Baby Steps is a game about suffering. Protagonist Nate suffers through an endless string of misfortunes in a desperate attempt to find a place to pee, while the player suffers through the mechanical torment of puppeteering his uncooperative limbs through progressively complex environmental hurdles. To play Baby Steps is to ask how much, and for what, you are willing to suffer.
This is rooted in the game's main inspiration: Carlo Collodi's 1883 novel The Adventures of Pinocchio. Collodi's original story is a cautionary tale that constantly punishes the titular wooden puppet throughout his journey to become a real boy. "This is what will happen to you," Collodi says, "if you don't learn to behave." And so we must imagine that Nate has found himself in the purgatory of Baby Steps' punishing world because he did not listen.
By Collodi's own measure, as made apparent through Pinocchio's flaws, Nate is getting what he deserves. What we know for sure about Nate is that he is unemployed (bad work ethic), lives in his parent's basement (lazy), and refuses to obey his father's attempts at getting his son out of this rut (disobedient child). If these are what bring Nate into the punishing terrain, his fatal flaw—also shared by his wooden progenitor— is what prolongs his suffering once arrived. Nate lies.
This begins immediately. At the start of our journey with Nate we meet Jim, full name Jiminy, a kind (if somewhat condescending) man who offers supplies and advice; things Nate sorely needs, if he can only admit he needs them. He, of course, cannot. He assures Jim he likes walking around with no shoes to shield his feet or map to guide him. Further up the mountain, Nate encounters Mike, a fellow climber. While Nate climbs to find a private toilet, Mike climbs for no other reward than that of a good challenge. He also has shoes, a map, and even a grappling hook; exemplifying how easy hiking could be, if only we took Jim up on his offer. Instead, Nate is subject to endless backsliding down muddy summits that only make the player's frustration at Nate grow. He may refuse assistance, but we are the ones who must do the hard work of dragging him up the difficult terrain one step at a time.
Though Nate's lies often extend to the people he encounters, they originate as internal lies. Pinocchio lies to indulge in vices that stray from the good behavior that will get his wish granted, while Nate lies in an attempt to avoid any feeling of embarrassment or shame in the presence of those around him. Regardless of intent, the consequences are the same. Pinocchio's nose grows longer as do the obstacles Nate is forced to surmount, as a result of his inability to admit his need for help.
This also leads to Nate falling in with a bad crowd: a group of donkey men constantly swinging their big dicks around. They find Nate early in his climb and, sensing his need for people-pleasing and a lack of purpose, give him a mission. They tell him of an angel who grants each person one wish. Having exhausted their own, they pressure Nate into spending his wish on a large supply of cigarettes. With expectation thrust upon him, how can Nate refuse?
These donkey men inhabit the world of Baby Steps with the same ethos as the children who run away to the Land of Toys in The Adventures of Pinocchio; that is to say, with reckless abandon. Unlike Jim (who seeks to help those around him) or Mike (who enjoys the challenge of the world), the donkey men treat it as a playground in which to drink, smoke, and party. They exude the belief that their actions will have no consequences and behave accordingly.
It isn't until Nate reaches the angel that he is confronted with his inability to choose for himself. Separated from Jim, Mike, and the donkey men, the angel silently requests Nate to speak his heart's desire; to make a wish. At this moment, Nate is neither able to make a choice, nor wish for what others have told him to. He instead chooses to die.
Unfortunately for Nate, this doesn't work.
It's important to say that I do think Nate is suicidal. He is clearly lost and in desperate need of help. But I think this moment with the angel is more about highlighting what sets him apart from Pinocchio. Collodi's puppet, even if he falters at times, is always certain of his wish—to be a real boy. Nate is not sure of anything,and can only begin to face his next steps once the escape of death has been taken away from him.
Whenever Pinocchio fails, Collodi is there to remind the reader that the path forward is simple enough. All the puppet has to do is go to school, work, and obey his father. There is no one to tell Nate what to do. In fact Nate's constant desire for validation from others is his downfall.
In the aftermath of his failed wish, Nate does not really engage with the partying donkey men again. He does, however, trek through a mine. We don't see who works this extensive mine, but its existence recalls the fate of those children in the Land of Toys. Their endless bacchanal transforms them into donkeys and they are later sold off to labor in (amongst other places) salt mines. Their revels would not bring peace to Nate's life.
Although, the idea of Jim as Nate's conscience is also not quite right in the way Jiminy is for Pinocchio. We can choose to take some help from Jim in the form of a staircase that circumvents a cliff face called the Manbreaker. It is a big moment for Nate, letting him (for once) take the easy way. Though there is a slight price. Jim makes Nate call him "Lord" as an admission that Nate could not handle the Manbreaker. This reveals Jim's offers of help to be as condescending as they always seemed.
These characters offer Nate variations on masculinity, Baby Steps's potential models of what real boyhood means, all of which have darker shades to them. The donkey men being so obviously rooted in toxic machismo (literal dick swinging) and Jim offering snark behind his smile (you just know he'd mansplain given the chance). So what is left for Nate?
The only genuinely nice guy is Moose, a seemingly reformed donkey man who remarks to Nate that he has a cabin towards the top of the mountain with a toilet. After hours of trekking, Nate sees the mountain's peak, an arbitrary goal, perhaps the loneliest place in this purgatory; a possible place to pee. Then, up from a whale mouth-sized pit, rises a plume of smoke. In the pit is Moose's cabin; and a real toilet.
Baby Steps, like its inspiration, is a cautionary tale. But unlike Pinocchio, who must escape the whale in yet another test of his determination, Nate's story ends here. Faced with a final decision, Nate must choose either to continue to struggle alone towards the mountaintop or give up ground, fall into the pit, and ask Moose for help. The choice is clear, and this admission not only gives him a warm place to rest and empty his bladder. It allows Nate to define for himself what it means to be a real boy.
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Willa Bloomfield-Rowe is a queer games critic based in New York City whose writing has been featured in The A.V. Club, Digital Trends, Kotaku, and more. She also hosts the Girl Mode podcast. When she isn’t talking games she can be found on Bluesky bemoaning the state of the New York Mets.