Thank you so much for picking Baba Is You for this year's final video! It was extremely heartwarming to hear such positive words about the game; I'm really glad that it left such an impression on you. Have a good rest of the year & onwards!
I've been playing puzzle/logic games my whole life, and this is hands down my favorite game of all time. Took me 80 hours to complete 100% and loved every second of it. You sir are a genius. Baba is best :)
I got stuck on a level in Baba, put the game down, and then went on with my day. Next morning I woke up with the solution fully formed in my head. I've never had a puzzle game do that to me.
To me it happens all the time. Sometimes I forget about a game and a few days/weeks or even months later it just randomly pops into my mind with the solution :D I gave up on it, but my subconscious figured it out in the back of my mind.
Fits the programming theme then. This constantly happens to me when im stuck with something while coding. I often walk into the office in the morning with a fix for some bug in my head that i came up with while i was sleeping.
GMTK: "If you haven't played Baba Is You yet, it's time to pause the video, go to Steam or the Nintendo E-Shop and get the game." Me: "This seems like something I should do. Right now." Me: *does exactly those things* Months later the TH-cam algo serves this video up again. Me: *notices the video wasn't finished, can't remember why* Start video GMTK: "When you're done, come back and we'll chat more about how the game builds its brain-busting puzzles." This experience made me question exactly how much of my life is under my own control.
My absolute favorite sentence forming moment I've ever had in Baba is You was definitely the moment when I made "Empty is you". I literally just spent several minutes just moving things around laughing my head off as I tried to grasp what the heck I'd just done.
EMPTY is one of the best mechanics in the game. When i played the first few levels featuring EMPTY i said to myself "this is probably the point in baba where solutions take a while to figure out for me..."
That reverse engineering strategy is very similar to a strategy called “backwards by design” in reformed education. Instead of blindly designing lessons to reach an end goal (of students learning something, i.e the purpose of mitosis), you use the desired end goal to inform and structure the previous lessons. The overlap between good game design and good education makes sense, but its something I didnt expect.
or basically "how do you find X?" if X=Z+Y^2, what is Z, Y, and ^ ? if Y^2=Y*Y, what is * ? and so on until you get the very basics of maths that you cant simplify further like that, you can also find the basics of the game which you need to teach the player
This is legitimately one of the most difficult games I've ever played. It starts out all simple, but by the time I reached world four it started taking me about one hour to complete each individual level. The solutions are that brain bending.
I reached that level at about area 5 or 6, conveniently when some of my least favorite mechanics in the game were introduced (FALL and SWAP), though there were others i found pretty difficult in earlier areas as well. Beating areas 7, 9, and 10 took me WEEKS on end and even longer for some of the secret stuff.
I'm already at this stage in world two, It's SO hard omfg. not the good kind of hard either, the kind of hard that makes you feel like a dumbass when you figure it out finally. :/
I love he didn't make it the subject of the video given it's ridiculously over-rated and only as big as it is because a legion of morons keep shouting memes at each other about it.
@@julianemery718 They thought that having made a mediocre meme game meant that they were now the authority on political issues and could tell people how to vote using official media. Not the first time mediocre indie devs have shown that they have a superiority complex. Context: i.redd.it/oercqiamgu241.png
That's one that makes you feel incomprehensibly stupid once you figure it out. Because there's so little there that the solution *should* be obvious. There just aren't enough other things you could possibly do. But it still takes you ages and when you finally get it you think "this is something I should have figured out two hours ago"
Haha, it took me ages to figure that one out, coming back to it again and again! In the end I was like, "Hmm, I wonder if *this* will work"... and luckily it did, and I learned a new thing I could do. :) I can't bear to look any of them up, because that means I'll never get to actually solve them.
Thanks very much for watching GMTK this year! Time for a much-needed break and then I’ll be back in the new year. Just a note that the title and thumbnail for this video will be changed in a couple days for consistency with the others in this annual series - just wanted to keep the surprise for the video’s launch!
Great choice, would've been my selection for 2019 as well. I have to admit I didn't make it all the way through "META" though - and I used hints a few times. A must play for everyone who loves thinking outside of the box.
"And he's more interested in surprises and silliness than rock-hard challenge, making for a game that will make you laugh more than it will make you frustrated." Ah, I see. I guess I'm just really stupid then.
What impressed me most about Baba is You was that even though there's over 200 levels, and even though I had to look up some of them online cause I was stumped for a couple days, there was only a single level where the solution felt like unfair bs. And that was a hidden level in a secret area inside a secret area in another secret area.
I thought it was gonna be PARADE but im only slightly surprisec as while text stacking is a requirement in some other levels, it is always a nightmare to figure out.
@@iantaakalla8180 the level "tiny pond" where you got to do flag is key then key is you and open an then open the right water to mak key is you and win to win
If you are interested in looking for solutions while not doing so, there's a site with a guide called BABA is Hint. It's great to put things in perspective, and it always gives multiple levels of hints so you can attempt it with as little help as possible.
I had a friend play some of the earlier levels of baba, and that's something I noticed a lot. The game's levels can lead to some strong freedom of solution sometimes, but not always.
Many of the early levels have a wide array of _possible_ solutions, yes. Partly because the player needs to not only _learn_ the basics (creating/breaking rules, etc.) but have room to _experiment with_ them so that they can learn more. One of my favorite levels is the one on that tiny island on the lower-right of the map (I think its level name was literally "?"). You can literally just walk over to the Flag to win the level, but if that is all you do then go back and play it again because you forgot something. Another favorite is "Broken Expectations", where you will immediately notice a rule stating "TEXT IS NOT PUSH" yet somehow you are still able to move the text around...? Before you can solve the level you have to reason out just what's going on here.
I was so afraid when I quickly looked at the thumbnail, and Baba Is You was nowhere to be found! Now I realize it's made of previous year's winners. I'm so happy that this game is getting the recognition that it deserves. Absolutely mind blowing game mechanics and a flawless execution. I haven't had so many "ahá!" moments since Portal 2!
I was stuck for a few months, but decided to take another jab. Finally started figured a few solutions per day, and them BOOM, more and more levels and solving more per day than ever.
funny you say that you didn’t like the level “prison” (the one where you trap keke under words to push them apart) because that’s actually one of my favorites! I think the solution is really clever and it teaches players how objects become part of the background when they aren’t assigned any properties. to each their own though haha
I got through a lot of the rest of the game before finally solving 'prison'. It literally took me weeks if not months. It looked impossible to me to beat it with the words given that I was convinced there was some secret shenanigans going on. I really thought: "maybe there's a KEKE so far off screen that I have to hold left for 10 seconds". And once you start thinking like that, you'll never find the solution LOL
Prison was fine, if a bit unintuitive at first. Its extra stage "dungeon" I also solved, but I still have no idea why the solution there worked. It makes no sense why text can be pushed onto the object that is you if the object that is you cant move. Normally when something is push but cant be pushed any further in a direction, it acts like stop in that direction. The only way I can think is maybe when the game is processing the chain of moves in that situation it tries to move things in stages such that somehow the text moves and then the object that is you would move but then the game realizes it cant so it doesnt but by that time the text has already moved hence being able to overlap... But that feels more like a glitch than a mechanic imo. Anyway, Prison and Dungeon were really the only two puzzles in the game I felt required concepts that hadnt been introduced prior, which felt odd since they were late puzzles in that area.
