Name of the game: Babbdi
Game’s creator: Lemmaiti Bros (Ded 2022)
Platform of the game: Steam (PC)
“How does walking tell the story in Babbdi?”
The game Babbdi is “a short, first person exploration experience with light narrative and platforming elements” (Steam description). It combines several elements in the gameplay that tell the story of a forsaken district. Walking in Babbdi is not just a means of traversal but a narrative device that enriches the storytelling by immersing players in the game’s atmospheric world and its subtle story cues.
The player starts the game in a half lit hallway without any instructions. Here the target audience becomes noticeable immediately. This game was designed for gamers interested in indie games, exploration, and narrative-driven experiences. I, being none of the 3 targets, suffered a couple of minutes of confusion around what to do and how to move. Fortunately the instructions tab was easy to find. The following three minutes of my game play ended up being very similar to the next hour and a half. As I walked down the hallway where I had spawned, there were three lit rooms with people inside. The first had a mattress, baseball bat and a creepy guy (pictured below) on a chair one can talk to by pressing [E]. He told be to grab the bat and hit things. In the next room another character with a similarly eerie face informed me I needed to find a train ticket to leave Babbdi. Finally there was a woman laying on a old mattress on the ground that responded with “…” when I tried to talk to her. Walking through this hallway and rooms, talking to characters and grabbing objects was a small microcosm of my gameplay of Babbdi. The gameplay experience is designed the same elements I encountered in this hallway, walking around and discovering parts of the town, finding and grabbing objects, and talking to people to discover hints around how to win the game.
The player in Babbdi has complete freedom to move at their desired pace. This instills a sense of tranquility and in the player and makes it clear that it is a solo challenge. The designers decision to exclude specific goals and instructions is a defining mechanic. It adds to the layer of mystery and challenge. Additionally, the setting is designed in a fairly monotone light with medium fidelity graphics (halfway between Fifa and minecraft) which conveys the setting wonderfully. It is evident that this town is desolate and has been left behind. The player is stuck there and wants to leave just like everyone else that used to live there.
Another important element in the game is the existence of the library. The library (pictured below) creates challenges for a player in their first gameplay and in additional sessions in the future. The collection of rare items and unique challenges (exit Babbdi in 4 mins, climb the tallest building, get hit by a train, seduce a girl) add an enjoyable layer of complexity for more experienced players. As a beginner, I spent all of my 1.5 hour game session simply trying to complete the main objective and was getting quite frustrated as time went on, however felt I was making progress when I found some of the collectible items. The player can also find various items unlocking special movement abilities, such as the baseball bat, the pickaxe and the motorcycle.
A critical piece of the game is walking around, jumping from place to place, swimming, and best of all… not dying. This mechanic creates for greater movement challenges, where parts of walls and staircases are broken and you have to jump between them to reach unique rooms and spaces. However you can fall from a 10 story building and land perfectly. This encourages player exploration without risk.
I believe the designers crafted and very thorough and mindfull gaming experience that successfully ensures players are the masters of their own destiny and can choose to solve several different challenges before ultimately beating the game (leaving Babbdi). My only critique would be around the pacing of movement and the long periods of time it takes to fix mistakes ( I spent 5 minutes swimming out of the canal because I fell in). I personally didn’t enjoy the game too much given that after an hour and a half I felt equally as far from beating the game as the minute I started, however see that more experiences players would have enjoyed the mystery, complexity and challenge. Walking in Babbdi doubles masterfully as a means of transportation and as a critical narrative technique.
