While most game studios strive to make their creations intuitive and easy to understand, the creators of Baby Steps – Gabe Cuzzillo, Bennett Foddy, and Maxi Boch – have chosen a contrasting approach.
At a recent GDC event, Cuzzillo admitted that their project directly contradicts the lessons learned from the Half-Life series. Valve’s philosophy involved removing anything from maps that might confuse a player for more than a few minutes. In stark contrast, the developers of Baby Steps delight in dropping players into the center of a labyrinth, where it’s easy to wander in circles and return to the starting point after a long journey.
According to the developers, this “trolling” design isn’t born of malice but is an integral part of their strategy. This deliberate disorientation encourages players to explore the world’s boundaries, experiment with its physics, and forge their own paths. The objective is to provoke the question, “What else can I do?” rather than providing ready-made solutions.
A striking illustration of this approach was a challenge involving knocking over a stack of cans. The developers deliberately left a section of this task untested by themselves. Players responded with remarkable creativity, leveraging the game’s walking system to precisely strike a stone and solve the puzzle.
The creators emphasize that in Baby Steps, players aren’t taught by the developers. Instead, learning comes from mistakes, falls, endless loops, and discoveries that were never explicitly anticipated by the game’s designers.