@@Mennenth i don't see a problem there. If an object is push, it can be pushed, it does not say it pushes other objects. In your example, if baba is not push and not stop, that means that you are basically part of the background for objects moving onto your space. Its the same as you overlapping objects that are not push and not stop
@@Mennenth objects are solid only when PUSH or STOP is applied to them (the exception being TEXT which is always PUSH). Even if BABA IS YOU, that does not make Baba solid, so other objects including text can be pushed on top of Baba. You’ve probably pushed text over background objects plenty of times without even giving it a second thought. It’s unintuitive at first but makes sense once you mull it over a bit. Brilliant, imo.
I've never been disappointed by these picks. I pause the video and buy the game the moment he announces it. I have gotten my money's worth every single time and always have a lot to say about the game to my friends too.
@@kuzidas4213 I've definitely run into a few roadblocks in the couple hours I've played. However, the premise makes it easy to say "I am missing something" where other games leave you feeling "I'm being cheated."
@@leow.2162 I think it makes perfect sense. If you turn Baba into Flag with ''Baba is Flag'', there's no Baba anymore, only flags. Since the sentence was originally supposed to be a statement that affects all the Babas, and now there are no Babas, so of course breaking the sentence doesn't do anything. Meanwhile the ''Object is property'' sentences need to be in tact to function, because the object itself was not changed, so breaking the sentence still affects that particular object's property. (Also it makes for really cool solutions like ''Baba is Keke is Baba'' so I'm definitely not comlaining.)
"whe you are done come back and watch the rest of the video" The year is 40532 and am on the verge of finishing the game my great great great... just 1 extra secret level and... 10 more appeared D:
Never has anything in my life made me feel as dumb as I do while playing this game... every time I beat a level I think ‘hey, I’m getting the hang of this now!’ only to be proven wrong as soon as I start the next one. I love it.
No point even making this when the obvious answer is FIFA 20, what an absolute breath of fresh air, never played anything like it. Joking. Just in case.
One of the best things about the game is that it makes you think sentences like this. "I have to have Keke stop before Keke has stop" "I can't move and be hot at the same time" "I can't figure out how to tell Me what to do because Me is not you, but I can push Me in the right direction"
I love how all the rules of a level are visible - sometimes being "out of bounds" so you can't change them. It helps reinforce the game's central idea, and lets you literally check the rules if you're stuck.
to be honest, if that actually worked, i feel like that would be a programming nightmare. it would set all of the is in that sentence to other is which then change themsevles into themselves, which, in my experience, probably wouldnt go well
I'm glad you brought up "tiny pond", because I spent probably 2 hours on that puzzle. It was the first level where I was just completely lost, but when I beat it, i felt like such an idiot because the solution was so simple. The funny part to me is that my solution was more complicated than the one you showed, but was mind blowingly "simple" once I beat it. Seeing you do it now just further made me feel like an idiot though lol
BABA IS LOVE! Absolutely one of my favorite games ever. I love the way you can just mess with all the rules to see what you can get. This does, however, have a drawback once you get to more difficult levels. The first being Prison, where you have to realize that TEXT IS PUSH BUT ONLY OVER OTHER TEXT. And other crazy rules that you never get to know. I still haven't finished Meta-15. Maybe someday.
That's not the gimmick in Prison - it's that objects that an object that is you can be made to overlap with a pushable object given an object that's stop and a second "you" object.
What? That’s not how prison works at all? The gimmick is to realize that both You and Text are not Stop and You isn’t inherently Push, so you can push text on top of another instance of yourself to break sentences.
@@DrGandW You have to inherently understand that TEXT is always PUSH, even when you're on top of text. Later on you have to learn even more quirks about TEXT that the game doesn't spell out for you. I get that putting the meta rules such as TEXT IS PUSH FOR TEXT, etc. on every level would be ridiculous, but for ones that it's necessary to understand to come to the solution, it would feel a LOT more fair to spell out the meta rules.
Absolutely adored the game's simplistic art direction. Even when I was away from the pc or the handheld, I would find myself jotting the puzzles onto paper and attempting to solve from there.
I expected it to be Hypnospace Outlaw, as you were listing off previous innovative games, but I think this fits the bill as well. Baba is You is one of my top games of the year, and my #2, if not #1 puzzle game of all time
@@Fitzis That would be The Witness. I loved the environment and style of it, and the simplistic look, but engross nature, of the puzzles really pulled it all together for me. I know peopled dislike it, but its my personal favorite
No advertising budget means no initial hype, which means no interest from the big games media who need the hype to get enough clicks to justify taking the time to write a review
Yeah it had a pretty quiet launch. I never would have discovered it if I hadn't been watching a twitch stream that changed games in the middle of it. I kinda like that though, it feels like I have this precious gem of an awesome game that I get to share with people who never heard of it before
At 13:10 ish, I literally said "Ohhhhh" out loud when I learned that you can use NOT as a prefix. (I.e. "NOT Baba IS you" as opposed to "Baba IS NOT you.") Mind blown. Gotta love this game.
Same thing, really. The problem is that in a game like Scribblenauts, possibilities are endless but practicality beats it all. Too many stages can be beaten by using rope, glue, something that lets you fly, and other similar "boring" items over using the millions of wacky solutions at your disposal. Probably the main reason why later games moved away from environmental problem-solving and towards helping characters that need something.
@@yashkaushik6116 Noita has only one trick: destructible environments (even though it's executed EXTREMELY well). It doesn't really build on that trick beyond some very simple interactions (oil and wood catch fire, water douses fire). Slay the Spire is a deck building game... And... that's about it. Baba is you is innovative in how it continuously and nearly infinitely builds upon it's own rules creating newer and better challenges as the game progresses.
I'm pretty dumb at the game myself but with some bullshitting around, some patience, a fist through the wall, and frequent breaks, I end up solving levels that I thought I'd never solve so soon. But I can understand if that's not anyone's taste. Especially if you want a relaxing game session. Your brain may melt from overuse. Lol.
I played a shitload of puzzle games to improve my INT stat and uh... you basically need to A) understand the mechanics (like REALLY understand them) and B) build the solution backwards from the end via logic within the context of the game. You get good at it eventually. Example: I see a door in Portal and I'm like what the... That door is too high! And even if those platforms could go up that high they wouldn't reach far enough horizontally; I can't jump that far... The ONLY solution must be to portal the wall with a hardlight bridge AFTER being on top of the platform. But that's impossible unless... The ONLY solution is to get myself on the platform while already having the first portal set............ And this process continues until you have the whole solution. Example puzzle was this: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=68461270
This is the first game picked for "most innovative game" that I played beforehand, and it certainly deserves every bit of praise it has gotten. This is the only puzzle game I've ever played where I can sit for hours staring at the screen for one puzzle and not feel annoyed. That's because the "eureka" moments in Baba are unprecedented. The way it builds your knowledge base up and expects you to keep using it in unique ways makes it feel approachable despite the difficulty; you never feel like a level is completely impossible. It's a lot like learning a new language. Amazing game, please do yourself a favor and play it without spoilers if you have not.
Reminds me of a flash game called changetype by nitrome? Basically in that game you have a gun that switches the function of two blocks. Like you have spikes that kill you if you touch them and bricks that you can walk on, but if you shoot both of them with the gun, suddenly bricks kill you and you can walk on spikes. Or if you shoot a coin and a wall, suddenly you can walk on coins and collect walls.
Actually, prison was a hella easy level for me, as i found it's gimmick by accident while stuffing around in earlier levels. When i saw the level, it instantly clicked and it was one of the easiest but coolest levels for me. Guess everyone else was smart enough to not be stuffing around on the earlier levels.
There's all kinda fun stories to be had when you take a long or a little while figuring a level; See the level in 14:09 I didn't figured making KEKE IS SKULL IS KEKE. I spent hours on it not figuring that. After turning the BUG into SKULL I figured How to use that to shift the BELTs position and create a clear passage.
