On the surface, Baby Steps is a literal walking simulator if there ever was one, with the label being its intended identity rather than the criticism it has become associated with. In the game, players guide Nate, an unemployed slacker who stumbles into a strange landscape, by manually moving each of his legs one step at a time. What initially seems like a parody of game mechanics, however, quickly shows its true colors as something more experimental in nature, and just as much about the world around Nate as his clumsy journey forward in Baby Steps.
That world isn't just there to be an abnormal setting, though. From the very beginning, the team behind Baby Steps designed the world around Nate in a way that keeps him feeling like he doesn't belong there. In a recent interview with The Best War Games, developers Bennett Foddy and Maxi Boch delved into this design philosophy, explaining how they wanted Nate's trek to feel less like a normal journey and more like an encounter with something he doesn't quite gel with.
Baby Steps' Visual Design Frames Nate as a Perpetual Outsider
When speaking with the developers, it quickly became clear that Baby Steps' unique visual style wasn't a single, simple design choice but something that was rooted in a variety of inspirations and influences. From the start, the team wanted to avoid making the world feel like a good fit for Nate, and a lot of that would eventually manifest in the uncanny physics and animation of his movement.
Nate Walking Across a Bridge
Essentially, the world needed to be strange enough to make even standing upright feel unnatural, and those ideas were ultimately born out of other images and artwork the developers were exploring at the time. As Foddy explained:
"The visual design had a few different inspirations, but I had a particular kind of emotion in mind that I wanted at least for the start of the game, and in late 2019, right about the time we were playing Gabe's first prototype for Baby Steps, I came across an artwork by Tyler Rhodes that was part of the exploration he was doing on Artbreeder at the time that really captured the feeling. He had a series of these images of mysterious candles rising from misty landscapes, evoking sound-stage sets for old movies with bad bluescreen effects, or maybe Max Ernst's series of surrealist sponge paintings. That would give our world the sense of Nate being a 'fish out of water' that I wanted to accompany the gameplay."
That same philosophy would then extend into Baby Steps' sound design. The game couldn't just look the part, it had to feel the part too, and its music and ambient noise would help make that a reality. Just like the visuals, the audio would help highlight Nate's awkwardness rather than trying to smooth over it. So, instead of going with a traditional game soundtrack, the team pulled from unexpected places, letting the environment itself be the framework for what players hear.
As a result, Baby Steps' music would end up being loose rather than rigid, almost haphazard rather than methodical. To get there, the developers had to discover its rhythm in spaces where others might never look. Boch elaborated on that approach when asked about the game's audio design:
"I started beatmaking in the shower when I was recovering from Ape Out development and got really into what that sounded like. I had already incorporated water sounds into Ape Out's music, and as the Baby Steps gameplay came together, it became clear that music arising from natural elements would be a great fit for a game about a stoner failson's psychedelic hike."
The point of Baby Steps' visual and audio design is to ensure Nate never looks heroic or even competent. Rather, it builds a world that aims to constantly remind players that their slacker protagonist is clearly out of his depth in a multitude of ways. It can be both seen and heard that Nate is a perpetual outsider, ultimately making every step forward in this unashamed walking simulator feel highly precarious — and that's also what makes Baby Steps such an interesting concept, regardless of how strange it is.
- Released
- September 23, 2025
- Developer(s)
- Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, Bennett Foddy
- Publisher(s)
- Devolver Digital
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Unknown
