Last Update: 7/15/2021
So you want to solve the puzzles
in “Baba is You” but sometimes you need a little nudge. There’s no shame in that. But whenever you look up help, you either find nothing useful or you find complete spoilers to all the puzzles. You just want some hints. That’s why I’ve made this comprehensive guide which intends to cover every puzzle in the game, but in a way that should help you discover the solutions for yourself. Now that it’s been a couple years since the release, I’m fairly confident there will be no more updates to make my hints obsolete.
General Advice
“Baba is You” is a game about rules. Once you know them, the action of solving the puzzle is usually trivial. It’s rare to see a puzzle take more than 60 seconds to complete from start to finish, once you know the answer.
The most common stumbling block is your own mind. While the game never deliberately plants false info and only rarely uses red herrings, it is designed to encourage you to make false assumptions about the rules if you aren’t careful. Should you be stuck on a puzzle, it is often because you haven’t fully understood what assumptions you have taken for granted - assumptions that are blocking your progress. After finishing any level, make sure you have noted why your solution worked.
The world map opens up after the early game. If you can’t solve one puzzle, just go somewhere else for a while and come back with a fresh mind.
Certain objects seem to have their own rules regardless of what is happening in the level. For instance, Text always seems to be Push.
If your attempted solution is this close to working but doesn’t no matter what you do... it’s likely you’re actually miles away. Rethink your assumptions and start over.
How to Read this Guide
I’ve divided this guide into two “halves.” First is the main game, featuring the overworld and all its associated rules. These posts are interconnected in the way the main game is interconnected, and I’ve provided links so you can jump around to whatever hints you need. After that is the late game, and the only way to access is to go to the page on the Normal Ending and click the individual links for the next post (or just search for the page/make a guess in the url). This is to prevent you from seeing endgame spoilers on accident.
Regardless, each post will cover one world or area. For each, I will try not to spoil any material from that world or later worlds. However, I will assume you know about everything important from the previous areas. This means it’s possible for a post on the final world to contain unmarked spoilers from earlier ones. Be careful when visiting pages out of order.
Rules in the game are also always written “NOUN - OPERATOR - PROPERTY.” When I am talking about a rule in general, I will use bold text. When talking about the objects which the rules affect, I will use italic text. When talking about specific instances of those objects, I will use regular text. If the text is in quotes, I am talking about the actual text of the rules you can interact with. A noun is a word written in the level, which is meant to refer to objects. Examples include Baba, Flag, Wall, or Rock. An object is the actual thing. So, if I write “Rock” I am referring to the interactable word itself, but if I write Rock it refers to all Rocks in the level. But each individual Rock is an instance of Rock. In a rule, I write it like Rock is Push. Nouns and operators look the same, so your knowledge of grammar should tell you which is which. Properties, however, are written inside colored squares.
For each world, I’ll provide an overview of what you’ll expect to find, as well as the levels I recommend you need to solve. In order to clear the world and get the flower necessary to open later worlds, you usually only need to solve half the puzzles. So, I’ll recommend the easier ones. As new material is introduced, I’ll give you hints as to what it means but I will try not to tell you outright.
For each level, I’ll provide a few things. First, a difficulty rating. This rating will be based on my own personal feeling, from one to five stars. Perhaps your experience will be different, but if you’re struggling you can try the levels I’ve rated easier first. Difficulty levels are only comparable within the same world. A low-star rating in a later world is easy for that world, but likely harder than a high rating in a earlier world.
Then I’ll post a picture of the unsolved level. Sometimes just looking at the picture, away from the game, can give your brain another perspective and help you solve the puzzle. If necessary I’ll include some other info about the level.
Finally, I’ll provide a series of hints. First there will be a soft nudge, but each successive hint will get more specific and spoilery. So don’t read all the hints at once. Read one, try to solve, then read more. Highlight text to see spoilers, like so:
Now, on to the game.
Overworld
The initial world map.
The completed overworld.
This is the closest thing the game has to a tutorial, though in my opinion the entire main game is tutorial. Here you’ll learn the basic rules, but also how the rule creation process works. I recommend solving all seven levels. None of them should give you any real trouble, and the knowledge within each is required throughout the rest of the game.
