Baby Steps Dev Details the Tuning Process of its Dedicated Gameplay Mechanic

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The game *Baby Steps* is launching on September 23rd. Created by Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch, and Bennett Foddy, it’s their newest project and shares similarities with their previous work, including *Ape Out* and *Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy*. *Baby Steps* puts players in control of Nate, a 30-year-old who’s down on his luck, and challenges them to learn how to walk through a strange and beautiful mountain landscape – a task that seems easy but requires practice, just like Nate.

Game Rant recently interviewed Cuzzillo, Foddy, and Boch about how they designed the movement and controls for *Baby Steps* on Game Rant Advance. They wanted to create a system that was more complex and nuanced than in other games. The team discussed their past work, what they hoped to achieve, and the many tests they ran. Cuzzillo explained that perfecting the core movement mechanic in *Baby Steps* took a lot of refinement to ensure it felt natural and was both challenging and allowed players to freely explore the game.

Baby Steps Developer On Iterating One Step at a Time

Cuzzillo explained the work that went into making *Baby Steps* fun and responsive. The team initially wanted players to control Nate’s walking one step at a time, but it took a lot of effort to get that feeling just right – to make it flow naturally and have Nate react believably to the game world.

Cuzzillo explained that creating the game took significant time and effort. The walking system in *Baby Steps* has improved dramatically over its five years of development, with numerous small improvements contributing to a smooth, consistent, and responsive feel. He highlighted two main focuses during the design process.

As we’ve worked on balancing and tuning the game, two main ideas keep coming up. First, we’re constantly asking what the player should be responsible for, and what the character, Nate, should handle automatically. For example, how much effort should the player make to keep Nate balanced – should they control his leaning, or should the game handle that? The same goes for foot placement – how much should the player need to rotate Nate’s foot to easily get onto something?

Nate Falling Down a Muddy Hill

Finding the Right Balance for Baby Steps’ Physics

Cuzzillo explained that the team spent a lot of time figuring out how much of a ‘supernatural force’ to include in *Baby Steps*’ movement. He doesn’t like games that rely heavily on hidden forces to make characters move, as this can feel unnatural and make it seem like your actions aren’t connecting with what you see on screen. He pointed out that some games use these forces to limit player freedom, and that was a concern here too. Ultimately, *Baby Steps* still needed some of this ‘magic’ to ensure the game felt good to play and to keep everything working smoothly, as he went on to explain.

Many physics-based games make characters feel floaty because the controls use unrealistic forces, and the animations struggle to keep up. However, if we only used forces that make sense in the real world, it would be nearly impossible to keep our character, Nate, moving. Striking the right balance between realistic movement and keeping the game fun has been a major challenge during development, but I’m pleased with the final result.

Baby Steps has been carefully refined, with its central gameplay thoroughly examined and improved. The goal is to offer a fresh and original gaming experience with exceptionally smooth and precise controls.

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2025-09-16 19:30