion. One foot after the other, you walk, all without thinking about the effort that you exert on your body.

Baby Steps attempts to recreate that, forcing you to move forward step by step in a world where ascending is important, aware where each foot is going and climbing a hill because, well, you need to get off that backside eventually.

It’s a game about movement, and it’s a game about moving on. Baby Steps is a game about the importance of moving and how sometimes you suffer for that act.

It’s one I inadvertently suffered from, too.

I started reviewing Baby Steps on a Thursday night, and ended up fracturing my foot tumbling on a walk the next morning.

The irony is not lost on me. I’m nothing like the main character from the game, but for a moment, we were connected as my limbs learned to take baby steps once again.

What is Baby Steps all about?

I feel like we’ve all seen a man baby on TV and the movies, but being one, that’s a different vibe altogether.

Baby Steps starts off that way, entering a world where our main character Nate is a bit of a man-child, sitting on a couch in a skin-tight onesie doing nothing with his life, while family complains about him. He’s stuck there, the unemployed layabout that he is, and then all of a sudden, he’s gone, seemingly into the TV he had been camped out entirely.

Easily one of the more unusual titles you’ll find this year, Baby Steps comes from the brain of Bennett Foddy, an Australian developer who lives in the US, and has worked with two other developers, Maxi Bloch and Gabe Cuzzillo, on this wholly unusual title about walking.

Foddy’s games are a little different from your standard fare, and I’ve been told they’re somewhat philosophical, more so than much of what appears from games today.

It almost seems like this game is about moving on in general. So how do you do that?

How does Baby Steps play?

Left foot, right foot. That’s how to walk, even if I clearly struggled, slipping on pavement and fracturing a toe in the least heroic way possible.

Neither Baby Step’s main character Nate or myself are particularly heroic, but the idea of the game is very much like an idea in life: get moving.

On a controller, you’ll squeeze the left trigger to move your left foot and leg up, and move the left directional pad to position how far forward. And then, just as the right foot would, you’ll squeeze the right trigger and do the same for that foot and leg.

And that’s how it continues, slowly, moving through a hilly trek up a mountain occasionally running into Australians who seem surprised you want to go up without a map (because you’re embarrassed), confused that you don’t want any help (even when you need it), and are using terms you don’t understand (hooroo).

The goal is to keep moving and to not fall.

You definitely will, though, and that’s fine. Because just like real life, you can get up again and keep going. You’ll fall repeatedly, awkwardly, and then you’ll get up and fall some more.

Is it fun?

As I velcro up my moon boot (for the next six weeks!) , I quickly realise I’m actually not having fun walking with a broken foot. However, I feel compelled to keep going because stuff has to be done. I need to take the kids to school, get groceries, walk around the house, and so on.

Our main protagonist in the game has none of these obligations; for all intents and purposes, he’s a bit of a loser living at home in a onesie and desperately needs to adult-up and move on with his life. Which perhaps is the point.

So making this excuse for a physics game protagonist forcefully move is actually kind of fun. You feel you’re doing something positive if only to dislodge him from his stupor and have him move on. You can’t tell if it’s real or in a dream, but have to hope it’s doing some good.

He’s basically just gone from the couch to a virtual world to move his backside, and you’re in control. You are forcing his hand, or more precisely, his feet.

It’s a kind of morbid fun, as is watching him fall, hitting the ground in the way only a physics game would show, limb by limb, broken and crumpled, until he gets back up and has to do it all over again. It’s a weirdly cynical kind of fun.

Baby Steps is fun to control, but it can also be exhausting, much like walking a long sludge of a walk when you don’t really want to.

At times, I desperately wanted to see what was beyond the mountain, past each section, but then Nate would fall over from a basic misstep, a miscalculation much like what left me in a moon boot, and I’d scream and want to rage quit the game.

It’s a bit like a puzzle game, too; it’s a torturous and cringe and funny and weird strategic puzzle game about where exactly you should place your foot that will make you want to scream in anger before coming right back for some more.

But just like how you can’t rage quit life and obligations, you can’t let Nate down. Fortunately, you can save and come back later when it’s a more optimal time.

Is it compatible with the Steam Deck?

The good news is Baby Steps does play on the Steam Deck, so “a more optimal time” is now whenever I put the kids to bed. The graphics aren’t as great here on Valve’s portable game system, working only with low graphics, though that’s of little consequence.

This game isn’t really there to show off graphics, but more to make you work for your walking, and get to a goal. You’re not there for fancy graphics, but rather to walk, one step in front of the other, and more often than not fall exposing a sluggish tubby body (not that we’re shaming it, either).

However, testing the game on an Asus ROG laptop with a little more horsepower, we found an improvement in graphics, though it wasn’t life changing. It’s more a difference in how high quality the textures are, and frankly, we can live without amazing textures on rocks, dirt, and Nate’s weird stained onesie.

It’s also available on PlayStation as well as on Windows PCs and the Steam Deck, so you can find more places to visualise a bleak world with that ugly onesie.

Is it worth buying?

Whether you get to the end quickly or stop, go for a walk (or hobble) to shake it off, and come back for more weird baby steps of your own, Baby Steps feels like the sort of purchase you make when you need a cringe play. Like how watching The Office is so cringey, you just want to scream at the TV at times. This is like that, but for games.

For $30, it’s an enjoyable cringe that’s angry and weird and fun and funny and yet still so cringe. You want to play to see what happens, and you want to see Nate fall and get up. And yet you’ll also grit your teeth and feign anger and then have some more of the real stuff, ball your fists, and then do it again. Enjoyably cringe.

Final thoughts (TLDR)

I had no idea what to expect with Baby Steps, even if I’d heard rumours and whispers about what a Bennett Foddy game would be like.

They’re often trying and weird and make you want to rage quit, I’d heard, but they’re still genuinely clever and out of the box.

That definitely describes my time with Baby Steps, a game that’s so ridiculous and fun while simultaneously being the sort of thing you just want to grit your teeth through because, well, cringe.

However, having a broken foot — or more specifically, breaking my foot almost immediately and accidentally after beginning this review — brought Nate’s struggle and plight to the fore for this writer. I had to struggle to walk just like Nate, albeit for different reasons.

I am not Nate. I can walk. I choose to walk. I choose to get off my backside and walk even when it hurts.

With Nate, you can do the same. You have the power to make this sack of digital flesh and bones move. You have all the control.

At the end, all you can do is hope he gets off the couch and keeps moving, because then it would be all worth it. Surprisingly recommended.