The best part about Baba is you is explaining/discussing the rules and solutions. My brother and I would often startle our parents by shouting something like "you can't be Baba because key is you! Make door float and sink! No, Keke is push so we get key is death! And we're dead again! Argh!!"
Having not played much, he doesn't really spoil much, maybe one thing about an unexpected level idea later on. Considering how complex the game is, I doubt I will remember the solution when I play it.
The stage on 13:58 is my favorite. It is much better than “set something to move and find a spot to go”. From this level, you understand that this game has sooo much to explore.
I'm really glad you went with Baba is you! I've been blown since I discovered it! Another game I would have accepted is Streets of Rogue. It feels a lot less innovative compared to Baba is you, but it still manages to give the player an incredible amount of liberty (the most I've played, to be honest). It's like a rogue-lite GTA in which you have to do missions in any way you want. For example, you have to steal from a chest in a bank. You can kill everyone and get the key, put some chemicals in the ventilation system to poison the building, you can befriend the clerk and ask for the key, pay a goon to kill everyone, cut a window and use a lockpick to open the chest and many, many more. Well, I've wrote a lot more than I thought, but, to be quick, just go check Streets of Rogue, it will be worth your time
As genius as the gameplay is in of itself, for me it would never have worked without the asthetics, the way the pixel art movies, gives it a lot of personality, but more important the music, it's so simple, yet so soothing and it just never gets old to listen to.
"Baba doesn't matter! You matter! Baba only matters because Baba is you!" That stream was great for high quality quotes. It's inspiring to watch someone with legit brain damage fight against the absolute bullshit premise this game is built on. Amazin'.
This game is perfect to teach kids logic thinking. The sentences are like algorithms, and are simple enough to be learnable, but can get complex enough to spark the creativity necessary to understand problem solving. The fact that you aren't limited by the environment, but can use it in different ways is thinking out of the box. I love this concept
I'm so happy that Baba is You is getting the attention it deserves because it has been my favorite puzzle game that I've played ever since I picked it up this year.
Oh man, as soon as this game was released it got added to the list of like 500 games in my backlog/wishlist that I still have to check out. Only recently have finally tried, for the first time ever, GTA5, a game from 2013. Someday I will get to you, Baba Is You. SOMEDAY!
To me, the game is way too slow. I love it to death and have played it in bits, but it's pacing just makes me so exhausted in just a short while. Same kind of effect happens with Human Fall Flat for me.
Absolutely love Baba is You. So many simple, yet great concepts working together to create the best "ah ha" moments I've ever experienced. Bonus points for being a game that's about coding/programming. It easily deserves the title of most innovative.
I've never talked to him personally but I got that impression when I was doing the post game content for ESA and looking up things I couldn't figure out myself on the Steam community. The way he interacted with the community was cool. I'm glad he's getting this attention too.
I have been waiting for a video on this! Baba is you is not about breaking the rules. It’s about breaking any and all assumptions you will have, and blowing your mind while doing it!
What I like about this game is not just the unique idea of re-arranging the logic, but also how well done the levels are themselves. The solutions aren't really complicated, and the levels are short and concise once you've actually figured out the puzzle. But you can spend a really long time trying out different things to solve the level, and you usually have several "Aha" moments per level as you put all the elements together, or you think you have an Aha moment, then you have a counter-Aha moment where you're like "oh no that won't work." It's so good!
Same. That's part of what makes it amazing -- level solutions are generally actually quite simple in concept, but challenging to actually figure out. An example of one that had me stumped for weeks: if two SHIFT objects overlap, they will shift each other at the same time, essentially functioning like a MOVE object.
It's so sad that no Triple A game ever makes the list, and nowadays as stagnant as the videogame market is the biggest software houses completely stopped "risking" it with new and innovative games. Thank God the world is full of creative people that still want to create content, just like you Mark. Thanks for this year of beautiful content
It's no secret that occasional puzzles in AAA games are usually uninspired and generally meh, whereas indie is the bottomless font of creativity. I wonder if indie puzzle designers ever guest star in AAA games, and if not, why not? Seems such a win-win.
Indie puzzle games are usually based on some weird abstract mechanics that have the entire game designed around them, whereas AAA games have tight margins and don't usually have time to develop more interesting puzzles. Secondly, Indie games tend to be built "backwards" relative to AAA games. AAA games have an end result in mind and build towards it, meanwhile indie games start with a loose set of whatever mechanics or ideas, then slap them around until something clicks and only then a whole game is built around those mechanics. Lastly, AAA games tend to try to have mass-appeal and weird esoteric puzzles just would not gel well with that goal in mind. All those reasons combined mean that it's likely that AAA game puzzles are going to remain uninspired and boring for the foreseeable future. Off the top of my head I can only come up with Portal 2, but that feels like it's treated by everyone more like an Indie game with a AAA budget, so not exactly a AAA game with great puzzles.
@@tailez606 Can't argue with any of this, but I'm sure there is a way to build a creative puzzle into an AAA game by making it something non-integral. Plus I'm sure that talented indie puzzle makers can think of something that would fit the overall AAA game without shaking it up too much if need be.
Hey, Any chance on making a video about keeping your scope small for your first couple games ? I know it's somewhat different from what we see in your channel, but I think it's still a relevant theme.
OH, COME ON! This is the second year in a row where I can't watch your video because I haven't played the game yet! *sigh *See you in the future, Mark!
Thanks for letting me know of this game, I went and got it and I love every second. Such a great idea AND wonderfully creative and diverse level design. Had I known about this earlier it would've been a Christmas present for probably several of my friends for sure.
I've always sucked at puzzle games like this. I can tell that this game is objectively brilliant, but trying to keep up in this video made my brain hurt.
Almost wanted you to say something about Tiny Isle. My dumbass can't solve it for nothing... But I'm so glad you've even brought this game up. Way more people needed to know about this one and it's definitely worthy of such praise. But seriously, I'm not trying to spoil these puzzles for myself, but I need a hint or something for Tiny Isle...
One thing I really wanted to know is how this game is made - technically wise. I can't imagine how he programmed such an open ended, emergent system that works so well as a 2d game.
That's actually very easy to program - it's just hard to come up with as a game concept You just need to read player input and when arrows or space key is pressed call update function on text tiles. They read surrounding tiles and execute expression. That's about it
@@r033cx this was a very basic explanation, of course you have to read the player input and of course you have to dispatch events and execute something when the state changes, that's the bread and butter of anything in game development. The "execute expression" you cited is what is the mystery for me - what are the data structures that define the entities? Does each object possess every possible property and behaviour and just turns them on/off, or does the system inject and remove these behaviours when needed? How does the system evaluate the expression and dispatch the changes, or does it at all? Maybe each entity is responsible to watch the environment and decide for itself its own rules? What may be the semantics to resolve priorities and collapses in the rules? I don't think the system is actually that much complicated, but I don't think it is very simple too. When I was making the powers and passives in the game my team released last year, I started thinking it would be very easy, but them it turned out to be way more complex than what I expected, but very open ended and customizable at the same time. Of course I don't expect the developer to just give all of us the Baba source code, but I want to see him giving some talk about the technical aspects of the game (the talk I watched on youtube was very centered on design). Usually these kind of talks leave us with some great insights.
