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Baba Is You
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Baba Is You
Baba Is You is a puzzle video game created by Arvi Teikari (known professionally as Hempuli), a Finnish independent developer. The game centers around the manipulation of rules—represented in the play area by movable tiles with words written on them—in order to allow the player character, usually the titular Baba, to reach a specified goal. Originating as a short demo built for the 2017 Nordic Game Jam, the game was expanded and released on 13 March 2019 for PC and Nintendo Switch. Mobile versions were released in June 2021. A free update titled "Baba Make Level" was released on November 17, 2021, featuring 250 new and previously unused levels and a level editor with online sharing. Baba Is You received generally favorable reviews from critics.
In each level, the player is presented with a one-screen puzzle consisting of various objects, characters, and movable word tiles. The player is given control of one or more characters or objects on the screen (most often, the player controls a character named Baba, a white creature). The word tiles consist of nouns corresponding to specific types of objects and obstacles on the field (such as Baba itself, the goal flag, walls and hazards, and other creatures), verbs such as IS and HAS, linking operators such as AND and NOT, and descriptive tiles determining the properties of these objects (such as YOU, which makes all instances of the object become controlled by the player; PUSH and PULL to make them movable; STOP to make them impassable; and WIN to specify the goal object).
When three or more word tiles (minimally consisting of one object, one verb, and one property or object) are aligned vertically or horizontally into a valid syntax, they create a rule that determines how the object behaves and that will be enforced until the string is broken up. For example, the goal can be changed by moving IS and WIN blocks to apply to another object, and the player can pass through objects by removing the STOP trait from them. Specific rules for a level can be placed in a way that the tiles cannot be broken up (for instance, by having the rule placed in an inaccessible corner), committing that rule for the entire level. The player completes a level when an object that is the subject of an IS YOU rule (i.e. an active player-character) occupies the same tile as an object that is the subject of an IS WIN rule (i.e. an active goal), or by itself IS WIN (i.e. the same object is the player and the goal); conversely, levels are never explicitly failed, but if there are no more IS YOU objects left (or there is no IS YOU rule) the player may be unable to proceed and have to undo or restart. It is, however, possible to use certain properties that function even without IS YOU objects (such as MOVE or SHIFT) to create a setup where an IS YOU rule is broken, then put back together later on or even at a separate location.
Objects can also be transformed into each other through the syntax <object 1> IS <object 2> (i.e. BABA IS FLAG would replace any Babas on screen with flags.) This can be prevented through <object 1> IS <object 1> (i.e. BABA IS BABA overrides all BABA IS <object> commands and would prevent the aforementioned transformation from occurring.)
The game contains 481 levels, spread across 3 level packs, with 231 in "Baba is you" (The base game before the "Baba make level" update), 88 in "Museum" (A collection of unused/scrap levels which were reworked and polished), and 162 in "New adventures" (Purely original content added in the "Baba make level" update). At the late-game stages of both "Baba is you" and "Museum", the player gains access to the noun LEVEL, from which point map screens in which levels are selected become levels in and of themselves, with the player transforming levels into objects and manipulating rules around the map screen to progress.
The theme of the 2017 Nordic Game Jam was "Not There", which prompted Teikari, a student at the University of Helsinki who had previously developed the Metroidvania-genre game Environmental Station Alpha, to envision a game concept based on manipulating logic operators. He pictured a block of ice standing next to lava but not melting, protected by the phrase "ICE IS NOT MELT". This sparked the idea of creating a puzzle game where the player would push words to form rules. Initially, each object was supposed to have intrinsic properties (e.g., ice would melt in the presence of lava) that could be disabled using the word "NOT". However, Teikari later concluded that the game would be more interesting if objects had no default properties.
He explained that levels were often created by brainstorming a "cool" or "amusing" solution, and then coming up with how the player would accomplish it. Teikari noted that "the most satisfying moments in puzzle games are those which present the player with simple but hard-to-wrap-your-head-around situations, so that solving the puzzle is about figuring out that one neat trick/twist". As with his previous projects, the game was developed using Multimedia Fusion 2, and a Lua scripting plugin; Teikari credited his friend Lukas Meller for help with the Lua implementations. Teikari wrote on Reddit that the naming of the characters Baba and Keke was inspired by the bouba/kiki effect.
Teikari stated in 2017 that he planned to release the full game in 2018, and placed a development version of the title for download at itch.io. After Baba Is You won at the Independent Games Festival in March 2018, a clone of the game was released by a French publisher on the App Store, using nearly the same graphics and calling itself the same name. Teikari worked with the French division of Apple to remove the offending app.
