I’ve been enjoying a puzzle game called Baba is You a lot lately. It involves interacting with objects and text to solve puzzles. When you make a logic sentence out of the text, it changes the rules of the game. For example a level might have these words together:
**Baba is You. Water is Sink. Flag is Win. **
These rules means you control Baba, you sink (die) if you go in water, and you win if you get to the flag. The water is preventing you from getting to the flag, so you change some words around to the following:
Baba is You. Baba is Float. Water is Sink. Flag is Win
Now Baba is floating, so you can fly above the water and get to the flag. But there are other ways to solve it. For example:
Water is You. Baba is Win. Flag is Sink
Now you control the water, and win when you reach Baba. The water dies if it hits the flag.
The game feels very challenging but fair. Sometimes the key to a level is figuring out which rules you need to form from the words. Sometimes it’s about applying the rules in the right order and circumstance. I’ve gotten stuck on some levels for a long time. When I finally got it I felt both elated and often a little sheepish at having missed something so obvious.
Yeah, it’s a really great idea for a game. I’m stuck somewhere around halfway through (I think), and I haven’t played for a while. It requires a bit of concentration and brainpower, and lately I’ve been playing more mindless stuff. But it’s great.
You lose I think (since you don’t control any piece of the board any more). Baba is Win doesn’t work either (since at that point Baba isn’t You, but you don’t lose because you can then use whatever is You to touch Baba and win).
That’s true. Each word has a logic to it, which you learn while solving puzzles. In this case Win means something like “when the piece that is you is on the same square as a piece that is win, you win the level.” You can make the words “Baba is You And Win”, though. Then you win the level regardless of the rest of the game state.
Or you can have"Baba is you" going horizontally and “Baba is win” going vertically starting from the same"Baba".
Baba is you is the best puzzle game I’ve played in several years. And it has way more puzzles than good puzzle games typically seem to have.
One point that isn’t that obvious from the description: it sounds a lot more open than it is. What I mean is, one might think that there would be many ways to rearrange the words to solve a puzzle. But usually beyond the intro levels, there’s probably only one solution.
That’s a fair point, and that’s especially true for the hardest puzzles. The intermediate puzzles did sometimes have some flexibility in solutions, though.
The limitations set on each level by the number of words, objects and ways you can interact with them are a large part of why the game works as well as it does. Sometimes you can be given a surprisingly small number of puzzle pieces to work with, but still have to wrack your brain to find the solution.
I’ve solved 150 puzzles so far, and the game is still often surprising me with the elegance of some of the solutions. It’s a sign of a good puzzle game when figuring it out makes you think “how could I have possibly missed that” instead of “How was I supposed to know that?”
Agreed from what I’ve seen (don’t own the game but watched a couple infuriating Let’s Plays. Infuriating because “DUDE YOU HAD THE… Why are you doing this ?! It was so blindingly obvious ! Go back two moves, don’t… AAAAGH”), it’s just that some of these solutions really turn your noggin’ around. As well I really like the fact that often puzzle 2 is just puzzle 1 with one or two elements slightly tweaked at most… which nevertheless requires a totally different solution.
I have it on the Switch, I love the concept with all my heart. It’s the most original video game I’ve seen since… I don’t know, pong? Never seen anything like it. Adventures of Lolo meets Nomic.
I also love that it’s not linear and if you get stuck on one puzzle, you can usually try a different route and do a different puzzle.
I just hate that sometimes I sit there for an hour going, “how the hell am I supposed to push this @##@ rock over there when skull is defeat!”
I saw this get good reviews on Metacritic while searching for my most recent Switch addition, but eventually got Into the Breach. I’ll definitely get it once I’m through playing all the other games I’ve bought and not played now that I’ve bought enough games for the Switch to have justified purchasing it. The concept is brilliant.
Boy does this game make me feel stupid. 150 levels, sohvan? I’ve barely gotten through 20. And I’m stuck at the moment, two different puzzles I can’t figure out and nowhere else to go. This game needs a hint book!
(No it doesn’t, because then I’d just be checking it constantly instead of trying to figure it out.)
I broke down and bought it. It gets hard fast, definitely.
The rules are a bit quirky in some places. For example, there’s the block “Text” which the game uses to make “Text is Defeat”, but you don’t die on touching text because you always push text, and “Defeat” only triggers when you’re on the same square. How Hot, Melt, Sink, and Float work are a little strange, particularly Float.
One thing that’s made me able to get through some levels is trying to parse out why some of the rules you can’t change are there. I think so far there’s always a good reason for every single rule. Maybe as you go along he’ll throw ones in that are entirely irrelevant just to throw people off.