@@felipimacedo I'd guess there is a hash-table with verbs as keys and objects having those properties (with possible duplocates and not-modifiers) as elements. When player gives an input, game goes through all the verbs in predetermined order and executes their action for the objects having these properties. Whenever a sentence is broken or created, the hash-table is updated immediatly I'm guessing this based on some interactions, for example how "X is defeat" has effect only if the rule exists after all the movements are done, whereas "X is tele" has effect only if the rule exists before the movement. Hence, it seems like tele is executed before move, and move is executed before defeat. Also, having "X is move" twice makes X move two blocks at once, hence the list of objects having the verb seems to contain duplicates. Interactions between verbs/actions (for example hot and melt, "X is Y" and "X is not Y", death of X and "X has Y) are part of the behavior of said verb/action, and these can be checked using the hash-table. Of course, there are also own data structures for "X has Y" and "object1 is object2" type of sentences, but they should work similarly.
I saw screenshots of this game but hearing how it plays makes me curious to try it. Too bad my backlog is huge or else I think I'd try it out right away
Thank you so much for picking Baba Is You for this year's final video! It was extremely heartwarming to hear such positive words about the game; I'm really glad that it left such an impression on you. Have a good rest of the year & onwards!
I've been playing puzzle/logic games my whole life, and this is hands down my favorite game of all time. Took me 80 hours to complete 100% and loved every second of it. You sir are a genius. Baba is best :)
how about that level editor? although, I've been having fun with the custom levels from the community.
Praise the genius.
Will M. Haha it’s coming
I can’t wait either bro
Keep making games! We'll love to see what you come up with next. :)
I got stuck on a level in Baba, put the game down, and then went on with my day. Next morning I woke up with the solution fully formed in my head. I've never had a puzzle game do that to me.
Sad
To me it happens all the time. Sometimes I forget about a game and a few days/weeks or even months later it just randomly pops into my mind with the solution :D I gave up on it, but my subconscious figured it out in the back of my mind.
Same thing happened to me during one of the final puzzles during the witness
Fits the programming theme then. This constantly happens to me when im stuck with something while coding. I often walk into the office in the morning with a fix for some bug in my head that i came up with while i was sleeping.
That happened to me a couple times for one level but I just kept coming up with new ways to be wrong instead.
"We need to be open, but we also don't want to disappear when we use ourselves." Man, that's pretty deep.
And just like real life, the solution is cloning yourself and killing off the original.
That worked out really well in Living with Yourself.
Hmm... We should be open-minded but we should never lose who we are.
Just make yourself have yourself.
Reminds me of "I want you to expect the unexpected, and prepare for what is not there."
Bruh, does the use bit remind anyone else of hdoom, or am I just a dirty minded individual?
GMTK: "If you haven't played Baba Is You yet, it's time to pause the video, go to Steam or the Nintendo E-Shop and get the game."
Me: "This seems like something I should do. Right now."
Me: *does exactly those things*
Months later the TH-cam algo serves this video up again.
Me: *notices the video wasn't finished, can't remember why*
Start video
GMTK: "When you're done, come back and we'll chat more about how the game builds its brain-busting puzzles."
This experience made me question exactly how much of my life is under my own control.
You is not you
I'm the man with the controller and I confirm.
ALGORITHM KNOWS
👤is🆗
It's evolving... I've paused the video to get the game on Steam just exactly _before_ this line.
My absolute favorite sentence forming moment I've ever had in Baba is You was definitely the moment when I made "Empty is you". I literally just spent several minutes just moving things around laughing my head off as I tried to grasp what the heck I'd just done.
Yep ... that level is named "Horror Story" for a REASON (and don't forget its remix, "Existential Crisis").
ME doing LEVEL IS SHIFT: Oh!
Presses Space and Z a few times: OH!
Level Is Fall is also just really funny
Space is my favorite, I beat that level you mentioned just yesterday
EMPTY is one of the best mechanics in the game. When i played the first few levels featuring EMPTY i said to myself "this is probably the point in baba where solutions take a while to figure out for me..."
That reverse engineering strategy is very similar to a strategy called “backwards by design” in reformed education. Instead of blindly designing lessons to reach an end goal (of students learning something, i.e the purpose of mitosis), you use the desired end goal to inform and structure the previous lessons. The overlap between good game design and good education makes sense, but its something I didnt expect.
"Makes sense, but its something I didn't expect." ~Baba Is You in a nutshell
or basically "how do you find X?"
if X=Z+Y^2, what is Z, Y, and ^ ?
if Y^2=Y*Y, what is * ?
and so on until you get the very basics of maths that you cant simplify further
like that, you can also find the basics of the game which you need to teach the player
For this very reason my Bachelor thesis was about the use of Game mechanics for educational purposes XD
That's so interesting! Thank you for sharing!
I'm taking a class on video game education in the fall, thanks for this tidbit!
This is legitimately one of the most difficult games I've ever played. It starts out all simple, but by the time I reached world four it started taking me about one hour to complete each individual level. The solutions are that brain bending.
And then weeks to beat a level lol
I reached that level at about area 5 or 6, conveniently when some of my least favorite mechanics in the game were introduced (FALL and SWAP), though there were others i found pretty difficult in earlier areas as well. Beating areas 7, 9, and 10 took me WEEKS on end and even longer for some of the secret stuff.
one hour? lol I once tele was introduced I could do about a level every few days, never going to finish at this rate
Would you rather need to turn levels into stuff?
I'm already at this stage in world two, It's SO hard omfg. not the good kind of hard either, the kind of hard that makes you feel like a dumbass when you figure it out finally. :/
I love that you called Goose Game a "Honk-em-up"
I love he didn't make it the subject of the video given it's ridiculously over-rated and only as big as it is because a legion of morons keep shouting memes at each other about it.
I've heard that the developers have done some terrible things, but you should do your own research into that.
@@Jayfive276
Peace was never an option
Really? What? I’ve spent about 20 minutes Googling and have come up with bupkiss
@@julianemery718 They thought that having made a mediocre meme game meant that they were now the authority on political issues and could tell people how to vote using official media. Not the first time mediocre indie devs have shown that they have a superiority complex.
Context: i.redd.it/oercqiamgu241.png
Hearing the background music gives me ptsd from hours spent not getting the damn solution to prison break
You played prison break? What was it like
i still dont get the solution to prison break. Damn that level
Ugh that level sucks. I eventually gave up and looked up the answer, and instead of an "Oh, I get it!" Moment I had an "OH COME ON!" one.
That's one that makes you feel incomprehensibly stupid once you figure it out. Because there's so little there that the solution *should* be obvious. There just aren't enough other things you could possibly do. But it still takes you ages and when you finally get it you think "this is something I should have figured out two hours ago"
Haha, it took me ages to figure that one out, coming back to it again and again! In the end I was like, "Hmm, I wonder if *this* will work"... and luckily it did, and I learned a new thing I could do. :)
I can't bear to look any of them up, because that means I'll never get to actually solve them.
Thanks very much for watching GMTK this year! Time for a much-needed break and then I’ll be back in the new year. Just a note that the title and thumbnail for this video will be changed in a couple days for consistency with the others in this annual series - just wanted to keep the surprise for the video’s launch!
✨ Fantastic video Mark!
Great choice, would've been my selection for 2019 as well. I have to admit I didn't make it all the way through "META" though - and I used hints a few times. A must play for everyone who loves thinking outside of the box.
Cheers Mark. Have a nice Holiday. You deserved it!
What? No list of the best games of the decade? :(
How about a Bosskey on Environmental Station Alpha next? The Game's great, didn't expect less from Arvi Teikari after having played Baba first.
“They’re never red herrings”
The KeKe text in “Return of the Scenic Pond” would like to have a word with you.
There are actually two different solutions to that level. One uses an actual Keke and one doesn't.
@@MattEngarding honestly I like the one utilizing Keke a lot more
Regardless, it’s still the hardest level. I watched someone spend half of their four-hour stream stuck on that level.
