How Baby Steps Bets Everything on a Single Gameplay Mechanic

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In the game Baby Steps, you literally walk. You play as Nate, a thirty-something who’s down on his luck and suddenly finds himself in a strange mountain environment. The gameplay is simple: you guide him as he walks across various landscapes, one step at a time.

Game Rant spoke with the creators of *Baby Steps* – Maxi Boch, Gabe Cuzzillo, and Bennett Foddy – about the unique idea behind the game. They shared that figuring out how the character would move was surprisingly difficult. This conversation has been edited for easier reading.

Baby Steps Focuses Heavily on its Movement Mechanics

Game Rant asked: What led to the decision to have players control each step individually, instead of using standard movement controls?

This is where the game really began to take shape! Initially, the character’s feet would rise on their own when you pushed the joystick forward, but we soon realized that having manual control over the lifts felt much better and offered more precise movement.

Game Rant asked: When designing the game’s walking mechanic, how did you achieve a good balance and make it feel right?

It took years of refinement to get the character’s movement feeling just right. Over the five years we’ve been developing it, there have been countless small improvements to make it feel smooth, reliable, and easy to control. Two main ideas kept coming up as we worked on balancing and fine-tuning the system. First, we constantly asked ourselves what the player should be responsible for, and what the character should handle automatically. For example, how much should the character lean to maintain balance, or how much should they adjust their feet to help the player step onto something?

One of the biggest challenges in development was finding the right balance between realistic physics and necessary assistance to keep the character moving. I generally dislike when physics games rely on unexplained, ‘magical’ forces to move characters, like controls that fling them around while the animation struggles to keep up. However, completely removing those forces would make it impossible to maintain momentum. I’m pleased with how we ultimately addressed this, creating a system that feels both natural and playable.

Game Rant asked: What was the hardest technical problem when creating a game where how players move is so important?

The most difficult part of development for me was getting the character’s walking motion right. I aimed for precise, responsive controls, wanting the movement of the lifted foot to feel more like an arcade shooter than a typical physics-based game. It took years of adjustments to achieve this while still maintaining stable physics and making the character’s movements look somewhat natural.

Nate Walking Through Snow

Game Rant asked if the developers could discuss the game’s difficulty level in *Baby Steps*, and whether players can adjust it to their preference.

Baby Steps doesn’t have adjustable difficulty settings. Instead, we’ve designed it so the core gameplay is fairly easy, while optional challenges and hidden content can be much harder – even extremely difficult. The most interesting and rewarding aspects of the game actually emerge when you’re tackling those tougher challenges.

For us, challenge isn’t about making the game unfairly hard. It’s about creating moments where players genuinely feel rewarded and accomplished, without relying on artificial boosts or predictable power-ups – things that have become common in action games.

I’ve been reading Game Rant, and they’ve got me thinking about how cool it is when games let you stumble onto things – like finding a random missing cup or just wandering into a hidden area by accident. It really makes you wonder how much freedom games *should* give you, and how different each person’s experience can be because of it. Does that kind of open-endedness make a game better, and does it mean no two playthroughs are ever quite the same?

We aimed for a player experience that wasn’t too restrictive. Games like My Summer Car, Snowrunner, and even Noita inspired us – we love how those games let you explore large worlds and discover things on your own. A key part of the fun is the sense that there’s always more to find, and that your playthrough is just a small part of the overall experience. Our game blends carefully planned content with elements that are meant to be discovered and explored organically, creating a layered experience.

If you rush through the game, you’ll mostly experience the carefully crafted sections. We’ve included a wide variety of challenges, from precisely designed climbs to more spontaneous rock formations we discovered were fun to scale, and even purely decorative elements you can climb. We approached the cutscenes similarly, blending planned humor with moments we stumbled upon during development.

We quickly realized that players testing our game often wanted to explore interesting areas off the main path, but worried about getting lost. This created a ‘fear of missing out’ feeling that we found compelling, so we intentionally designed the game to encourage that sense of exploration and slight anxiety.

Baby Steps Will Have Plenty of Secrets and Hidden Routes For Players to Find

We’ve seen Nathan Drake interacting with all sorts of things in the trailers, like pushing a portable toilet off a cliff! Are there any specific objects in the game world that you’re especially fond of, or that you think players will really enjoy finding and messing with?

It’s hard to say much without giving anything away, but the reveal trailer features a skateboard that’s really enjoyable to play with.

Game Rant: How did you approach level design given the more free-form gameplay?

A core design principle for us was to ensure that when players fall and lose progress, they’re given a way to continue without having to repeat the exact same section they just failed. This idea of being forgiving is actually the foundation of how all the levels are built.

Since the game seems to offer a lot of freedom in how players progress, how do you encourage them to choose the harder options? What makes those more difficult paths interesting and worthwhile?

Some of the extra paths in the game include funny moments at the end. Others offer a nice view, mirroring how optional routes work in real life. And some are simply there for the challenge of climbing them. We’re hoping there are enough dedicated players who will enjoy tackling the most difficult content, even some of the challenges that emerged unexpectedly during development.

Game Rant asked if the developers could share any clues about secret areas or hidden paths players might want to look for in the game.

It’s tough to pick just one piece of advice for new players, as there’s so much to discover! I’d say don’t try to see everything at once. Instead, focus on enjoying the things you *do* find, and embrace the mystery of what you haven’t discovered yet.

Game Rant asked: *Baby Steps* has a much larger and more open world than games like *Getting Over It*. How did you manage to create that openness while still ensuring the levels felt well-designed and precise, considering the game’s unusual physics and controls?

Creating an open world without cars, time jumps, or fast travel presents unique design challenges compared to typical open-world games. Simple things like dead ends and cliffs become more difficult because players have to physically retrace their steps. We also had to pay close attention to details like individual branches and rock angles, which is unusual for outdoor environments. However, we learned that making the hiking *too* difficult everywhere would be tiring for players, so we didn’t obsess over the placement of every single rock.

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2025-09-17 23:11