Technologies

Baby Steps Makes Walking a Hilariously Frustrating Journey

You’ll laugh and you’ll cry in this bizarrely engaging platformer.

Baby Steps has quickly become one of the funniest games I’ve ever played, but it’s also made me almost throw my controller against the wall. It’s the latest game from masochistic developer Bennett Foddy, known for extremely challenging games like Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy and QWOP, where simply moving becomes a Herculean task. He’s teamed up with Gabe Cuzzillo and Maxi Boch, developers of the frantic action game Ape Out, to make this unique and bizarre platformer.

In Baby Steps, you play as Nate, a man in his late twenties who still lives in his parents’ basement until he’s magically teleported into a strange, mostly empty wilderness. There’s only one real mechanic to the game — walking — but it’s nowhere near as simple as taking a leisurely stroll. You control each of Nate’s legs individually with your controller’s triggers. The left trigger lifts the left foot; the right trigger lifts the right, and you have to use the analog stick to lean Nate forward and plant a foot down to move. It takes a long time to feel comfortable moving like this.

I found myself constantly getting into a groove and making good progress before eventually thinking too much about my motor controls and completely losing rhythm. When (not if) that happened, I’d usually topple over in comical fashion, then have to slowly work my way back up to regain a good flow state.

If this wasn’t hard enough, as you move along, you’re tasked with harder and slipperier obstacles to painstakingly traverse. Walking was already a tall order; now try climbing a set of stairs, walking across a ladder or scaling a muddy slope. Time and again, I’d slowly climb a mountain only to reach a rushing river with slick rocks to cross — then slip and watch Nate tumble all the way back down. Baby Steps offers no sympathy.

All this awkward movement is made even funnier by your character’s goofy look: Nate wears a gray, pajama-like onesie that picks up odd stains and sweat marks as you tumble through the world. He also has no shoes and a sizable rear end that wobbles and sways as you attempt the difficult platforming sections. It’s funny and silly to see, and it helps soften some of the devastating setbacks you inevitably encounter on your climb.

The tough traversal is paired with some of the funniest writing and performances I’ve seen in a video game. Along the way, Nate occasionally runs into other people — or strange animal-human hybrids — scattered throughout the environment. They’re all quite friendly, but Nate suffers from crippling social anxiety and is incapable of asking for help, making for amusingly awkward chatter. The voice actors riff off each other so naturally that it feels like they must have recorded together in the booth. The humor has a Tim and Eric: Awesome Show, Great Job! vibe, with characters stuttering, mumbling and trading bizarre — yet hilarious — facial expressions.

These interactions aren’t required to progress through the game, but can be found hidden around the map. As you explore the world, slowly and step by step, it’s worth scanning the horizon for strange landmarks or structures. Reaching them often yields a reward — maybe a quirky hat for Nate (finish an area while wearing it and you’ll unlock a short playable section with backstory from his life), or a funny encounter with another character. Baby Steps encourages you to wander off the main path, but it makes you work for every discovery.

Developer Cuzzilo’s game Ape Out (which Bennett contributed to as an artist) was known for a frenetic, jazz-inspired soundtrack composed by Boch, and we see some of that inspiration with the team working on Baby Steps. Much of the game’s music is sparse and percussive. It includes a lot of nature effects, such as wind, dog barks and cricket chirps, to emphasize the lost-in-the-wilderness aspect to the game. It works very well to mimic the state of the character and the player. You’ll often find yourself carefully positioning your feet along a thin plank of wood overlooking a cliff while this jazz-like chirping soundscape surrounds you, which is surreal yet somehow fitting.

If you’ve played any of Foddy’s notoriously difficult past games (QWOP or Getting Over It, for example), you should know that Baby Steps is easier. There is a challenge, but you can choose how much you want to engage with it. Staying on the main path is much friendlier than attempting to climb a rope swing to get that odd, glowing fruit that might get you bonus dialogue. That’s to say that past experience with his games shouldn’t scare you away from trying out Baby Steps. The hilarious cutscenes are an absolute treat and made me want to risk all my progress in hopes of getting to watch another. There’s a lot of laughs and frustration to be had here, and the low $20 price makes it that much easier to recommend.

Baby Steps is out now for PC and PlayStation 5.

Technologies

Spotify Launches ‘About the Song’ Beta to Reveal Stories Behind the Music

The stories are told on swipeable cards as you listen to the song.