@@brennanruiz1803
Aliensrock?
That One Guy
Yep. He was so dead inside by the end of it that he wasn’t even happy to finish the level.
My favourite part of this game is when you can make "Baba is Level", leave the level, and walk around on the map into the goddamn negative zone.
Have you "beaten" the map?
That's a thing? Oh noooooooooooo. My brain is melting just reading that.
@@sirprintalot You haven't seen shit
Yeah, that literally blew my mind
hey you might want to be more careful with spoiler next time
"And he's more interested in surprises and silliness than rock-hard challenge, making for a game that will make you laugh more than it will make you frustrated." Ah, I see. I guess I'm just really stupid then.
Lol I thought the exact same
I read this comment at the exact moment he said that 😂
What impressed me most about Baba is You was that even though there's over 200 levels, and even though I had to look up some of them online cause I was stumped for a couple days, there was only a single level where the solution felt like unfair bs.
And that was a hidden level in a secret area inside a secret area in another secret area.
the text squish solution is used nowhere else. I feel you. Also, the community designed level packs use that technique all the time. gg.
Wait, Return of Scenic Pond?
I thought it was gonna be PARADE but im only slightly surprisec as while text stacking is a requirement in some other levels, it is always a nightmare to figure out.
@@iantaakalla8180 the level "tiny pond" where you got to do flag is key then key is you and open an then open the right water to mak key is you and win to win
This video included the solution to a puzzle I was stuck on. I promised myself I'd not look up solutions, so this worked as a nice loophole
If you are interested in looking for solutions while not doing so, there's a site with a guide called BABA is Hint.
It's great to put things in perspective, and it always gives multiple levels of hints so you can attempt it with as little help as possible.
@@gustavowadaslopes2479 That site is awesome
I never want the answer, but sometimes I need a little push
@@personperson3804 Yeah, the concept sounds weird, but it's pefect for puzzle games.
@@gustavowadaslopes2479 Woa thank you so much for that!!
Finding a loophole to solve a Baba Is You puzzle = on brand.
I JUST REALIZED YOU COMPLETED THE FIRST LEVELS USING A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT METHOD I'VE NEVER SEEN.
I had a friend play some of the earlier levels of baba, and that's something I noticed a lot. The game's levels can lead to some strong freedom of solution sometimes, but not always.
Many of the early levels have a wide array of _possible_ solutions, yes. Partly because the player needs to not only _learn_ the basics (creating/breaking rules, etc.) but have room to _experiment with_ them so that they can learn more.
One of my favorite levels is the one on that tiny island on the lower-right of the map (I think its level name was literally "?"). You can literally just walk over to the Flag to win the level, but if that is all you do then go back and play it again because you forgot something.
Another favorite is "Broken Expectations", where you will immediately notice a rule stating "TEXT IS NOT PUSH" yet somehow you are still able to move the text around...? Before you can solve the level you have to reason out just what's going on here.
@@Stratelier the reason you can move text around in that level is because there is a rule stating "BABA is SHIFT".
*Me chilling in the corner just stacking 4 pieces of text in chasm level broken* : tttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt
Never heard about this game, but seeing the inventive concept put a smile on my face. That's so neat / interesting. Gonna get it for sure.
Me hate this game because me dumb.
But for real though it's a great game. Just not for me. I'm way too stupid to beat any of the later levels.
@@jimmyjohnjoejr I can relate
I was so afraid when I quickly looked at the thumbnail, and Baba Is You was nowhere to be found! Now I realize it's made of previous year's winners.
I'm so happy that this game is getting the recognition that it deserves. Absolutely mind blowing game mechanics and a flawless execution. I haven't had so many "ahá!" moments since Portal 2!
After completing 120 levels, my progress has basically slowed down to 1 solved level every few days. Baba is make me feel slow.
the reward for continuing is worth it. shoot for 225 levels!
baba make me not move
yeah too hard for my liking after a while it just gets too ridiculous
I was stuck for a few months, but decided to take another jab.
Finally started figured a few solutions per day, and them BOOM, more and more levels and solving more per day than ever.
How many are in the game? I've done 49
funny you say that you didn’t like the level “prison” (the one where you trap keke under words to push them apart) because that’s actually one of my favorites! I think the solution is really clever and it teaches players how objects become part of the background when they aren’t assigned any properties. to each their own though haha
There are a ton of concepts in Baba which are insane.
Getting stuff under text or other objects feels so wacky and mind bending.
I got through a lot of the rest of the game before finally solving 'prison'. It literally took me weeks if not months. It looked impossible to me to beat it with the words given that I was convinced there was some secret shenanigans going on. I really thought: "maybe there's a KEKE so far off screen that I have to hold left for 10 seconds". And once you start thinking like that, you'll never find the solution LOL
Prison was fine, if a bit unintuitive at first. Its extra stage "dungeon" I also solved, but I still have no idea why the solution there worked.
It makes no sense why text can be pushed onto the object that is you if the object that is you cant move. Normally when something is push but cant be pushed any further in a direction, it acts like stop in that direction.
The only way I can think is maybe when the game is processing the chain of moves in that situation it tries to move things in stages such that somehow the text moves and then the object that is you would move but then the game realizes it cant so it doesnt but by that time the text has already moved hence being able to overlap... But that feels more like a glitch than a mechanic imo.
Anyway, Prison and Dungeon were really the only two puzzles in the game I felt required concepts that hadnt been introduced prior, which felt odd since they were late puzzles in that area.
@@Mennenth i don't see a problem there. If an object is push, it can be pushed, it does not say it pushes other objects. In your example, if baba is not push and not stop, that means that you are basically part of the background for objects moving onto your space. Its the same as you overlapping objects that are not push and not stop
@@Mennenth objects are solid only when PUSH or STOP is applied to them (the exception being TEXT which is always PUSH). Even if BABA IS YOU, that does not make Baba solid, so other objects including text can be pushed on top of Baba. You’ve probably pushed text over background objects plenty of times without even giving it a second thought.
It’s unintuitive at first but makes sense once you mull it over a bit. Brilliant, imo.
I've never been disappointed by these picks. I pause the video and buy the game the moment he announces it. I have gotten my money's worth every single time and always have a lot to say about the game to my friends too.
Benjamin Uytiepo Enjoy the game! And remember to do all the levels
I wish you the best of luck! This game is actually mind-breakingly difficult 😅
@@kuzidas4213 I've definitely run into a few roadblocks in the couple hours I've played. However, the premise makes it easy to say "I am missing something" where other games leave you feeling "I'm being cheated."
All the games listed before are worth it too. I'd have picked Outer Wilds as my innovative game of the year, but hey ho.
@@EricBenjamin518 Oh, the game will definitely make you say "How was I supposed to know that?" for 50% of the solutions.
9:40 Diving into some deep philosophical territory right there mark
A wonderful final video, and conclusion to this superb 2019 for GMTK! Have a great holiday Mark!
Yeah, the game is very creative and impressive
cringe
i got stuck on tiny pond for like an hour bc I didn't realize that the flag would permanently become the key even after you broke the rule
Ayy its you
you never turn the key back to the flag
same, I ended up looking for the solution in youtube because I knew I was missing something, and now im stuck in tiny island
Yeah, that is really unintuitive. Object is object is permanent, object is attribute has to remain intact.
@@leow.2162 I think it makes perfect sense. If you turn Baba into Flag with ''Baba is Flag'', there's no Baba anymore, only flags. Since the sentence was originally supposed to be a statement that affects all the Babas, and now there are no Babas, so of course breaking the sentence doesn't do anything.
