Baba Is You is the best puzzle game Iâve
ever played, and in fact may be one of the best games Iâve played period. For the uninitiated, this is a simplistic-looking
puzzler all about changing the rules to succeed. So for example, you may enter a level that
seems impossible at first, but by interacting with the various words scattered around the
stage you can change the sequence that says âWall is Stopâ so that you can move over
walls and create the sentence âFlag is winâ to beat the stage. You quickly realize that the possibilities
are endless here, so you can turn yourself into a rock, adjust what object is the goal
you need to touch and even warp the level in crazy ways thatâll make your head hurt. It becomes apparent that Baba is You is less
about moving a little...I donât know, bunny? Sheep? Wait a minute...baa baa is ewe. Holy FRIII- Baba is You is less about moving
a Baba around to reach goals and more about programming and coding. This is a game ABOUT game design. The hook is that there are literally over
200 levels, so much like other indie darlings such as Celeste or Super Meat Boy it seems
like the game never runs out of content and always has another trick up its sleeve. The trailer does a phenomenal job of showing
what Baba is You has to offer, and at first I thought some of the rules it threw in were
jokes, but nope all of these mechanics are actually in there somewhere. Let me put it a different way - every single
time Iâve booted up the game itâs accomplished 3 major things - 1) teaching me something
new 2) surprising me with some of its solutions and 3) blowing my freaking mind. I really canât say that about most games. So if this interests you in any way and you
havenât played it yet, consider this my spoiler warning. The rest of this video will pick apart why
I feel Baba is You is already one of my games of the year and a must play even if youâre
like me and donât enjoy puzzle games that much. So pause this video and go try it out for
yourself, then come back later and letâs talk about it. Hereâs a little more about how Baba is You
operates. The game is split up into various worlds on
an island, and each section has an overall theme but also tons of mini-mechanics that
itâll teach you within. Early on you learn that if certain rules are
on the edge of the screen or outside of your reachable area, they canât be changed. So in a way these are the meta-rules that
you have to work with, while everything else in the middle of a stage is able to be manipulated,
and for the most part if its put in there, its for a reason. The most important modifier is YOU because
if it ever loses its object, you can no longer move and have to either rewind to a previous
step or restart the stage. Other things can become YOU, but you have
to change it in one move, otherwise youâre just a cold dead husk. Also, rules only work top to bottom or left
to right, you canât make a backward phrase, it doesnât work like that. So there are some limitations within the gameâs
rules, but youâd be surprised how much youâre able to modify. Baba is You is a very hard game, in my first
hour it already made my brain feel like a sawmill trying to churn out concrete. But I will say the learning curve is very
good; because of the vast amount of levels, it takes you on a tour of all the different
ways itâll bend what you thought was possible at a leisurely pace. So you only slowly lose your mind, not all
at once. At first you learn the basics, such as things
that sink in water, keys that open doors, or that you can even make YOURSELF âwinâ
for an easy victory, but eventually itâll add in more complexity like teleporters, conveyor
belts that push in one direction, objects that move on their own so you have to wait
for them to finish a task, or the mind-melting âx is xâ rule which means that whatever
object is reinforced cannot be changed and your attempts at breaking the game are overruled. And those that have gotten pretty far into
Baba is You know that this is only scratching the surface. What this leads to is puzzles that are full
of epiphany moments. Often youâll be completely stuck for a long
while and then feel like a total dummy when you didnât see the correct answer right
in front of you. Even further, many puzzles have multiple solutions,
so when you think you finally found that tricky âahaâ moment they were wanting you to
find, you might come back later and realize there was an easier alternative that you could
have done all along. I like that they include bonus levels that
are just little adjustments of puzzles youâve bested, so if you thought one stage was easy,
theyâll test you further and say âokay but without that solution as an option, how
would you solve this?â It really feels like the developers thought
of every possible situation and know where your mind is headed. Countless times I started a stage, and thought
I knew the answer right away, but then there was a hang-up I didnât notice and I couldnât
help but be angry yet impressed at their ability to follow the playerâs logic and make them
take a step back to look for the correct path that isnât quite as obvious. Another thing thatâs pretty unique is that
because of the static nature of each level, you can memorize their layouts and various
puzzle pieces, so even if youâre away from the game you can still think on it and say
âhmm, I didnât try that method yetâ for when you come back to it later. The game builds to insane heights, where sometimes
objects will hold other objects inside so when they die another thing pops out, or youâll
have to control two or more of the same character at once, or even crazier maybe youâll need
to kill yourself by breaking the âis youâ formula, but set it up in such a way that
other things will move it back into place and youâll be past an immovable obstacle. Like, what?! It keeps adding more and more rulesets like
gravity, being close to a buddy otherwise you get lonely, and the ânotâ modifier
which does exactly what you think. So you can make NOT baba is you and control
everything ELSE on screen. But donât worry ânot notâ baba is still
just you. *HMMMPPHH*
This game yet again keeps going, and into territory I havenât seen other games even
touch upon. So Iâm gonna go ahead and leave another
spoiler warning here, because from now on Iâm getting into the real spicy stuff, like
this is the kind of thing you will remember forever if you discover on your own. So youâve been warned. Okay, on the map screen you get little dandelions
for beating a stage, and flowers for completing a certain number of them within worlds, which
unlock new gateways and even more areas. But what you might have ignored right in the
corner is that there still is the âbaba is youâ and âflag is winâ rules. This is so simplistic, I didnât think much
of it either until the game introduced the âlevelâ mechanic. So by this point in the game youâre well
aware that you can turn objects into other objects by saying ârock is keyâ for example,
so as a joke I thought âhah what if I made âlevel is keyâ, that probably wonât
do any-WOAHâ yeah it actually made the level itself on the map a key. Which sure, gave me a quick laugh, but the
implications are HUGE here. What if I can turn the level into something
else, like...Baba? Oooooh nooooo. Thatâs right. The map itself is a level, and if you turn
another stage into Flag, you can âwinâ the map screen. You ready? Itâs time to put on your meta shades. From here on out, you know that everything
can be manipulated, and youâre constantly looking for another opportunity to change
levels into other things. The game is so much less about beating stages
anymore, but about how to actually proceed outside of them to find the next one. And the game knows it, sometimes the âwinâ
objective is super obvious, but you need to change the level to be able to unlock even
more stages. Like I said, this game never ends, itâs
insane. If you turn one level into a rock and another
into a Baba, you can push it into the water to open the Depths, and whooooo boy. You become a skull, you gotta move the cursor
onto yourself to move freely, but donât worry even the cursor can become something
else later on, you control empty space itself, you can unlock stages that have just LETTERS
that can spell out different words, you end up stacking different rules on TOP of each
other to activate two things at the same time, thereâs rules that are HIDDEN until you
find then. you...oh man. I donât feel so good. Flag is end? Secret orbs? All. Is. Done. The Baba Is You was the Baba Is Me all along.
Spoiler warning though.he warns you before end game spoilers but not before early ones if you care
I just got the game this past weekend, and then this video was uploaded shortly after. I started watching it, and really wanna finish watching it, but I don't wanna get it spoiled. I'll get there...eventually. Only like 130 puzzles left...
I watched a minute of this video, then bought the game and Iâm loving it
I then showed my friend a single screen of the game, explained the basics of how it works, and he bought the game and is loving it
very good game