BABY STEPS

Peak practice

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There are things in videogames we take for granted; elements that have become so ingrained in the fabric of the medium that we seldom stop to think about them. How do you walk in a thirdperson videogame? Well, you push the analogue stick forward, obviously. With the camera sitting behind your avatar’s back, it’s so intuitive that even those who haven’t picked up a controller before understand it instinctively. This method of moving has been a cornerstone of just about every thirdperson game since Super Mario 64 effectively codified 3D movement. So when Baby Steps’ opening cinematic ends and we're granted control over protagonist Nate, we do what comes naturally. And we immediately fall flat on our face.

It’s not the first time we've come a cropper in a game with Bennett Foddy’s name attached; nor, for that matter, the first time he’s asked us to scale a mountain via decidedly unconventional means. As such, it would be easy to see Baby Steps as a combination of two of his previous releases, QWOP and Getting Over It. Or, perhaps, imagine that it began with a straightforward question: what if QWOP were an open-world game? In fact, this one is the brainchild of Gabe Cuzzillo, who previously worked with Foddy (along with the third member of this development triumvirate, Maxi Boch) on his breakout beat-'em-up hit. “Ape Out was a student project of mine, and then I somehow enlisted my professors at NYU [Game Center] to come work on it for me... through various coercions,” Cuzzillo grins.

Despite being, as Cuzzillo matter-of-factly puts it, “just a continuation of that collaboration”,