Ok, let’s get this out of the way early – some people are going to absolutely hate this game.

Genuinely loathe, despise, and spew venom about it rather than wax lyrical. It is painful, it is brutal, and yet, through all of that, it’s also kind of beautiful.

Baby Steps is what you might call a ‘meme-game’. It’s got the absurdity of a Garry’s Mod, the physics-stupidity of a Fall Guys or Human Fall Flat, and feels like the evolution of games like QWOP.

But while the obvious crux of the game is that it is – for all intents and purposes – a walking sim, the surprise comes in its story. There’s some heart-warming, touching moments here, there’s also a great deal of humor and surprising direction and production values that add an impressive layer of polish.

Baby Steps does not pull its punches, from the moment you’re thrust into its world and clumsily begin to put one step in front of the other, you’ll soon find that while you’re slowly starting to get into a groove and walk a path, you can just as easily tumble, fall and find yourself right back where you started. It’s heart-breaking and infuriating.

But it also helps teach you a lot about the game. It’s an odd one, really, because there’s very limited tutorialisation of where to go and what to do, but ultimately, you know exactly what you have to do. Walk, explore, discover and learn as you go. There’s both not much more to the game but that is everything that it needs all at the same time.

Can I say I laughed at every joke? No, I often times found some things a bit cringeworthy, but again, that is also to understand and accept the fact that this game is awkward from seemingly every angle and perspective. You’re not always meant to enjoy yourself, and the game’s tone even dares to celebrate that.

It’s no Dark Souls, though. I can’t always say I felt like I learned something from every tumble or cracked my balls on an oversized log. In many respects, I did get better the more and more I kept walking and timing my taps, but I don’t level up, I don’t gain new attributes. I just struggle and muddle through, somehow, someway, and look absolutely ridiculous doing it.

This game’s whole premise feels derived from the idea of your greatest enemy being stairs. And the metaphor being that Nate, really, reflects many an average person who walks the earth. Powerless, helpless and tackling the impossible by being mostly incapable.

So you just keep walking and walking, falling, tumbling, turning into a human pretzel while careering down a hill, doing the splits, falling face first into mud, muddling forward and trying to get out of ditches. It’s a game that you’ll really feel embarrased to play in front of an audience, you’ll curse yourself out for being too impulsive and you will reach a point where you might turn it off, never to return or persist to see where it leads.

Such is the risk of playing a game like this. But the thing I found myself surprisingly enamored by is the rhythm of walking. It is so simple, the most basic of actions in every game, but the level of control you have over it is also the game’s most interesting element. Tender, slight steps, to huge strides, knowing when to use them, and the level of control you can actually have on it. And before long, you understand that you have more control of the stupidity of your movements than you first realised.

Baby Steps is a game that’s tough to love and no matter how hard you try, it may just not be a game for you. You’re either willing to laugh at its continued absurdity – long after when the joke runs thin – fight through the continuous pain of falling, failing, picking yourself up and starting again, or conceding it’s not for you.

I think, for me, ultimately, I found myself somewhere in the middle, but I deeply appreciate its attempts to try something new and different in a market of over familiarity.

Verdict

Baby Steps as a name is the antithesis of the experience it offers. This game dials up absurdity and outrage out to eleven and refuses to hold your hand. Its earlier sections definitely challenge the hardest as once you get into the game’s rhythm, you’re more likely to see it through, but that first half hour is either going to keep or break you. While I can’t say Baby Steps is a game I loved, it’s one I stuck with longer than expected through its writing, through its surprising quality and the satisfying feeling of just putting one foot in front of the other. 

Baby Steps is out now on PC and PS5

Played on PC / Steam Deck 

Code kindly provided by Devolver for review purposes