Bennett Foddy’s Baby Steps Turns Walking Into the Ultimate Choke Machine — Open-World Stumbles Await
Bennett Foddy is releasing a new game called Baby Steps, a 3D open-world title built around deliberate, physics-driven walking and stumbles. The game comes from Foddy and collaborator Gabe Cuzzillo and expands the movement experiments Foddy has been known for since QWOP and Getting Over It.
- Who: Bennett Foddy, indie developer known for QWOP and Getting Over It.
- What: Baby Steps — a 3D open-world game focused on detailed walking mechanics and ragdoll physics.
- How: Developed with Gabe Cuzzillo; prototype made quickly and then expanded into a large map described as “Morrowind-sized.”
- Why it matters: Baby Steps continues Foddy’s long-running design interest in movement, failure, and learning.
Short background on Foddy
Bennett Foddy began sharing small games in the mid-2000s, including an early Flash title called Too Many Ninjas. He later experimented with physics-based prototypes such as Little Master Cricket, which was his first use of a physics engine.
In 2008 Foddy uploaded QWOP, a short experiment that required players to control a runner’s leg muscles with four keys. Two years later a Let’s Play of QWOP helped the game reach a much larger audience; that video now has about 11 million views.
From QWOP to Getting Over It
Foddy expanded on his physics comedy work with Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, released in 2018. That game removes conventional movement and asks players to progress using a single tool and a physics-driven body, with the risk of major progress loss on mistakes.
How Baby Steps began
Gabe Cuzzillo contacted Foddy with a pitch that Foddy summarized as “Imagine if QWOP but good.” The two made a prototype quickly and then grew it into a full game. Foddy said the team built the project to play across a large open map, saying it was “Morrowind-sized” rather than a short straight track.
Core mechanics
Baby Steps uses detailed walking mechanics, ragdoll physics, and systems that can cause significant setbacks when players make mistakes. In playtests, players modeled tentative, childlike motions while learning controls, which the team kept and refined.
Design intent and themes
Foddy frames his work around failure and learning. He describes the cycle of trying, failing, adjusting, and improving as central to many games. He has said he is interested in the “pleasure in learning” that games can provide.
Foddy also connects Baby Steps to a larger conversation about how games portray competence. The game’s story centers on a onesie-wearing manchild who must traverse a strange, difficult world after being pulled into his TV, which the team designed to highlight challenges that many players take for granted.
Related notes and influences
Foddy has referenced other games and genres while discussing Baby Steps. He cited social physics-comedy titles and said some modern cooperative physics games owe more to golf-style pressure and pacing than to his own work. He also mentioned titles such as Ape Out (a prior collaboration involving Gabe Cuzzillo) and the indie UFO 50 when talking about moments that create tension in play.
Quotes from Foddy
On walking: “Best way to walk? Don’t think about it.”
On failure and learning: “I think there’s pleasure in learning.”
On pressure and mistakes: “I love that moment when you know you’re about to choke. You haven’t choked yet, but you can feel your confidence starting to go. You feel yourself starting to look at how you’re walking around and you know you’re screwed, but it hasn’t happened yet. I’m fascinated by that. How can I both know I’m about to screw up and still screw up? That’s the essence of choking.”
Links and resources
Foddy’s early work is available from his site, including Too Many Ninjas, Little Master Cricket, and GIRP. The QWOP Let’s Play that boosted the game’s visibility can be viewed on YouTube.
Current status
Baby Steps is approaching release and represents Foddy’s largest project to date. The game is published with imagery credited to Devolver Digital in promotional materials. Foddy has said he has never beaten QWOP himself.