Stuck elsewhere? Navigate using the following pictures:
Level 00
Difficulty: non-existent
About the Level
This level begins with a short intro video which helps orient you to which nouns belong with which objects.
New material: nouns Baba, Flag, Wall, and Rock. You should be able to tell which is which from the intro, if your eyes don’t already. Also new are the properties You, Win, Stop, and Push, as well as the operator Is.
It’s important whenever you see new material to explore what that new material means. What does it mean that every rule is spelled [Noun] Is [Property]? Try using the keyboard keys or joystick (depending on your system) to move. Which object moves? Could that be You? Move Baba into any Wall. What does this tell you about Stop? Now move into any Rock. What does this tell you about Push? Can you push the Rock into another Rock? How about into a Wall? How about onto the Flag? What if Baba steps on the Flag? What does this tell you about Win?
Hints
I don't mean to be rude, but if you need a hint here you are not going to have fun with this game.
Level 01: Where Do I Go?
Difficulty: *
Hints
Gentle Nudge: Do you notice how the words "Flag," "Is," and "Win" are all separated?
Level 02: Now What is This?
Difficulty: *
About the Level
This level looks very odd, doesn’t it? Maybe you should not make assumptions about what levels in this game should look like. For instance, what is You? What does this mean?
Hints
Gentle Nudge: Has anything really changed between level 01 and this?
Level 03: Out of Reach
Difficulty: **
About the Level
New material: noun Water, should be obvious; property Sink.
Try crossing Baba over the Water. What happens to them? What happens to the patch of Water they step on? What does this tell you about the rule Sink?
Additionally, notice that there are a few rules you can’t seem to get access to. This is normal. In fact, most levels only allow you to edit a small sample of the rules. For each level, first figure out which rules are set in stone and which can be changed.
Hints
Gentle Nudge: Have you made an assumption about how you will finish this level, an assumption involving the Flag? Perhaps that assumption is wrong.
Level 04: Still Out of Reach
Difficulty: *
About the Level
New material: noun Skull, the big red things, and property Defeat.
Go ahead and put Baba on any Skull. What happens to Baba? What happens to the Skull? Can anything else be made to overlap a Skull? What happens to that object? From that information, what does Defeat mean?
Hints
Gentle Nudge: There is a rule in this level which makes it impossible to win. Perhaps you can break up that rule?
Level 05: Volcano
Difficulty: ***
About the Level
New material: noun Lava, like Water but red-orange; and properties Hot and Melt.
Walk Baba onto a patch of Lava. What happens to him? Now push the Rock onto any patch of Lava. What happens now? Are there any inferences that can be made about both Hot and Melt? How are Hot and Melt related? For that matter, how do the words Hot and Melt operate in similarity to Defeat? How are they different?
Many levels in this game have multiple solutions. This is one such level, and for the most part I will not list every single one. Instead I will just list the solution I feel is closest to the developer-intended one. If you find an alternate solution, that’s great! I can think of at least three alternate solutions to this level, not including the one provided by my hints.
Hints
Gentle Nudge: First, you need to get past the "Baba is You" without breaking it up. How will you do that?Why does the game end if you break the rule?
Bigger Nudge: It looks like three pieces of text can be freely moved around. Can those pieces of text form a rule?
Level 06: Off Limits
Difficulty: *
Hints
Gentle Nudge: Is there a rule that says that whatever is You must only have one instance?
Level 07: Grass Yard
Difficulty: **
About the Level
New material: noun Grass. We’ve seen it before but this is the first level with access to the noun. We’re going to see a lot of objects before we get access to the nouns. It doesn’t really matter.
Hints
Gentle Nudge: Wall is what?
World Complete!
Nothing is really gained from completing the overworld except access to two other paths. One of them leads to a locked gate, which requires flowers to open. You can’t go there until clearing a few worlds. So, you have to take the upper path to The Lake.
This gate requires three flowers, whatever those are.
In the meantime, do these hints work? Any hints too spoilery? Too vague? Let me know. Or, if you’ve though of better hints or alternate solutions, you can reach out to me. Don’t comment anything spoilery below. You can find me @keyofw on pretty much everything, like Twitter or Reddit. DM me anytime.
(Note: the links at the bottom of each page will be backwards. Left goes forward and right goes back. So I’ll post my own links like you see right below this.)