BABA is YOU and GOOD: Goon-Made Game Of The Month

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Video Games > BABA is YOU and GOOD: Goon-Made Game Of The Month

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

The main thing that got me so interested in this game was the dev's really strong Twitter game, figured I should link some of them here:

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1098748673905827845

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1096591867196686336

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1064614587608252417

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1059277313840422913

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1058817039635226624

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1032395461519269888

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 03:47

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# ¿ May 19, 2024 08:43

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Okay something's screwy with words being pushed by multiple entities at once, I think it's behaving inconsistently. (Spoilers for further fields)

This exact setup just worked earlier, the level's marked as solved. Except now that I'm trying to record a GIF of my solution the word is getting pushed through the other BABA rather than getting snatched away.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 20:29

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

The Bloop posted:

Can someone give me a clear explanation of what SHIFT does. I just encountered it and I'm having a tough time understanding it's behavior

Anything that overlaps the SHIFTer gets pushed into the block that the SHIFTer is facing. It makes more sense when the SHIFTer happens to be the conveyor belt.

gmq posted:

Nice easter egg rear end IS EAT

Ahahahahahahaha 100% accidental, amazing.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 20:53

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Fedule posted:

In the grand tradition, spoilered hints of escalating explicitness;

Once you've ruled out the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.

It is impossible to override the top right rules of BABA IS BABA AND DEFEAT, and GRASS IS DEFEAT.
It is impossible to attach any more predicates to FLAG because there's a WALL in the way.
It is impossible to bring the WIN predicate to the starting side of the GRASS.
It is impossible for anything other than KEKE to be YOU.
Therefore...
You're going to have to find a way to get KEKE across the GRASS, despite GRASS IS DEFEAT and KEKE being the only available YOU.

To get KEKE across the GRASS, YOU are going to have to do something very, very, stupid.

Remember, kids, YOU cannot be DEFEATed if nothing is YOU!

Did you know that you can press A/Space to pass time while in a fail state?

You'll have to use the three BABAs with MOVE to PUSH KEKE across the GRASS.

You'll need to set everything up so that KEKE IS PUSH (but not YOU) during the crossing, but KEKE IS YOU at some point after crossing.

I've shown one way of doing this here. There may be others.

So I started out trying to record my solution to show how finicky it was compared to yours, but it wound up leading me down a rabbit hole of testing to find that conflicts between two MOVE-ing entities trying to push the same object seem to be resolved with entity ID prioritization, so one specific BABA will steal an object from a BABA with a higher entity ID#. A lot of games do this since it's an easy way to resolve these things but it seems like a shame to have a rule that can outright invalidate a solution in a game that's about all the rules being visible:

(Spoilers for the Further Fields puzzle)

The solution is identical each time, but just swapping those two BABAs makes all the difference.

It seems like there should be more true to the spirit of the game to have a 100% consistent mechanic to handle this specific kind of conflict, but I don't know what that'd be.

# ¿ Mar 16, 2019 22:55

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

how is

how KEKE get PRAGNENT

# ¿ Apr 5, 2019 04:40

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

All right, I need some hints on Depths Extra-4 (Buried Treasure). I understand this level was patched recently (like yesterday) and I don't know what it looked like before, so bear that in mind if you're a Switch player I guess. I can make Keke is You just fine the same way the previous level worked, but then the You just gets pushed into the lava. I suspect there might be some double-move-across-the-lava thing you could do, but I don't know how that would help me. If I could make Baba is Move in the space between "You" and the lava it would work, but I can't figure out how. Having two Babas doesn't seem to do anything either; I thought of lining up "Baba is Keke is You" vertically with one Baba up top and one in the middle, but then I can't push You all the way to the right to link them all up. Help? Just point me in the right direction.

The hint that finally got me on the right track was you need two Babas.

If you want more, in escalating explicitness (but with none outright spelling out the solution):

As cool as the double-push-Text-across-the-lava maneuver is, it's unnecessary. The lava is mostly irrelevant.