Did you know Chappell Roan drew inspiration for her hit song Pink Pony Club from The Pink Cadillac, the name of a hot-pink strip club in her Missouri hometown? Or that Fountains of Wayne’s song Stacy’s Mom was inspired by a confessed crush a friend had on the late co-founder Adam Schlesinger’s grandmother?

If you’re a fan of knowing juicy little tidbits about popular songs, you might find more trivia in About the Song, a new feature from streaming giant Spotify that’s kind of like the old VH1 show Pop-Up Video.

About the Song is available in the US, UK, New Zealand and Australia, initially for Spotify Premium members only. It’s only on certain songs, but it will likely keep rolling out to more music. Music facts are sourced from a variety of websites and summarized by AI, and appear below the song’s lyrics when you’re playing a particular song.

«Music fans know the feeling: A song stops you in your tracks, and you immediately want to know more. What inspired it, and what’s the meaning behind it? We believe that understanding the craft and context behind a song can deepen your connection to the music you love,» Spotify wrote in a blog post.

While this version of the feature is new, it’s not the first time Spotify has featured fun facts about the music it plays. The streaming giant partnered with Genius a decade ago for Behind the Lyrics, which included themed playlists with factoids and trivia about each song. Spotify kept this up for a few years before canceling due to multiple controversies, including Paramore’s Hayley Williams blasting Genius for using inaccurate and outdated information.

Spotify soon started testing its Storyline feature, which featured fun facts about songs in a limited capacity for some users, but was never released as a central feature.

About the Song is the latest in a long string of announcements from Spotify, including a Page Match feature that lets you seamlessly switch to an audiobook from a physical book, and an AI tool that creates playlists for you. Spotify also recently announced that it’ll start selling physical books.

How to use About the Song

If you’re a Spotify Premium user, the feature should be available the next time you listen to music on the app.

Start listening to any supported song.
Scroll down past the lyrics preview box to the About the Song box.
Swipe left and right to see more facts about the song.

I tried this with a few tracks, and was pleased to learn that it doesn’t just work for the most recent hits. Spotify’s card for Metallica’s 1986 song Master of Puppets notes the song’s surge in popularity after its cameo in a 2022 episode of Stranger Things. The second card discusses the band’s album art for Master of Puppets and how it was conceptualized.

To see how far support for the feature really went, I looked up a few tracks from off the beaten path, like NoFX’s The Decline and Ice Nine Kills’ Thank God It’s Friday. Spotify supported every track I personally checked.

There does appear to be a limit to the depth of the fun facts, which makes sense since not every song has a complicated story. For those songs, Spotify defaults to trivia about the album that features the music or an AI summary of the lyrics and what they might mean.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for Feb. 7, #502

Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for Feb. 7, No. 502.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Connections: Sports Edition features a fun batch of categories. The purple one requires you to find hidden words inside some of the grid words, but they’re not too obscure. If you’re struggling with today’s puzzle but still want to solve it, read on for hints and the answers.

Connections: Sports Edition is published by The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by The Times. It doesn’t appear in the NYT Games app, but it does in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can play it for free online.

Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta

Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Golden Gate.

Green group hint: It’s «Shotime!»

Blue group hint: Same first name.

Purple group hint: Tweak a team name.

Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups

Yellow group: Bay Area teams.

Green group: Associated with Shohei Ohtani.

Blue group: Coaching Mikes.

Purple group: MLB teams, with the last letter changed.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is Bay Area teams. The four answers are 49ers, Giants, Sharks and Valkyries.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is associated with Shohei Ohtani. The four answers are Decoy, Dodgers, Japan and two-way.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is coaching Mikes. The four answers are Macdonald, McCarthy, Tomlin and Vrabel.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is MLB teams, with the last letter changed. The four answers are Angelo (Angels), Cuba (Cubs), redo (Reds) and twine (Twins).

Technologies

Today’s NYT Mini Crossword Answers for Saturday, Feb. 7

Here are the answers for The New York Times Mini Crossword for Feb. 7

Looking for the most recent Mini Crossword answer? Click here for today’s Mini Crossword hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Wordle, Strands, Connections and Connections: Sports Edition puzzles.

Need some help with today’s Mini Crossword? It’s Saturday, so it’s a long one, and a few of the clues are tricky. Read on for all the answers. And if you could use some hints and guidance for daily solving, check out our Mini Crossword tips.

If you’re looking for today’s Wordle, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands answers, you can visit CNET’s NYT puzzle hints page.

Read more: Tips and Tricks for Solving The New York Times Mini Crossword

Let’s get to those Mini Crossword clues and answers.