BABBDI
I played BABBDI, a single-player walking simulator game developed by Sirius Lemaitre and Léonard Lemaitre and published by the Lemaitre Bros. It’s available on Steam, and the main objective is to escape the city of BABBDI.
This immersive game takes players on a journey through the city’s various streets and alleys, where they must solve puzzles and navigate obstacles to make their way out of the city. With its stunning visuals and engaging gameplay, BABBDI is a must-play for any fans of walking simulators.
Critical formal elements of the game
This is a single player walking simulation game, but throughout the game you encounter several other people. The objective of the game is to escape the city of Babbdi. The rules involve moving around throughout the city. During the game, I was fully immersed in the world of the game and could just be distracted by my surroundings outside of my computer. The formal elements did help me feel connected to the story of the game.
Types of fun
The type of fun most evident in Babbdi is discovery. Every scene in Babbdi is new (if you haven’t played the specific simulation before) and thus the primary focus is discovering the various nooks and crannies of the city. The visual design of the game lends itself to discovery as well, since the graphics are very detailed. The other way that Babbdi encourages this type of fun is through the problem solving throughout the game. This also incorporates in the challenge type of fun.
Interestingly, despite the fact that Babbdi is a single player walking game, there is some sense of fellowship that exists between you and the people that you run into throughout the game. They give clues about how to proceed and sometimes even offer emotional support.
How to improve the game
Personally, the creepiness of Babbdi did not really appeal to me. I think that it was just a little hard for me to enjoy the game without it making me feel a bit uneasy. At first, I didn’t think that the creepiness really improved upon the game much. But, upon further consideration with regards to the prompt of this critical play, I realized that the creepiness helped tell the story of why it was important for me to want to escape from the city. If the city was super fun and beautiful, the main premise behind the game would not have made as much sense. Thus, while initially a bit off-putting, the spooky nature of the environment lends itself well to the game. I think though at the beginning, there could be some more motivation for where we’re going to go after we escape the city. For example, if I knew I would have some reward or reach some heavenly land, then I would have positive reinforcement for wanting to escape in addition to the fear-based negative enforcement of the scary environment.
