For this week I played Baba Is You. The game was made by Arvi Teikari (Hempuli) and released in 2019. It is available on PC (Steam/itch.io) and Nintendo Switch. The game is rated for all ages, but the later levels become difficult enough that it is probably best suited for players around 10+ and up, especially players who enjoy logic puzzles and experimentation.
In Baba Is You, the entire game experience is the puzzles. It is a collection of levels built around a single idea: the rules of the world are written as movable word blocks. Players can push these blocks around to form sentences that change how the level works. For example, if the level contains “WALL IS STOP,” walls are solid. If a player changes it to “WALL IS WIN,” then touching a wall becomes the win condition. This makes rule-manipulation the main verb of the game rather than something hidden in the code. These mechanics strongly influence the experience because they force players to treat puzzles as systems instead of fixed obstacles. In many puzzle games, the rules are stable and the challenge is to find the intended solution inside those constraints. In Baba Is You, the constraints are part of what you solve. The game constantly pushes you to ask “What even is the goal?” since “WIN” is just another word block you can move, break, or reassign.
The word blocks also keep the game from feeling arbitrary because they are physical objects on the grid. Even if you have a clever idea, you still need to execute it spatially: reach the words, push them into place, and avoid trapping yourself. The puzzles sit at an interesting intersection of abstract logic and movement constraints. As a result, sometimes I knew what rule I wanted, but the harder puzzle was actually rearranging blocks correctly. The game also introduces mechanics slowly, which makes the puzzles feel intuitive even as they get complex. Early levels teach basic grammar (“X IS YOU,” “X IS STOP,” “X IS WIN”) and the game builds from there by adding new words and interactions. Because of this pacing, puzzles rarely felt contrived. When I got stuck, it felt like I was just missing a key insight rather than a random leap in logic.
Ethics:
Baba Is You is also a good example of a puzzle game that assumes certain “inside the box” knowledge. The designers assume players can read English (or whatever language the game is set to) and can quickly parse short sentence structures as logic. That includes fluent readers and players comfortable with symbolic reasoning, but it can exclude younger players, players with reading disabilities, and players who are not strong in the game’s language. Even though the vocabulary is simple, the puzzles treat grammar as a core mechanic, so literacy becomes a gatekeeping requirement. A more inclusive design might include an optional icon mode that pairs words with symbols, stronger localization support, or assist features that demonstrate what a word does when hovered over. That would widen access without changing the game’s central identity.