Meanwhile the ''Object is property'' sentences need to be in tact to function, because the object itself was not changed, so breaking the sentence still affects that particular object's property.
(Also it makes for really cool solutions like ''Baba is Keke is Baba'' so I'm definitely not comlaining.)
"whe you are done come back and watch the rest of the video"
The year is 40532 and am on the verge of finishing the game my great great great...
just 1 extra secret level and...
10 more appeared D:
oh wait! is that...
A LEVEL INSIDE A LEVEL INSIDE A LEVEL INSIDE A LEVEL INSIDE A LEVEL??
Never has anything in my life made me feel as dumb as I do while playing this game... every time I beat a level I think ‘hey, I’m getting the hang of this now!’ only to be proven wrong as soon as I start the next one. I love it.
No point even making this when the obvious answer is FIFA 20, what an absolute breath of fresh air, never played anything like it.
Joking. Just in case.
@@WithScienceAsMySheperd Dammit, this is a much better joke
I disagree, FIFA 20 was too generic and not at all creative. FIFA 19 however, *is* the real game changer especially with the all new default controls.
BEN GRAND lmao my dude
wdym, Fifa 20 innovated how scummy a company could possibly be, with the Switch version.
@@bongobliss5795 I agree. The narrative driven single player mode of Adventures of Alex Hunter had me shook. That ending made me fall from my seat.
“We need to be open, but we don’t want to disappear when we use ourselves” - I think I read that in a self help book once.
One of the best things about the game is that it makes you think sentences like this.
"I have to have Keke stop before Keke has stop"
"I can't move and be hot at the same time"
"I can't figure out how to tell Me what to do because Me is not you, but I can push Me in the right direction"
I love how all the rules of a level are visible - sometimes being "out of bounds" so you can't change them. It helps reinforce the game's central idea, and lets you literally check the rules if you're stuck.
when baba forms "is is is" i feel that
Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo
Baba is isis?
Isisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisisis
@@ECL28E *oh no*
to be honest, if that actually worked, i feel like that would be a programming nightmare. it would set all of the is in that sentence to other is which then change themsevles into themselves, which, in my experience, probably wouldnt go well
Very happy to see Baba here, it is hands down one of my favourite games this year.
Love how these indie games are the ones that bring innovation to the table, thanks for giving exposure to these kind of games Mark!
I'm glad you brought up "tiny pond", because I spent probably 2 hours on that puzzle. It was the first level where I was just completely lost, but when I beat it, i felt like such an idiot because the solution was so simple. The funny part to me is that my solution was more complicated than the one you showed, but was mind blowingly "simple" once I beat it. Seeing you do it now just further made me feel like an idiot though lol
BABA IS LOVE!
Absolutely one of my favorite games ever. I love the way you can just mess with all the rules to see what you can get.
This does, however, have a drawback once you get to more difficult levels. The first being Prison, where you have to realize that TEXT IS PUSH BUT ONLY OVER OTHER TEXT. And other crazy rules that you never get to know.
I still haven't finished Meta-15. Maybe someday.
Meta-15 is kind of a gimmick. The level is called "The box". The hint is a common saying related to that...
That's not the gimmick in Prison - it's that objects that an object that is you can be made to overlap with a pushable object given an object that's stop and a second "you" object.
What? That’s not how prison works at all? The gimmick is to realize that both You and Text are not Stop and You isn’t inherently Push, so you can push text on top of another instance of yourself to break sentences.
@@DrGandW You have to inherently understand that TEXT is always PUSH, even when you're on top of text. Later on you have to learn even more quirks about TEXT that the game doesn't spell out for you. I get that putting the meta rules such as TEXT IS PUSH FOR TEXT, etc. on every level would be ridiculous, but for ones that it's necessary to understand to come to the solution, it would feel a LOT more fair to spell out the meta rules.
Meta-15 is my absolute favorite puzzle in the game. It took the meta of the game to the absolute limit.
Absolutely adored the game's simplistic art direction. Even when I was away from the pc or the handheld, I would find myself jotting the puzzles onto paper and attempting to solve from there.
I am SO glad you picked this game. The most clever game I've ever played
I expected it to be Hypnospace Outlaw, as you were listing off previous innovative games, but I think this fits the bill as well. Baba is You is one of my top games of the year, and my #2, if not #1 puzzle game of all time
Is your #1 puzzle game Portal?
@@likesflower My guess is The Witness! Let's see...
Now I'm curious for your #1. Commenting now to get the notification when you tell us
@@Fitzis That would be The Witness. I loved the environment and style of it, and the simplistic look, but engross nature, of the puzzles really pulled it all together for me. I know peopled dislike it, but its my personal favorite
@@Imjustheretonotbefined Hey I guessed right! You owe me a coke ;)
Baba is you gave me bloody goose bumbs, what an amazing concept wow! How have I never heard of this game before???
No advertising budget means no initial hype, which means no interest from the big games media who need the hype to get enough clicks to justify taking the time to write a review
Yeah it had a pretty quiet launch. I never would have discovered it if I hadn't been watching a twitch stream that changed games in the middle of it.
I kinda like that though, it feels like I have this precious gem of an awesome game that I get to share with people who never heard of it before
I wanted to study, but now I have watch this.
Same :(
Same
Same
Same
JUST DO ITTTTTTT
YOUR DREAMS CAN COME TRUE IF YOU STOOOOP TH-cam
At 13:10 ish, I literally said "Ohhhhh" out loud when I learned that you can use NOT as a prefix. (I.e. "NOT Baba IS you" as opposed to "Baba IS NOT you.") Mind blown. Gotta love this game.
It's beautiful. Parallels life and the experiential process of learning in many ways.
What an absolute gem of a game.
I never THOUGHT of using a Jet-pac in Scribblenauts. I solved every problem with a Pterodactyl, Pterosaur, or Archeopteryx
Same thing, really. The problem is that in a game like Scribblenauts, possibilities are endless but practicality beats it all. Too many stages can be beaten by using rope, glue, something that lets you fly, and other similar "boring" items over using the millions of wacky solutions at your disposal. Probably the main reason why later games moved away from environmental problem-solving and towards helping characters that need something.
You know game has to be freaking innovative when it beat Disco elysium
Yep! Although I don't think Disco Elysium's as much innovative as it is well executed.
What about Noita and Slay the Spire?????
@@yashkaushik6116 Noita has only one trick: destructible environments (even though it's executed EXTREMELY well). It doesn't really build on that trick beyond some very simple interactions (oil and wood catch fire, water douses fire).
Slay the Spire is a deck building game... And... that's about it.
Baba is you is innovative in how it continuously and nearly infinitely builds upon it's own rules creating newer and better challenges as the game progresses.
@@yashkaushik6116 Funnily enough, Arvi Teikari is a developer on Noita.
Yash Kaushik those are both great games. Not very innovative. Slay the Spire is probably my indie game of the year.
I wish I was smart enough for puzzle games. Everything other than Tetris-style games make me feel so stupid.
It's not about being good, it's about liking to solve problems. You get good over time as you play them.
What part of the puzzle games makes it difficult for you?
I'm pretty dumb at the game myself but with some bullshitting around, some patience, a fist through the wall, and frequent breaks, I end up solving levels that I thought I'd never solve so soon.
But I can understand if that's not anyone's taste. Especially if you want a relaxing game session. Your brain may melt from overuse. Lol.
Yeah, its definitely not for everyone, and I have to be in the mood (and have the time) to sit down for an hour or two and think.
I played a shitload of puzzle games to improve my INT stat and uh... you basically need to A) understand the mechanics (like REALLY understand them) and B) build the solution backwards from the end via logic within the context of the game. You get good at it eventually.
