Review: Baba Is You

Baba is game. Mechanics are modifiable. Game is fun and challenging.

Ok, enough of that nonsense, I’m not keeping that up for an entire review! Baba Is You is a good old-fashioned puzzle game which, on the face of it, looks like a rather bedraggled scruff of a thing someone pulled out from the back of their C64. In fact, the quality of the underlying game despite its rudimentary graphics and minimalist presentation is a big strength in my book: a demonstration that, yes, although gaming has advanced enormously in the last <pick any period of time>, that doesn’t mean we got the most out of each period that we could have. Game devs should be revisiting the past, mining long-forgotten genres for sought-after gems. Such as this one.

Level 0 is, of course, all about the core mechanics and some introductory rules. But it also gives ample opportunity for experimentation — there are several ways to complete the level.

Baba Is You is probably the slowest game I’ve ever played. You might even consider it belonging to an obscure ‘slow gaming’ genre, although many strategy and puzzle titles would also fit that description. Something about Baba Is You seems to demand the slowest of play, though, and that’s very much a good thing.

The game is turn-based (another reason it could probably be ported to any old bit of hardware lying around) which adds to its overall air of cerebral superiority; this is a game that isn’t afraid to challenge your brain in ways your brain didn’t know were possible.