All of the necessary statements are vertical.

Getting everything positioned so you can safely and repeatedly move YOU is the first goal.

Getting KEKE positioned properly is the next.

KEKE needs to be all the way to the left, to the left of YOU, and you need to figure out how to get it there.

Good luck. It might be one of my favorite puzzles.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2019 16:52

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

I noticed in writing up those hints that I had to open the game up to write them out, because the solutions in this game are VERY easy to forget. In a way this can be frustrating, especially when a level calls for you to redo quirks that previous levels relied on*, but as an upside it's going to make this game really replayable once I give it time and forget everything. The only other puzzle game I can think of where that applies is DROD, and considering DROD's maybe the best puzzle game ever made that's a really good sign.

* VIP Area needing Prison's text-overlap trick was rough, and Crushers requiring the double-shift trick was probably the most frustrated I've been with the game; part of that was that I was staying up too late, though.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2019 16:59

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hyper Crab Tank posted:

So, uh... I kinda solved this puzzle in between writing the post and seeing this reply. And thankful as I am, now I'm kinda confused, because my solution doesn't track the hints at all. What I did (obvious spoiler for a Depths puzzle): KEKE is BABA, then build IS KEKE IS MOVE vertically in the little gap, with BABA offset one step to the left above it; then just put one Baba next to it and the other left of YOU, then move right. Both Babas become Kekes while nothing is now you, but the lower Keke will move one step more and make BABA IS KEKE IS YOU; then I just walked over to the box. At no point was KEKE to the left of YOU.

...that also works! :v:

I really really like my elaborate-rear end solution though, mostly identical to your solution but moved to the left for, as I know now, no reason:

_{(Hempuli plz don't patch out)}

# ¿ Apr 6, 2019 18:49

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

BABA is FINISHED.

At least until the editor is put together, good gravy there's a lot of potential with this game.

...though it just hit me that by buying on Itch.io I don't have a Steam version for the workshop. :negative:

# ¿ Apr 7, 2019 00:11

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Fedule posted:

Mostly unrelated but I love the moments when you get impossibly stuck on one puzzle for five hours and then finally solve it and then blaze through the next five puzzles in a couple minutes each.

The entirety of the Depths area blazed by for me, and it was fun the whole time. That area rules.

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 05:23

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Qylvaran posted:

Facing is checked after movement.

Not gonna lie I was hoping for a secret room somewhere that�s full of nothing but setups of �GAME RULE FACING is 2ND� and �GAME RULE MOVE is 1ST� to have an explanation for all of these hard coded mechanics.

Even better: let the player modify them. :shepface:

# ¿ Apr 9, 2019 19:09

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Venuz Patrol posted:

personally i think "intuition" is kind of a false goal to reach for in puzzle games, since figuring out obscure, but logical interactions between mechanics is one of the central points of fun in playing them.

more specifically, I think the fact that the level (in your example, Automation) is possible to beat is an endorsement of whatever details you can learn about the game's engine that let you reach the victory line.

then again i like live and breathe puzzles so i may not be a perfect mark for determining the proper difficulty curve of games like this

I guess why it bugs me so much is that the order of operations for things tends to be really arbitrary, the polar opposite of logical. The solution I posted earlier that would succeed or fail depending on which Baba was doing the pushing is a good example of this; there IS a logical reason for one Baba to push differently than another, but that OOP logic is invisible and requires programming knowledge to intuit.

And while yes, none of the puzzles require fiddling with OOP to solve, some of the possible solutions do, and if the solution you come up with first happens to be one that the invisible OOP rules invalidate then you�re plum out of luck.

# ¿ Apr 10, 2019 19:36

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

gonadic io posted:

Is there ever a list of what rules are implicit, e.g. text is push?

No, but that�s the only implicit rule, unless you�re also referring to OOP stuff.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2019 18:12

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Paul.Power posted:

I guess Text Is Word is technically an implicit rule, but that might be splitting hairs.