Example: I see a door in Portal and I'm like what the... That door is too high! And even if those platforms could go up that high they wouldn't reach far enough horizontally; I can't jump that far... The ONLY solution must be to portal the wall with a hardlight bridge AFTER being on top of the platform. But that's impossible unless... The ONLY solution is to get myself on the platform while already having the first portal set............ And this process continues until you have the whole solution.
Example puzzle was this: steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=68461270
9:40 "We need to be open, but we also don't want to disappear when we use ourselves"
That's actually kinda deep, man
This is the first game picked for "most innovative game" that I played beforehand, and it certainly deserves every bit of praise it has gotten. This is the only puzzle game I've ever played where I can sit for hours staring at the screen for one puzzle and not feel annoyed. That's because the "eureka" moments in Baba are unprecedented. The way it builds your knowledge base up and expects you to keep using it in unique ways makes it feel approachable despite the difficulty; you never feel like a level is completely impossible. It's a lot like learning a new language.
Amazing game, please do yourself a favor and play it without spoilers if you have not.
Reminds me of a flash game called changetype by nitrome?
Basically in that game you have a gun that switches the function of two blocks. Like you have spikes that kill you if you touch them and bricks that you can walk on, but if you shoot both of them with the gun, suddenly bricks kill you and you can walk on spikes. Or if you shoot a coin and a wall, suddenly you can walk on coins and collect walls.
Actually, prison was a hella easy level for me, as i found it's gimmick by accident while stuffing around in earlier levels. When i saw the level, it instantly clicked and it was one of the easiest but coolest levels for me. Guess everyone else was smart enough to not be stuffing around on the earlier levels.
There's all kinda fun stories to be had when you take a long or a little while figuring a level;
See the level in 14:09
I didn't figured making KEKE IS SKULL IS KEKE.
I spent hours on it not figuring that.
After turning the BUG into SKULL I figured How to use that to shift the BELTs position and create a clear passage.
@@gustavowadaslopes2479 yeah that level is my least favorite in the game, made me wonder how it got into the final game when i figured it out.
"But when you're done..."
I'm on 109 levels in and I'm starting to think you're putting way too much faith in me.
The best part about Baba is you is explaining/discussing the rules and solutions. My brother and I would often startle our parents by shouting something like "you can't be Baba because key is you! Make door float and sink! No, Keke is push so we get key is death! And we're dead again! Argh!!"
glad I made a “spoilers” playlist.
I’ll be back after I play this game!
Great idea im going to do the same!
Having not played much, he doesn't really spoil much, maybe one thing about an unexpected level idea later on. Considering how complex the game is, I doubt I will remember the solution when I play it.
@Zaziuma he spoils a major twist actually (map screen)
@@nickfelten5068 And so did you now, so good job
@@Atypical-Abbie He also showed a level I don't remember seeing, and I'm at the stage after the map screen twist.
The stage on 13:58 is my favorite. It is much better than “set something to move and find a spot to go”. From this level, you understand that this game has sooo much to explore.
I'm really glad you went with Baba is you! I've been blown since I discovered it!
Another game I would have accepted is Streets of Rogue. It feels a lot less innovative compared to Baba is you, but it still manages to give the player an incredible amount of liberty (the most I've played, to be honest).
It's like a rogue-lite GTA in which you have to do missions in any way you want. For example, you have to steal from a chest in a bank. You can kill everyone and get the key, put some chemicals in the ventilation system to poison the building, you can befriend the clerk and ask for the key, pay a goon to kill everyone, cut a window and use a lockpick to open the chest and many, many more.
Well, I've wrote a lot more than I thought, but, to be quick, just go check Streets of Rogue, it will be worth your time
The moment you started pushing the rule blocks around I knew where this game was going and I was instantly sold, going to get it right now!
Rose IS Red. Violet IS Blue. Flag IS Win. Baba IS You.
man i know it's been a while but thank you so much for this, I recently picked up this title and I'M LOVING EVERY SECOND OF IT
When your teacher said that knowing "English" is more efficient than making a game.
Arvi Teikeri: Haha, Me is win and You is shut :)
knowing how the game works, that means he'd have to walk into himself to win and she can be opened with a "key"
Me is open
As genius as the gameplay is in of itself, for me it would never have worked without the asthetics, the way the pixel art movies, gives it a lot of personality, but more important the music, it's so simple, yet so soothing and it just never gets old to listen to.
Was low-key hoping for that emotional moment from Peach Saliva's stream where they get into, like, a five minute argument over how the game works
"Baba doesn't matter! You matter! Baba only matters because Baba is you!"
That stream was great for high quality quotes. It's inspiring to watch someone with legit brain damage fight against the absolute bullshit premise this game is built on. Amazin'.
I just wanted to say that I bookmarked this video six months ago and came back to watch it today, having 100%ed the game, just like you suggested!
This game is one of the hardest I've ever played while simultaneously making me talk like a baby.
This game is perfect to teach kids logic thinking. The sentences are like algorithms, and are simple enough to be learnable, but can get complex enough to spark the creativity necessary to understand problem solving. The fact that you aren't limited by the environment, but can use it in different ways is thinking out of the box. I love this concept
Can't wait for the level editor to come out
I have good news! (To be specific, the planned release time is early January, but it’s still very soon)
Really glad to see baba is you get some love, nobodys really talked about it since it launched and its still one of my favorite games of the year
The Return of the Obra Dinn soundtrack hits me so hard every time
I'm so happy that Baba is You is getting the attention it deserves because it has been my favorite puzzle game that I've played ever since I picked it up this year.
I love how in some levels, you can softlock by doing "Baba Is Rock" or something like that
is that consciousness uhhh
You can do that in almost every level by breaking the "(object) is you" sentence, that's why you can undo and reset levels
Oh man, as soon as this game was released it got added to the list of like 500 games in my backlog/wishlist that I still have to check out. Only recently have finally tried, for the first time ever, GTA5, a game from 2013. Someday I will get to you, Baba Is You. SOMEDAY!
I wish Snake Pass had stunned people
instead all these idiots are like "hurr the controls are hard"
that game deserves to be popular
To me, the game is way too slow. I love it to death and have played it in bits, but it's pacing just makes me so exhausted in just a short while. Same kind of effect happens with Human Fall Flat for me.
@@BFlorry the environments also aren't varied enough for my tastes.
I am so happy you choose to look at BaBa is You! This game has been with me all year long, and I'm still working on some of the levels.
From the video title I knew it was Baba is You. Not dissapointed.
My game of the year.
What about Noita and Slay the Spire?????
Absolutely love Baba is You. So many simple, yet great concepts working together to create the best "ah ha" moments I've ever experienced. Bonus points for being a game that's about coding/programming. It easily deserves the title of most innovative.
I've talked to Hempuli on the Goonstation discord, he's a great guy and I'm glad he's managed to reach such critical acclaim!
I've never talked to him personally but I got that impression when I was doing the post game content for ESA and looking up things I couldn't figure out myself on the Steam community. The way he interacted with the community was cool. I'm glad he's getting this attention too.
I have been waiting for a video on this! Baba is you is not about breaking the rules. It’s about breaking any and all assumptions you will have, and blowing your mind while doing it!
A "no brainer" for this year's pick.
- Nice.
As a music theorist, a psychologist and a consumer of youtube video games reviews, this is my favourite video of all time. Really. All time.
This literally blew my mind ! It's in several pieces now, I am slowly losing consciousness as of writing this comment.
GAME IS HOT
BRAIN IS MELT
*pushes all the flags into your brain*
FLAG IS BRAIN
There, fixed.
