Baba Is You
A puzzle game where players rearrange rule blocks to change how the level works.
Where Baba Is You comes up2 episodes and tests
Gcreator of Game Maker's Toolkit, making his first game, Mind Over Magnet testDon't make this assumption about your players (Developing 10)
Gcreator of Game Maker's Toolkit, making his first game testThe stuff no one tells you about game development (Developing 7)Baba Is You appears in Game Maker's Toolkit's Developing series as a reference, not a case study, so the sources give no sales or player numbers. Its open level order means one hard puzzle never blocks progress, and Mark modelled his hub on it. It also marks the expert end of puzzle difficulty. Lesson: let stuck players skip ahead, and test with your actual audience, not experts.
- 1Get stuck on a levelOne hard puzzle stops the player
- 2Skip itLevel order is open
- 3Play other levelsProgress continues out of order
- 4Come back laterReturn to the skipped puzzle
From Mark Brown on Game Maker's Toolkit
What was said about Baba Is You
Baba Is You lets players skip stuck levels and return later. Baba Is You has an open level order, so players can skip a level, play out of order and come back. Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit prefers this because one hard puzzle should not become a wall that stops progress.
Braid and Stephen's Sausage Roll work the same way, while Portal and Inside are linear. Mark built a hub with doors between puzzles for Mind Over Magnet on this model. He said: "I'm not keen on giving the player a big brick wall just because they got stumped on one of the puzzles."
Baba Is You attracts expert puzzle players, a different audience from gentle puzzle fans. Mark worried that experts who finished Baba Is You and Stephen's Sausage Roll would find his gentler game too easy. He decided they were not his audience and chose playtesters who matched fans of Toki Tori, Boxboy, Inside, Limbo and Portal.
The lesson he drew was to define a target audience first, since it keeps the design on track and shows whose feedback to weigh.
Don't make this assumption about your players (Developing 10)
Mark worried experts of this game would find Mind Over Magnet too easy, but his target audience prefers gentler puzzle games.
Baba Is You attracts expert puzzle players, a different audience from gentle puzzle fans. Mark worried that experts who finished Baba Is You and Stephen's Sausage Roll would find his gentler game too easy. He decided they were not his audience and chose playtesters who matched fans of Toki Tori, Boxboy, Inside, Limbo and Portal.
The lesson he drew was to define a target audience first, since it keeps the design on track and shows whose feedback to weigh.
The stuff no one tells you about game development (Developing 7)
Cited as a puzzle game with an open level order, so one hard puzzle does not block progress. Mark modelled his hub structure on this approach.
Baba Is You lets players skip stuck levels and return later. Baba Is You has an open level order, so players can skip a level, play out of order and come back. Mark Brown of Game Maker's Toolkit prefers this because one hard puzzle should not become a wall that stops progress.
Braid and Stephen's Sausage Roll work the same way, while Portal and Inside are linear. Mark built a hub with doors between puzzles for Mind Over Magnet on this model. He said: "I'm not keen on giving the player a big brick wall just because they got stumped on one of the puzzles."
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