40 Fun Facts About Baba is You

In Baba Is You, what does the property YOU do to an object?

Lets the player steer it: every object that is YOU answers the controls at once, so a rule like WALL IS YOU sets the whole maze walking.

In Baba Is You, which object is most often paired with WIN, including in the game's very first level?

Flag is only the usual goal: slide the word WIN beside another noun and that object finishes the level instead.

In Baba Is You, what can Baba do to walls once WALL IS STOP is broken?

Walk straight through them: objects carry no built-in behaviour in this game, so a wall without STOP is only scenery.

Arvi Teikari, the developer who created Baba Is You, comes from which European country?

Finland is home to Arvi Teikari, who was still a University of Helsinki student when he built the first demo at a game jam.

Baba Is You launched in March 2019 on PC and which games console?

Nintendo Switch owners saw it coming: Nintendo featured the puzzler in an indie games showcase in August 2018, months before release.

In Baba Is You, the title character Baba is a small four-legged creature of which colour?

White with two ears and black eyes, Baba is never given a species, and it is the object found in the largest number of levels.

In Baba Is You, which property is usually given to water, destroying it along with whatever enters it?

SINK removes both objects at once, which is why pushing a rock into water leaves a dry gap that Baba can cross.

In Baba Is You, word tiles form a rule when read left to right or in which other direction?

Top to bottom is the only other valid reading, so a single IS tile can sit in the middle of two crossing rules at once.

In Baba Is You, what happens when the rules BABA IS YOU and BABA IS WIN are both active?

The level is completed at once: the object that must reach the goal is the goal, so it counts as already there.

Many Baba Is You levels use the box-pushing style of which Japanese warehouse game from the early 1980s?

Sokoban, whose name means warehouse keeper, was created by Hiroyuki Imabayashi in 1981 as a hobby project for the NEC PC-8001.

Arvi Teikari, the creator of Baba Is You, releases his games under which professional name?

Hempuli is the handle on everything he makes, and he composed the soundtrack of this game himself as well as writing the code.

Baba Is You began as a short demo that took first place at which 2017 competition for developers?

Nordic Game Jam, held each year in Copenhagen, is one of the world's largest jams, and the demo built there grew into the full release two years later.

Which theme, set for the 2017 game jam where Baba Is You was first built, sparked its logic-word idea?

Not There made Arvi Teikari think of logic operators, the idea that led to a game about pushing words like NOT around.

Arvi Teikari's first idea for Baba Is You was a rule protecting which object from lava beside it?

Ice was the picture: a frozen block untouched by lava because the words ICE IS NOT MELT sat beside it, the image that became the whole game.

Arvi Teikari built Baba Is You, like his earlier projects, in which game-making tool extended with Lua scripts?

Multimedia Fusion 2 comes from Clickteam, and Teikari credited a friend, Lukas Meller, for help with the Lua side of the code.

Arvi Teikari named Baba in Baba Is You after a psychology effect in which people match invented words to what?

Round and spiky shapes: in the bouba/kiki effect, most people give the softer-sounding invented word to the rounded blob.

Before its full release, Baba Is You took Best Student Game and Excellence in Design at which 2018 awards?

Independent Games Festival judges also shortlisted the unfinished game for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, the top award of the night.

Which feature, complete with online sharing, did the free Baba Is You update of November 2021 add?

A level editor arrived in an update titled Baba Make Level, alongside two new packs of official puzzles.

Before Baba Is You, Arvi Teikari made which 2015 Metroidvania about a robot sent to an abandoned bio-dome?

Environmental Station Alpha locks its areas behind upgrades such as a grappling hook and a double jump, in classic backtracking style.

Which roguelike, where every pixel is physically simulated, did Baba Is You's creator help make at Nolla Games?

Noita, whose title is a word for witch, came from a studio Arvi Teikari formed with the makers of Crayon Physics Deluxe and The Swapper.

In Baba Is You, which property, often found on skulls, destroys any object that is YOU on contact?

DEFEAT even beats victory: if one object is both DEFEAT and WIN, the player's character is destroyed before the level can be completed.

In Baba Is You, which property is usually given to lava so that it destroys anything that is MELT?

HOT cuts both ways: an object that is HOT and MELT at the same time destroys itself, so one extra word can wipe out a whole lava field.

In Baba Is You, a key that is OPEN vanishes together with a door carrying which matching property?

SHUT and OPEN cancel each other whichever object carries them, so a door made OPEN can be pushed into a SHUT key just as well.

In Baba Is You, which property makes an object bob gently and ignore hazards that lack the same property?

FLOAT is often placed on the text itself, so that a puzzle's key words cannot be drowned or destroyed by accident.

In Baba Is You, which property sends anything that lands on it to another object of the same kind elsewhere?

TELE objects work as linked pads, and anything riding them can make the jump only once per turn.

In Baba Is You, which property lets the object carrying it move into a wall that is still STOP?

SWAP ignores solidity entirely, so an object carrying it can change places with a wall that would otherwise block the way.

In Baba Is You, which property makes an object spread copies of itself into the four tiles beside it every turn?

MORE growth is held back only by solid objects, so an unblocked patch of it soon floods the whole level.

In Baba Is You, which property stops Baba answering the controls yet still lets other objects push it around?

SLEEP is shown by a trail of Z symbols, and Baba, like many creatures in the game, gets its own dozing animation.

In Baba Is You, which property do conveyor belts usually carry, moving whatever stands on them one way?

SHIFT stacks, so a belt that is SHIFT twice carries its cargo two tiles a turn instead of one.

In Baba Is You, which property drops an object straight down until it lands on something solid?

FALL happens instantly rather than one tile per turn, and the New Adventures pack added versions that drop objects up, left and right.

In Baba Is You, which reddish-orange character with eyes and legs first appears in the level Affection?

Keke is frequently given the word MOVE, which sends it pacing back and forth on its own, turning back whenever something stands in the way.

In Baba Is You, which rule about word tiles applies by default even though it is never written on screen?

TEXT IS PUSH is one of three hidden base rules, and it can still be cancelled by spelling out its opposite with NOT.

In Baba Is You, what happens to the music when no object on screen is YOU any longer?

It fades away while the game prompts an undo or restart, then swells back the moment some object becomes YOU again.

Which two-word message fills the screen in Baba Is You when its rules can never settle on one reading?

Infinite Loop appears when the rule parser passes its limit, for example when an object made WORD spells out a rule that undoes itself.

In Baba Is You, forming which three-word rule in the main game triggers a secret ending?

ALL IS DONE sends every object, the text included, flying off the screen, and the save file is stamped with a small Baba.

In Baba Is You, which verb word makes an object leave another one behind when it is destroyed?

HAS only fires on true destruction, so an object that is merely transformed into something else leaves nothing behind.

In Baba Is You, which condition word limits a rule to objects that share their tile with nothing else?

LONELY runs through every level of the Mountaintop area, where simply standing on a floor tile is enough to turn a rule off.

Which Baba Is You level pack gathers puzzles cut from the main game, with developer commentary?

Museum arrived free in November 2021, and it also preserves earlier revisions of levels that did make the final cut.

In Baba Is You, which area is the first sub-world to open on the map, introducing keys and doors?

The Lake is an underwater-themed area, and it is also where the word AND first lets one rule do the work of two.

A clone of Baba Is You appeared in 2018, before the real game was finished, on which digital storefront?

App Store listings carried a copy with nearly the same graphics and the same name, and Arvi Teikari worked with Apple's French division to remove it.