What I like about this game is not just the unique idea of re-arranging the logic, but also how well done the levels are themselves. The solutions aren't really complicated, and the levels are short and concise once you've actually figured out the puzzle. But you can spend a really long time trying out different things to solve the level, and you usually have several "Aha" moments per level as you put all the elements together, or you think you have an Aha moment, then you have a counter-Aha moment where you're like "oh no that won't work." It's so good!
I am constantly amazed by how simple the level solutions i can't figure out are.
Same. That's part of what makes it amazing -- level solutions are generally actually quite simple in concept, but challenging to actually figure out. An example of one that had me stumped for weeks: if two SHIFT objects overlap, they will shift each other at the same time, essentially functioning like a MOVE object.
It's so sad that no Triple A game ever makes the list, and nowadays as stagnant as the videogame market is the biggest software houses completely stopped "risking" it with new and innovative games. Thank God the world is full of creative people that still want to create content, just like you Mark. Thanks for this year of beautiful content
"one of my favorite levels, tiny pond" do you love suffering
There is an extra level for tiny pond with a minor variation that's even more frustrating
@@bhuvaneshrooney4044 After playing even more BABA: You call that frustrating? Wait until you get to Level is Push.
@@gustavowadaslopes2479 wait till you get to parade.
As always, you've given game designers more ways to think about approaching game design problems. Thanks Mark!
It's no secret that occasional puzzles in AAA games are usually uninspired and generally meh, whereas indie is the bottomless font of creativity. I wonder if indie puzzle designers ever guest star in AAA games, and if not, why not? Seems such a win-win.
Indie puzzle games are usually based on some weird abstract mechanics that have the entire game designed around them, whereas AAA games have tight margins and don't usually have time to develop more interesting puzzles. Secondly, Indie games tend to be built "backwards" relative to AAA games. AAA games have an end result in mind and build towards it, meanwhile indie games start with a loose set of whatever mechanics or ideas, then slap them around until something clicks and only then a whole game is built around those mechanics. Lastly, AAA games tend to try to have mass-appeal and weird esoteric puzzles just would not gel well with that goal in mind.
All those reasons combined mean that it's likely that AAA game puzzles are going to remain uninspired and boring for the foreseeable future. Off the top of my head I can only come up with Portal 2, but that feels like it's treated by everyone more like an Indie game with a AAA budget, so not exactly a AAA game with great puzzles.
@@tailez606 Can't argue with any of this, but I'm sure there is a way to build a creative puzzle into an AAA game by making it something non-integral. Plus I'm sure that talented indie puzzle makers can think of something that would fit the overall AAA game without shaking it up too much if need be.
Your videos are such high quality. From the 60fps to the amazing audio. I love it. Great work!!
Hey,
Any chance on making a video about keeping your scope small for your first couple games ? I know it's somewhat different from what we see in your channel, but I think it's still a relevant theme.
I support this idea
I have never agreed with one of these most innovative game choices more than this one, one of my all-time favorites.
OH, COME ON! This is the second year in a row where I can't watch your video because I haven't played the game yet!
*sigh *See you in the future, Mark!
have you done it yet
YES. Baba needs more love! Amazing concept, and fun puzzles. Had a blast with this one.
This game taught me one thing.
I COULD BE ANYTHING
ALL IS NOT YOU
Thanks for letting me know of this game, I went and got it and I love every second. Such a great idea AND wonderfully creative and diverse level design. Had I known about this earlier it would've been a Christmas present for probably several of my friends for sure.
@ 1:02 I knew you weren't gonna say Death Stranding but I thought you were gonna say it at the same time, it was really stressful!
It wasn't a game for me. It's an experience
@@jeromealday614 Definitely, bro!
Baba is you is one of the most innovativ games i've ever seen! great choice
As much as I agree with the game pic...I suck at it lol. It’s an amazing game but it’s really hard for me.
Ya. Games like this look so good but I always end up brute forcing midway thru and I'm never happy about that
I dont think anyone is good at Baba is you
Nicktendo 1
Yeah same. I just couldn’t get past the space level
I've always sucked at puzzle games like this. I can tell that this game is objectively brilliant, but trying to keep up in this video made my brain hurt.
I beat the game in ONE second
Almost wanted you to say something about Tiny Isle. My dumbass can't solve it for nothing...
But I'm so glad you've even brought this game up. Way more people needed to know about this one and it's definitely worthy of such praise.
But seriously, I'm not trying to spoil these puzzles for myself, but I need a hint or something for Tiny Isle...
CooptaBoop Is that the remix for Tiny Pond? I think a good hint for that would be that AND can be used just to make a sentence longer.
One thing I really wanted to know is how this game is made - technically wise. I can't imagine how he programmed such an open ended, emergent system that works so well as a 2d game.
That's actually very easy to program - it's just hard to come up with as a game concept
You just need to read player input and when arrows or space key is pressed call update function on text tiles. They read surrounding tiles and execute expression. That's about it
@@r033cx this was a very basic explanation, of course you have to read the player input and of course you have to dispatch events and execute something when the state changes, that's the bread and butter of anything in game development. The "execute expression" you cited is what is the mystery for me - what are the data structures that define the entities? Does each object possess every possible property and behaviour and just turns them on/off, or does the system inject and remove these behaviours when needed? How does the system evaluate the expression and dispatch the changes, or does it at all? Maybe each entity is responsible to watch the environment and decide for itself its own rules? What may be the semantics to resolve priorities and collapses in the rules?
I don't think the system is actually that much complicated, but I don't think it is very simple too. When I was making the powers and passives in the game my team released last year, I started thinking it would be very easy, but them it turned out to be way more complex than what I expected, but very open ended and customizable at the same time.
Of course I don't expect the developer to just give all of us the Baba source code, but I want to see him giving some talk about the technical aspects of the game (the talk I watched on youtube was very centered on design). Usually these kind of talks leave us with some great insights.
@@r033cx and sorry, I kinda sounded like I was arguing on my reply, but not really. I'm just mind blown by this game.
@@felipimacedo I'd guess there is a hash-table with verbs as keys and objects having those properties (with possible duplocates and not-modifiers) as elements. When player gives an input, game goes through all the verbs in predetermined order and executes their action for the objects having these properties. Whenever a sentence is broken or created, the hash-table is updated immediatly
I'm guessing this based on some interactions, for example how "X is defeat" has effect only if the rule exists after all the movements are done, whereas "X is tele" has effect only if the rule exists before the movement. Hence, it seems like tele is executed before move, and move is executed before defeat. Also, having "X is move" twice makes X move two blocks at once, hence the list of objects having the verb seems to contain duplicates.
Interactions between verbs/actions (for example hot and melt, "X is Y" and "X is not Y", death of X and "X has Y) are part of the behavior of said verb/action, and these can be checked using the hash-table.
Of course, there are also own data structures for "X has Y" and "object1 is object2" type of sentences, but they should work similarly.
I just noticed that all the game's Lua scripts are actually readable on the game folder...
Gosh I remember last year's video like it was yesterday. This year has flown by. Thanks for all the amazing content. This channel has potench
I saw screenshots of this game but hearing how it plays makes me curious to try it. Too bad my backlog is huge or else I think I'd try it out right away
Play it! It's the kind of game you pick up and put down a lot, taking a break when you get stuck on a puzzle tends to be really helpful
Thanks for helping me beat 2.11; I never would have gotten there without you specifically calling it out as an obtuse solution!
funny how "safe" is now actually in the game with the new update lol
Glad you address this game. This is one of the games that wowed me this year, and still play on occasion to finish the levels I've yet solved.