I suspect this isn�t actually true, because that would mean all text would be TEXT in addition to whatever that text spells out. TEXT is WORD never actually comes up so that�s just theorizing, though.

E: That sounds like a silly-enough interaction that it deserves a puzzle, tbh.

Pigbuster fucked around with this message at 22:00 on Apr 12, 2019

# ¿ Apr 12, 2019 21:58

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Fedule posted:

I have now been stuck on the supposedly easy patched version of A Way Out for like ten times as long as it took me to solve the very hard endgame remix version.

What was even so wrong with the original? It was a great level!

I had a fairly standard time with it when I got to it after release, had a somewhat harder time with the remixed version, and then I went back to the first Way Out after it had been patched to be completely different and the hardest/weirdest incarnation yet. It's almost like that one puzzle getting constantly screwed around with is part of the puzzle, but that just makes the remixed version even weirder because it's really easy by comparison now. I feel like it should be replaced with something else, having a remix of the "final puzzle" feels kinda weird in the first place.

# ¿ Apr 19, 2019 03:26

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli posted:

A Way Out used to have more moving parts to it but also be solvable without utilizing several elements. While trying to update it so that the player can't just skip entire parts of the puzzle (namely the Belt Is Shift room on the left I decided to remove one of the parts (the Skull Is Defeat bit) to make the level less overwhelming. Around this time I also saw a pretty interesting alternative solution, and since I was kind of fond of the aforementioned removed part, I ended up adding the remixed level, especially the spot where it's located now really needed something. I've tried not to massively mind there being alternative solutions as long as they still use most of the elements present, but it may very well be that A Way Out is currently harder than it should be, or that Another Way is easier.

Unrelated, but thanks to everyone here for the discussion & comments and sorry for fairly selectively replying to things! I've read it all (and recently re-read the thread) but the release has been quite exhausing and that has affected my ability to exhaustively (heh) reply to questions etc.

Are your music-making streams archived anywhere? I'm guessing "no" since Twitch doesn't have them but I've been attempting to emulate/remix the music and I'm embarrassingly bad at reverse-engineering synth instruments, even knowing that they're all based on basic waveforms.

...at least, I think you streamed music creation, it's possible I'm mis-remembering.

Pigbuster fucked around with this message at 07:57 on Apr 19, 2019

# ¿ Apr 19, 2019 07:54

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

ItBreathes posted:

If I were a less lazy man I'd make a bunch of witness-style puzzles in a minesweeper esque presentation and release it as GNUlines. I enjoyed it but there wasnt much functional difference between the environment theyvlaid out and just a bunch of puzzles in series.

Anyways, on topic, I bought Baba on itch and I don't think it does any updating. Should I be downloading new versions from itch?

Unlike most storefronts Itch doesn�t force you to update if you open the game executable directly. You need to open the Itch app and the play button will be replaced with an update button. Not sure how to update via the website.

# ¿ Apr 28, 2019 18:47

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1128432369965387776?s=21

:sadfan:

# ¿ May 15, 2019 01:24

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli posted:

Probably eventually! Since I'm the only person responsible for arranging this stuff, I decided not to add workload by considering merchandise before or immediately after release. I've been getting more into that now that the initial more stressful release phase has ended.

Still hoping for that fridge magnet set.

# ¿ May 17, 2019 01:36

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

flatluigi posted:

plush babas

Plush YOUs

# ¿ May 17, 2019 01:39

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1134239878881918981

# ¿ May 31, 2019 01:01

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

https://twitter.com/hamoustruck/status/1156227813642526720?s=21

KEKE is FIVE ACE

# ¿ Jul 30, 2019 16:54

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli posted:

A more fun thing I fixed:

Is that the fixed result or did you fix it into something else? I'm guessing the former because iirc fall takes place immediately so that would be an infinite otherwise, right?

