Would you believe, given my occupation, that I've never played this game? (Nor Braid, which is weird in its own way given that I was around for the indie boom...) It looks fun, as a very pretty delivery mechanism for pencil puzzles. Still gotta beat Baba is You first, tho.
Dude I bet you would absolutely crush The Witness, I think you are probably already practiced at this kind of spatial reasoning in a way I super am not. Braid... at this point idk, I replayed it a while back and the puzzles are still good but the story is some of the most achingly cringe shit I'd ever read.
Baba is You is just, like, visual coding right? I watched a video about it and thought the way you rearrange functions just looked like doing computer
I think a decade ago I would've been annoyed by Braid because I felt like a lot of the "art games" of the era seemed to be about men pursuing women (although I'm not entirely sure why I thought that -- "Don't Look Back" is the only other thing I can think of that fits that description). Now I think I'm more annoyed by "deconstructions" of the medium treating Super Mario Bros. as the ur-game, because I think that's kind of played out.
Baba is You is definitely a game that appeals to programmers but I think it's just brain-breaky a way that appeals to me, when it's not too difficult for me to parse how I'd even begin to win lmao.
I was going to write here “one day I’ll have to buy a controller or a Steam Deck or something” because with puzzle games I often hit a moment where I figure out what to do but physically, on the keyboard, can’t do it… but then I looked this game up and I guess you do just tippity tap on the keyboard.
Yeah it’s actually crazy that (as far as I know) they never ported it to like the Apple Store. It practically seems tailor made for tablets.
Years ago I made my mom play Portal (lol) and we had the same problem. She had never used keyboard controls so the moment a puzzle put her on a timer it was over.
If you get super hardcore at the Witness there is The Challenge, which is a timed gauntlet of randomized puzzles but even then the only dexterity is running from one puzzle to the next (obligatory brag: I’ve beaten the challenge)
yeah Portal was one of the ones where I had figured out a solution to a puzzle but I just could not execute the timing necessary. I don't think I was on a timer (maybe I was) but it required doing a jump and something else at the same time… but I can't really remember bc that was so long ago I was still using a PC lol. Anyway every time I look up how much a Steam Deck costs—which seems like the reasonable thing given that all the games I own are on Steam—I'm like "uhhh that's so many books / bottles of perfume / niche Evangelion merchandise…."
I always think I want a Steam Deck but since I have a switch it doesn’t really have a use case. If it has keyboard controls I buy on steam and play on the computer. If it has controller controls I get it on switch. And now I need the switch 2 😵
Great article! I absolutely adore this game. There are so few gaming experiences that make you feel so clever over and over again.
Ezra Klein did an interview a few years ago with Nguyen and they had an interesting discussion of Baba is You.
Thanks so much! I'll look up that interview
Would you believe, given my occupation, that I've never played this game? (Nor Braid, which is weird in its own way given that I was around for the indie boom...) It looks fun, as a very pretty delivery mechanism for pencil puzzles. Still gotta beat Baba is You first, tho.
Dude I bet you would absolutely crush The Witness, I think you are probably already practiced at this kind of spatial reasoning in a way I super am not. Braid... at this point idk, I replayed it a while back and the puzzles are still good but the story is some of the most achingly cringe shit I'd ever read.
Baba is You is just, like, visual coding right? I watched a video about it and thought the way you rearrange functions just looked like doing computer
I think a decade ago I would've been annoyed by Braid because I felt like a lot of the "art games" of the era seemed to be about men pursuing women (although I'm not entirely sure why I thought that -- "Don't Look Back" is the only other thing I can think of that fits that description). Now I think I'm more annoyed by "deconstructions" of the medium treating Super Mario Bros. as the ur-game, because I think that's kind of played out.
Baba is You is definitely a game that appeals to programmers but I think it's just brain-breaky a way that appeals to me, when it's not too difficult for me to parse how I'd even begin to win lmao.
I was going to write here “one day I’ll have to buy a controller or a Steam Deck or something” because with puzzle games I often hit a moment where I figure out what to do but physically, on the keyboard, can’t do it… but then I looked this game up and I guess you do just tippity tap on the keyboard.
Yeah it’s actually crazy that (as far as I know) they never ported it to like the Apple Store. It practically seems tailor made for tablets.
Years ago I made my mom play Portal (lol) and we had the same problem. She had never used keyboard controls so the moment a puzzle put her on a timer it was over.
If you get super hardcore at the Witness there is The Challenge, which is a timed gauntlet of randomized puzzles but even then the only dexterity is running from one puzzle to the next (obligatory brag: I’ve beaten the challenge)
yeah Portal was one of the ones where I had figured out a solution to a puzzle but I just could not execute the timing necessary. I don't think I was on a timer (maybe I was) but it required doing a jump and something else at the same time… but I can't really remember bc that was so long ago I was still using a PC lol. Anyway every time I look up how much a Steam Deck costs—which seems like the reasonable thing given that all the games I own are on Steam—I'm like "uhhh that's so many books / bottles of perfume / niche Evangelion merchandise…."
I always think I want a Steam Deck but since I have a switch it doesn’t really have a use case. If it has keyboard controls I buy on steam and play on the computer. If it has controller controls I get it on switch. And now I need the switch 2 😵