Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to take that first step. Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to continue taking steps forward. In Baby Steps, walking may actually be the hardest thing you’ve ever done. Especially when you don’t have any shoes.

Baby Steps is the newest game from the minds of Gabe Cuzzillo, Maxi Boch and Bennett Foddy, and if those names don’t give you just an inkling of what you can come to expect in Baby Steps, then I am here to enlighten you. In Baby Steps you play as Nate, a basement dwelling, pot smoking, no shoe wearing man child. In a strange turn of events, his One Piece marathon watching is interrupted when he is seemingly zapped into his TV and must perform the hardest thing he has ever done.

Nate has to walk, and not only does he have to walk a little. Nate has to walk a lot. Uphill, downhill, through mud, over planks and sometimes through water itself. Baby Steps is in essence a literal walking simulator. But don’t let that idea fool you, Baby Steps is also in essence a journey. A journey of discovery, a walk through the mindset of Nate, and how he sees the world. Be it his refusal to shake someone’s hand because the idea of touching someone scares him. Or needing to go to the bathroom but being too pee shy to do it anywhere but a bathroom. Maybe it’s the delusion that his size 7 kid’s feet are actually a men’s 12, but he doesn’t wear shoes because he finds no shoe more comfortable.

For those familiar with Foddy, they’ll know that Baby Steps is a game that is designed to frustrate you. Though perhaps not in the same way that Getting Over It would, Baby Steps feels unbelievably approachable to begin with. You’ll inevitably be falling over constantly, having to control each individual leg in a weird blend of flash game QWOP and Death Stranding. Your trek up the mountain will feature a onesie that can be completely covered in dirt and mud, surprisingly funny interactions as you climb the mountain, and an actually approachable gameplay loop that feels difficulty but actually quite fair.

Baby Steps has a very New Zealand feeling touch to its voice work. The majority of the characters have NZ accents, and the beats of the comedy, the intonation, the way they characters talk and act is very reminiscent of NZ comedy. Foddy has been allowed to let his Australia influence shine here as well, and while the comedy beats might not land for a global audience, Australian and New Zealand fans are likely to find themselves cackling almost immediately at the bizarre little scenes between Nate and Jim (the Mountain Climbing guide), the Shoesmith, who is actually more of a boatsmith, and fellow mountain climbers. The game has a whimsy that goes beyond just the ludicrous idea of being a manchild who is essentially learning to walk.

The sound design is something straight out of a fever dream. Rather than a traditional soundtrack, the environmental sounds and background music is made up of a cacophony of dynamic sounds. The longer you spend losing your mind trying to climb up a small rock face that you definitely aren’t meant to be climbing, you’ll be bombarded with the sounds of crickets, boing sounds, the sound of a guiro being struck and a wild amount of other mish mashed noises that make the world feel like it come alive. It almost drives you insane whilst you’re actually trying to do a slightly more difficult climbing or platform segment, and you’ll just really wish everything would just shut up for two seconds so you can just think. It’s great.

I only got to play the first chapter of Baby Steps and went in not expecting much. I was expecting to get frustrated, to want to turn it off after ten minutes and find little redeeming in the game that I could latch onto. I was completely surprised by what I got in the end. I got a fairly competent ‘physics’-based walking simulator, with great writing, very approachable gameplay and a strong fundamental layout for what to expect. The sound design is perfectly made for this style of game, and I’m sure as I go on my frustration levels will creep up, but for now. Baby Steps is off a really strong, really entertaining and really enjoyable start. I cannot wait to see more, and I’m looking forward to the full release of the game in September.