Baba is You was a fantastic breakout title by developer Hempuli Oy, that sits on a throne on the Steam platform as one of the highest reviewed games ever published on the platform. A bizarre arcade-like experience that operates almost entirely off of defining statements, Baba is You was received as a fantastic puzzle-game that was astonishingly simple to pick up, and hard to put down.
By pushing statements around, your controlled character may change, walls become floors, and water becomes movable. Filled with over 200 different levels that allow you to fundamentally change the way the game is played, Baba Is You has had some gamers log over 100 hours in the indie gem, only to find themselves wanting more.
The developer finally has an answer to the audience cry for an encore; user-created levels, and a platform in-game that will allow users to send their levels for other people to wrap their brains around. This near guarantees infinite content upcoming for the game, as this was just announced to come in 2020 on Twitter. Yet with all of the celebration, there may be a reason for concern as well.
It will behoove the discussion to take a momentary glance at Portal, and Portal 2 for that matter. Fantastic level design that made many levels a bit of a brain teaser, for the player to finally figure out what they were supposed to do. Then, execution may take a few tries, but eventually the user would figure it all out. Valve did well in designing wonderful levels where the objective was clear, and the ‘how’ was a puzzle to be analyzed. This is arguably what made the series so iconic, the approachability of the puzzles strewn across the Aperture Science labs where success was clearly defined.
The user-created levels, which one can grab from the Steam workshop, have less in terms of presentation. Many levels, victory conditions cannot be analyzed as cleanly, making many of the mods a frustrating experience of walking around in circles in a room until you find a hidden inch-wide gap that you’re supposed to shoot a portal through.
These mods arguably extended the shelf-life for Portal, yet the execution of puzzles was clearly a far cry from the cleanliness and vision of Valve.
Baba is You is in a similar situation; the puzzles that the developer crafted are clear, concise, and need figuring out. Offering user-created levels sounds like it could be a fantastic opportunity for users to explore. Or it could highlight less of the enjoyable puzzles, and more of the annoying ‘gotcha’s’ that previous communities have offered.
Regardless, it’s due out in 2020, and a final verdict can be reached then.