# ¿ May 12, 2020 11:17

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1262522400266207232

BABA show FEET

# ¿ May 19, 2020 00:18

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

I sorta wish there was an easter egg room in the game that contained all of the innate rules, just as a meta explanation for where those rules are "coming from". Like a closed off area that has TEXT is PUSH EVERYWHERE and TEXT is NOT ALL EVERYWHERE. And it'd be fine if the rules were inaccessible and "EVERYWHERE" didn't even actually do anything, it'd just all be for the sake of... worldbuilding, I guess. That said, this game is a rabbit hole of potential and the very bottom is representing the entirety of the game's code with THING is THING rules, so... I'm not too torn up about those couple invisible rules.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2020 00:33

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli posted:

Haha, thanks

I added bees to the game!

ALL BEE is GOOD.

What would happen if CART didn't have MOVE? I was assuming that FOLLOW was basically just a more-specific PULL but that's clearly not the case.

# ¿ Aug 15, 2020 04:09

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

The BABA Twitter just shared this:

https://twitter.com/hopotion/status/1298211299369848832

This is really cool, it feels like a DROD puzzle. The one thing that makes me sad about this game is that the more complicated a level you want to make, the less non-rule space you have to work with. I realize that's the whole point of the game, but it does make me wonder if there's a way to make rules more compact. Making a level's rules active inside a different level somehow? I'm not sure how I feel about that, even though it's sorta similar to that suggestion I made a while ago to have the hardcoded rules represented somewhere. The difference is that that'd just be an easter egg, while having actual important rules on another level actually raises concerns. At that point it'd be little different to using BABA as YOU as a game creation tool. Though that... sounds pretty great, honestly. It really has potential as an early learning tool for programming (it already is, tbh).

Yes, I just came up with an idea and then immediately criticized that same idea. This game just kinda does that to me, it has so much potential.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2020 23:31

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli just won TGS' Game Designers Award :aaaaa:

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1309808062937653248

Here's the announcement along with Sakurai playing through the first bunch of levels:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlelqkR0is8&t=2345s

Pigbuster fucked around with this message at 16:30 on Sep 26, 2020

# ¿ Sep 26, 2020 16:28

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

The new Crystal music is fantastic, dang.

Where would you prefer us to leave feedback? Assuming you're looking for any in the first place.

# ¿ Dec 15, 2020 03:44

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

So this is amazing so far, but the level Arcade-F seems... genuinely impossible? The part later on in the level where you need to get either Jiji or Keke past the conveyor belt to join Fofo. The solution is presumably to block the conveyor's output square with Jiji, since they have STOP, but since the conveyor forces Keke to look at Jiji, pressing left/right doesn't do anything. What's really bugging me is that that solution would work fine in the normal mode, but that special mode makes it seemingly impossible, unless there's a way to strafe sideways or something.

# ¿ Nov 17, 2021 20:43

Pigbuster: Sep 12, 2010; Fun Shoe

Hempuli posted:

Yeah, apologies. Looks like I did the major mistake of "I'll just adjust it a bit and because the adjustment is so small, *surely* it doesn't need testing" on a couple levels.

https://twitter.com/babaisyou_/status/1461276945207992321

I've just pushed the second hotfix patch on Steam & Itch.io, and it'll up soonish on Humble Store.
Currently all the levels that are known to be unbeatably borked:

- Fragile Existence - Old
- Skull Pile
- Written In Stone
- Teamwork Is A Must

All of them except the first are fixed on the most recent patch. I'll keep hotfixing things and will try to get a patch going for Switch by Friday, so that Switch players will get to play the fixed version next week.
Huge apologies for this!

Sorry to add another thing to the list, but the Itch desktop client doesn't let you download the executable, there's just an empty list - I think the .exe needs to be specifically marked as the Windows version inside of Itch so the desktop client knows what to do there. It's not the biggest deal since the desktop client is essentially just a glorified exe-running frontend but it is a thing.

Honestly I'm probably just gonna also buy it on Steam rn anyway. :v: