Much as we ride roller coasters because we like to be frightened, we solve puzzles because we like to be challenged--and the more complex the puzzle, the more satisfied we can expect to be when it`s finally solved. Baba is You has a prodigious capacity for frustration. This deceptively simple-looking indie puzzle game, by Finnish developer Arvi Teikari, swiftly approaches the heights of difficulty scaled by such vexing modern classics as Stephenīs Sausage Roll and The Witness, and shares with those games an uncompromising attitude that isnīt afraid to alienate newcomers intimidated by a challenge. Itīs a puzzle game fanīs puzzle game in other words, as grueling as they come. Itīs a sharper mind than mine that can make it through its later puzzles without misery. Whatever Baba is Youīs shortcomings are, ease isnīt one of them.Baba is You has an appealing conceit. The basic gameplay resembles an `80s top-down puzzle title like Sokoban or Adventures of Lolo: you control a kind of sheep or rabbit character called Baba, who moves around a fixed environment, pushes objects, and pursues a goal. But many of the rules that govern the game--including what can be traversed, what can be moved, whatīs hazardous, whatīs the objective, and even whatīs under your command--are represented on screen as blocks of text arranged into phrases that work as commands. These blocks can be manipulated and the phrases rearranged, empowering you to eliminate restrictions, neutralize threats, and redefine the conditions of victory. In this way, the solutions for the puzzles in Baba is You are found through rewriting the terms of each problem.Most words refer either to things (such as `wall`, `lava`, or `flag`) or to properties of things (such as `stop`, `push`, or `win`). When a thing is connected to a property with the verb `is,` that thing adopts that property, and can be modified with various conjunctions, prepositions, verbs, and adjectives, all of which follow the logic of a programming ...
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