Baby Steps in a Big Walk World

Most people playing a "kinda absurd hiking simulator with strikingly beautiful landscapes" are playing Big Walk: a game for you and up to 11 of your friends to solve puzzles together, explore a giant, beautiful landscape, and throw silly objects around. The game released last week, and it's since sold over a million copies. I haven't played the full game yet (more on that to come), but I played a preview build a few months ago with Jenny Windom, Kahlief Adams, and Mary Kish. It was honestly one of the most unique, creative, thoughtful co-op experiences I've ever had (and thanks much to Panic and popagenda for making that demo happen).

So it feels a little weird playing Baby Steps right now instead.

Take a Big Walk...

Developed by House House (of Untitled Goose fame), Big Walk is a breath of fresh air in a landscape crowded with loads of interesting "friendslop" multiplayer games made to be light, zany hangouts with friends, but against a growing glut of sterile, AI-generated, stock asset-laden actual slop games trying to cash in on various design trends. (And before you ask: no, I don't want to talk about the term "friendslop" right now, we can have that conversation another time)

Big Walk feels like a game about collaboration, exploration, and joy. Honestly, Jenny's "Should You Play Big Walk?" video captures so many of the thoughts and feelings I had playing the game (but with 11 hours of experience under her belt).

But to be clear: Big Walk feels different than most friendslop (affectionate). Yes, Big Walk is an experiential game made to be played with friends, but it's not infinitely replayable. You can take the game at whatever pace you like, but I'd argue it begs to be savored.

look at the view.

The moment I most remember from my Big Walk demo? Our squad of four had just solved an interesting puzzle, unlocking a large, metal walkway running along the side of a cliff. To our right, rippling water as far as the eye could see. Our strange, oblong bodies clop-clop-cloped their way along, looking for the next mystery to solve. We carried items we'd found along the way: giant light orbs and maybe a thingamabob or two. And then we saw a rocky outcropping with benches and chairs jutting out into the water.

The sun was starting to set, and, at first, we scoured the site looking for mystery items. I think we may have found something there? I don't quite remember. What I do remember though, is that we just sat there, taking in the beauty of the nearly photo-realistic environment, gazing up at a sky full of stars, hearing the water rushing around us. We decided to stick around in that spot and wait for the sun to rise. (It was also slightly a technical curiosity: I wasn't sure if the game had an actual day-night cycle, or if it was just a setpiece event and the world would stay dark until we moved on)

We talked about solving the puzzles, cracked jokes about the random items we'd found, and just generally shared the space. It was silly and beautiful. I imagined playing at home, with a close friend or two, and just sitting at that makeshift campsite for hours, talking about anything at all. It can be some of my favorite times gaming: getting so caught up in chatting that game almost fades out of view. The game still matters, mind you, but the play space fully becomes a backdrop for human connection, making the virtual somehow just that much more real. We stayed until sunrise, and then we banded off together to the next adventure.

I don't have pictures of the footage itself from the demo, but I have these photos that we took at the Panic office after our demo time. It was honestly one of the best demo experiences I've had with a game ever, primarily because of the way it just made time to share some incredible moments with people I consider myself so lucky to know. Big Walk is the kind of game that makes those moments possible. Particularly when the world can seem so scary and hopeless, a game like Big Walk gives me hope.

Big Walk is a wonderful game...so why am I playing Baby Steps right now instead?

Take Baby Steps...

You could also describe Baby Steps as a "kinda absurd hiking simulator with strikingly beautiful landscapes." But Big Walk is a multiplayer, wholesome, player-friendly experience that practically anyone could pick up and play.

This is not the world of Baby Steps.

Baby Steps is solo, crude, filthy, and outright hostile to its player. Developed by Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy (of Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy (yeah, that Bennett Foddy)), you play as Nate: a 35-year old do-nothing who gets isekai'd from his parents' basement into a strange, mountainous world wearing nothing but a gray onesie pajama.

Navigating this world is anything but easy: you walk one leg at a time, using the controller triggers to lift your legs and the control stick to shift your body weight. No arm controls, no grab button, no stamina meter: just your floppy body self (with some serious junk in the trunk).

If that sounds frustrating, it doesn't stop there: the world is covered in mud-covered slopes and steep, awkward cliff faces where one tiny wrong move means plummeting head-first to the rocks below if you're lucky: it's not uncommon to plunge down onto rocks, then roll into a mud river that slowly, uncontrollably propels you further and further away until dumping you into a pit of filth. And don't worry, that onesie gets DISGUSTING the more you fall.

Now, some of you are reading this and thinking: "why the hell would you play a game like that? You must hate yourself." And I, dear reader, would then tastefully deflect by saying "Well, I'm pretty sure Nate does!" Nate is a pile of self-loathing, moaning complaints with every fall. And when people randomly show up to try to help (in the weirdest, most awkward ways), Nate rejects their help every time with random, mealy-mouthed lies.

Nate is...a man with a problem. That's important to the game, critical even. But maybe there's a solution, too: putting one foot in front of the other, hard as it may be, and moving forward.

...but look at the view

Yesterday was my first stream in Baby Steps, and I don't think I go all too far. And these two screenshots may not seem like a big deal, but there used to be a pear at the end of that tree branch. And it took me SO LONG to get to that pear.

The screenshot doesn't capture the number of heartbreaking falls I took to get to this point. How many times I tried to make the most minor adjustment to get out to this cliff, just to tumble my way, head-first, smack to the ground below. And there's no respawning in this game, you don't die: you just have to pick yourself back up, covered in mud and whatever, and start walkin' back.

But for as much as there's muck and gross and disgusting all over this game, there's so much beauty. Even when the vistas are overlooking a decrepit wasteland, there's still a certain type of wonder and gorgeousness that comes from getting a little perspective.

I think it was a moment like this, looking around and seeing just how much there was to appreciate in the midst of it all, that finally tied Big Walk and Baby Steps together for me. And I guess that's why you're reading this right now.

So...why Baby Steps?

I wish that I could say it was somehow intentional to start Baby Steps in the wake of Big Walk, but it was honestly pure coincidence. I created what I call my first Backlog Mixtape a few weeks back: a playlist of titles that I knew playing would ignite more of my excitement about games. After finishing UNSIGHTED, a fast-paced action game about how sometimes you'd can't save everyone, I wanted to play a game that was a little more...absurd. Maybe even light-hearted?

And I chose....Baby Steps???

But honestly, it was the right choice for me right now.

If I'm honest, I haven't played Big Walk yet because I've been overwhelmed, and the depression's been getting to me a bit. And though I've spent some time playing games with friends, I think I've been isolating, avoiding some of the places that could just feel more...joyous? Maybe because sometimes I don't feel that joyous. And it's not that friends haven't asked me to play either. I just keep turning them down, using whatever reason comes to mind.

So maybe I just see a little bit of Nate in myself right now. It feels like this part of my journey is gross, solo, one where maybe I need to get over myself a little bit and accept some help, some humanity.

Don't get me wrong: I'm SO excited to take a Big Walk one day, maybe even someday soon. But I've got a few Baby Steps to take first.

To keep up with my thoughts on Baby Steps and more, make sure you subscribe to Intelligame here on Player.GG. If you want to see my playthrough of Baby Steps, you can catch it live on my Twitch channel. You can also see more Intelligame content on YouTube.

(By the way: go follow Jenny and Kahlief here on Player.GG!)