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It’s a terrifying thing for Bennett Foddy to hand you a controller.
Some people will want to, if they’re fans of my work in particular."
The more you fall, the dirtier Nate’s onesie gets the better to embellish his considerable ass.
Better to put one foot in front of the other and figure it out by feel.
I took to it pretty quickly, Foddy says, though that praise proved to be rather ominous foreshadowing.
The speedruns will be biblical.
This is fundamentally a simple game, and a funny one.
It’s manchild isekai.
It’s funny when it tries to be, and also when it doesn’t have to try.
An oddball soundtrack of nature sounds, a boggy barnyard jamboree, maintains a surreal and unpredictable atmosphere.
Slapstick and improv and that self-inflicted pain fill out laugh-a-minute pacing that matches the rhythm of gameplay.
“To me, that kind of thing is hilarious,” Foddy says.
“This game is a lot of really high-effort jokes,” Cuzzillo says.
“What if we tried to make a AAA game?
That’d be funny.
Five years later, it’s still pretty funny.”
Rhythm is the word.
There’s true zen under the intimidating shell of Baby Steps.
Nate can move at a smooth clip if you’ve got the hands for it.
Drink in the painstakingly crafted, physically simulated environment and have a go at orienteering.
Take the steep path just to prove you’re free to.
There are no invisible walls.
If you’re able to see it, you’re able to go there.
Well, youcould, butcanyou?
And yes, you could Skyrim it’s a verb up a mountain if you really want.
Refining this key in of game without losing the memorable, emergent screwups is an art all its own.
And “there’s definitely critique of some AAA tropes that’s embedded into this.
“It’s a rock or it’s a tree, it’s minding its own business.
It’s not telling you, hey, can you get up here?
We’ve really tried to zero in on that feeling as much as we can.”
“Yeah, exactly,” Foddy responds.
We’re not creating friction that doesn’t exist to then give you some means of conquering that friction.
We’re presenting friction and leaving it unchanged for you to change in response to it.”
Here, I agree, some AAA games could take notes.
Resistance and insistence feel like the guiding principles of Baby Steps.
That, and a very big butt.
Reader, he could have walked on water in real life and I would have been less impressed.
I thought I was doing decently.
With Cuzzillo at the wheel, Nate’s feet struck footholds like eels sniping at fish.
In my hands the controller was a sledgehammer swung at flies, and I thought myself a god.
Cuzzillo held it like a scalpel, deftly maneuvering with minimal energy and infuriating precision.
A crumbling shed and cliff face, scaled in an instant.
And it made me want to play Baby Steps again.
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