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Baba Is You AI simulator
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Baba Is You
Baba Is You is a puzzle video game created by Arvi Teikari (known professionally as Hempuli), a Finnish independent developer. The game centers around the manipulation of rules—represented in the play area by movable tiles with words written on them—in order to allow the player character, usually the titular Baba, to reach a specified goal. Originating as a short demo built for the 2017 Nordic Game Jam, the game was expanded and released on 13 March 2019 for PC and Nintendo Switch. Mobile versions were released in June 2021. A free update titled "Baba Make Level" was released on November 17, 2021, featuring 250 new and previously unused levels and a level editor with online sharing. Baba Is You received generally favorable reviews from critics.
In each level, the player is presented with a one-screen puzzle consisting of various objects, characters, and movable word tiles. The player is given control of one or more characters or objects on the screen (most often, the player controls a character named Baba, a white creature). The word tiles consist of nouns corresponding to specific types of objects and obstacles on the field (such as Baba itself, the goal flag, walls and hazards, and other creatures), verbs such as IS and HAS, linking operators such as AND and NOT, and descriptive tiles determining the properties of these objects (such as YOU, which makes all instances of the object become controlled by the player; PUSH and PULL to make them movable; STOP to make them impassable; and WIN to specify the goal object).
When three or more word tiles (minimally consisting of one object, one verb, and one property or object) are aligned vertically or horizontally into a valid syntax, they create a rule that determines how the object behaves and that will be enforced until the string is broken up. For example, the goal can be changed by moving IS and WIN blocks to apply to another object, and the player can pass through objects by removing the STOP trait from them. Specific rules for a level can be placed in a way that the tiles cannot be broken up (for instance, by having the rule placed in an inaccessible corner), committing that rule for the entire level. The player completes a level when an object that is the subject of an IS YOU rule (i.e. an active player-character) occupies the same tile as an object that is the subject of an IS WIN rule (i.e. an active goal), or by itself IS WIN (i.e. the same object is the player and the goal); conversely, levels are never explicitly failed, but if there are no more IS YOU objects left (or there is no IS YOU rule) the player may be unable to proceed and have to undo or restart. It is, however, possible to use certain properties that function even without IS YOU objects (such as MOVE or SHIFT) to create a setup where an IS YOU rule is broken, then put back together later on or even at a separate location.
Objects can also be transformed into each other through the syntax <object 1> IS <object 2> (i.e. BABA IS FLAG would replace any Babas on screen with flags.) This can be prevented through <object 1> IS <object 1> (i.e. BABA IS BABA overrides all BABA IS <object> commands and would prevent the aforementioned transformation from occurring.)
The game contains 481 levels, spread across 3 level packs, with 231 in "Baba is you" (The base game before the "Baba make level" update), 88 in "Museum" (A collection of unused/scrap levels which were reworked and polished), and 162 in "New adventures" (Purely original content added in the "Baba make level" update). At the late-game stages of both "Baba is you" and "Museum", the player gains access to the noun LEVEL, from which point map screens in which levels are selected become levels in and of themselves, with the player transforming levels into objects and manipulating rules around the map screen to progress.
The theme of the 2017 Nordic Game Jam was "Not There", which prompted Teikari, a student at the University of Helsinki who had previously developed the Metroidvania-genre game Environmental Station Alpha, to envision a game concept based on manipulating logic operators. He pictured a block of ice standing next to lava but not melting, protected by the phrase "ICE IS NOT MELT". This sparked the idea of creating a puzzle game where the player would push words to form rules. Initially, each object was supposed to have intrinsic properties (e.g., ice would melt in the presence of lava) that could be disabled using the word "NOT". However, Teikari later concluded that the game would be more interesting if objects had no default properties.
He explained that levels were often created by brainstorming a "cool" or "amusing" solution, and then coming up with how the player would accomplish it. Teikari noted that "the most satisfying moments in puzzle games are those which present the player with simple but hard-to-wrap-your-head-around situations, so that solving the puzzle is about figuring out that one neat trick/twist". As with his previous projects, the game was developed using Multimedia Fusion 2, and a Lua scripting plugin; Teikari credited his friend Lukas Meller for help with the Lua implementations. Teikari wrote on Reddit that the naming of the characters Baba and Keke was inspired by the bouba/kiki effect.
Teikari stated in 2017 that he planned to release the full game in 2018, and placed a development version of the title for download at itch.io. After Baba Is You won at the Independent Games Festival in March 2018, a clone of the game was released by a French publisher on the App Store, using nearly the same graphics and calling itself the same name. Teikari worked with the French division of Apple to remove the offending app.