Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning

"Baldi's Basics is stupid."

- Scott the Woz

Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning (also known as Baldi's Basics or Baldi's Basics Classic) is a survival horror game developed by American independent video game developer Micah McGonigal (known as mystman12). It was released on March 31, 2018.

The game was developed in two weeks as an entry in the annual Meta-Game Jam that received 2nd place in the Meta-Game Jam's Top 5 Games. The main inspirations of Baldi's Basics are 1990s edutainment games like Sonic's Schoolhouse and I.M Meen as well as pulling the "this game is not what it seems" gimmick.

Intentionally Bad Qualities

 * 1) Every piece of music in this game sounds like a MIDI file that was poorly constructed. But of course, it fits the game's aesthetic.
 * 2) Both the graphics and character design are downright abysmal and ugly, looking more like PlayStation 1 standards and/or a poorly-made Roblox game. Baldi's design, for example, makes him look like a poorly rendered humanoid model, realistic sprites clashing horribly with the 3D modelled and 2D drawn sprites and the title screen being a catastrophic mess. Not surprising, the animation as well is low quality.
 * 3) Every notebook's third question, beginning with Notebook #2, is always the same, as it is always glitched up. Whatever answer you write, it will always be labeled incorrect.
 * 4) During the game, there are a few irritating and obnoxious characters:
 * 5) * Playtime is excruciatingly inconvenient. You have to play jump rope every time you run into her. If you miss a jump, you'll have to start over. Fortunately, you can cut her jump rope with Safety Scissors.
 * 6) * It's a Bully is also a nightmare to deal with. Unless you have an item or the Principal is nearby, he completely blocks a corridor, preventing you from fleeing Baldi. He also lets other character pass him which is quite unbalanced and hypocritical.
 * 7) * Some characters (for example, Gotta Sweep) speak extremely loudly at times. Even if your volume is turned down, you can hear their voices when they scream.
 * 8) * The Principal of the Thing is a bit of a nuisance. Even when you're about to be nabbed by Baldi, he shuts you in the Principal's Office, where you'll probably likely be caught anyway after the 30-second detention. However, the Principal can help you get away from Baldi if you're being pursued. As long as the Principal is not near the Office, you can use the Principal's Keys to get out of detention early.
 * 9) Although likely intentional, there are numerous grammar and misspelled words: "If you haven't figure it out..." in the first warning, when it should say "figured." the word "spoopy" is also used instead of "spooky".
 * 10) The obnoxious voice acting. Some voices, particularly the Principal's, are loaded to the brim with distorted audio and lack expression or charm. The loud voices can affect the hearing of various people and are more loud that the crying of a baby or the explosion of a balloon.
 * 11) The game is somewhat a rip off of Slender. Basically, it's Slender, but in a school setting (which has been done already).
 * 12) The audio can become distorted and extremely loud, especially after finding all 7 notebooks.
 * 13) If you ignore all the distorted audio, there is absolutely nothing scary about this game whatsoever aside from a few moments here and there and even then it's not genuinely that spooky in the slightest and we're not exaggerating, it makes Hello Neighbor look scary in comparison. Aside from the jumpscares and disorientating noises, most of the game is about as scary as trying to finish your exams. While Baldi chasing you might freak you out at first glance, it gets really frustrating quickly.

Public demo
''' NOTE : The full game is still WIP and this is a demo. A lot of features aren't here for the time being.'''
 * 1) 1st Prize isn’t featured in the game at all, other than being seen in one of the rooms deactivated.
 * 2) The audio quality is even worse than the original game, but it might be fitting for the 90’s game aesthetic though as it has the 8-bit wav file dithering.
 * 3) Some textures are placeholders. This is a demo though, but there’s a little too many.
 * 4) Playtime is too easy to run away from, as in the original game, she can sometimes go in the same direction, trying to chase you, now she always turns around when you get out of her sight, removing challenge from the game.
 * 5) There is no reason for Baldi to chase the player in this demo, as there is no You Can Think! Pad in this version.
 * 6) The conveyor belt slows the player down too much.
 * 7) Several items from the original game were removed.
 * 8) The test procedure random event has a broken countdown system, starting from 0, then going from 9 to 1.
 * 9) The map feels extremely repetitive after a while with most of them being long corridors with occasional doors and intersections.
 * 10) Some characters were removed, such as Filename2.

Good Qualities

 * 1) This game is meant to be a throwback to 90s PC edutainment games, like Sonic's Schoolhouse.
 * 2) Despite its flaws, the game can still be fun, engaging and intense thanks to its hard difficulty.
 * 3) 1st Prize, a hug-loving robot, can serve as both an ally and enemy to the player. But it, however, turns very slowly. Same goes for Gotta sweep, except he is a bit more random compared to the former.
 * 4) * All characters, despite some being annoying, can be helpful at least, a good example of this is Playtime, who makes you stand still and recover all of your stamina.
 * 5) The game has an Endless Mode, a nice alternative if you got bored playing the story mode.
 * 6) mystman12 recently made a Kickstarter for the game, which he used to develop it into a full game with features including randomly generated levels, new characters, field trips that reward items and permanent buffs, and more.
 * 7) The concept of mixing an education and horror game together is an interesting idea.
 * 8) Some special structures and random events in the game are fun and actually spice the gameplay with the broken ruler muting Baldi's location or a party happening in the principal's office that not only gifts items but also diverts NPC's attention to the office.
 * 9) The developer, mystman12, has gave the game some nice updates. (i.e. New items, changes in AI Behavior, a mobile port, smoother physics, etc.)
 * 10) The expanded version, called Baldi's Basics Plus, is an improvement, as it fixes some of the issues mentioned above, and adds more content, such as randomly generated levels, new characters, field trips, and a shop where you can buy lots of items.
 * 11) mystman12 is working on a remastered version, called Baldi's Basics Remastered. It will use Baldi's Basics Plus 's framework, which will fix some of the issues, such as better performance, a more consistent art style, improved NPC AI, better lighting, Virtual Reality, and more. It will be released on Steam, itch.io, and GameJolt. Mobile and VR releases are also planned.
 * 12) The game has mod support. Which means mods such as Dave’s fun algebra class and Garrets funny animal game could have been made.

Trivia

 * One of the official images found in McGonigal's previous tweets back during the game's development shows that there were going to be more subjects than just math, including science, spelling, history, geography, and geology, the creator claims that he won't be adding any of those back in though.
 * The game is mostly made of 2D objects. Desks, lockers, chairs, tables, Zesty Machine and the BSODA Machine are the only 3D models.
 * Baldi's Basics is based on the late 90's edutainment game genre.
 * The games that Baldi's Basics was inspired by are Sonic's Schoolhouse, I.M. Meen, Slender, and 3D Dinosaur Adventure: Save The Dinosaurs.
 * The game became part of a game chain that contains other popular games. Baldi's Basics is commonly crossed over with games of that chain.
 * As of February 1st, the game has an official mobile port, which can be downloaded on the game's itch.io page.
 * Two of the game's characters, It's a Bully and Baldi himself were characters created by McGonigal during his childhood, years before the game was conceived.
 * McGonigal created the game entirely by himself in only 2 weeks.
 * There is a chance that the Principal of the Thing could actually be a poorly edited photograph of mystman12 himself. It is not confirmed, but it is assumed to be him.
 * McGonigal provides almost all of the voices in the game, with the exception of 1st Prize, who is voiced by a text to speech program.
 * In the game's files, you can find many unused sounds. For example, two sound clips for The Principal Of The Thing intended for a character that would immobilize the player while stabbing them and look into others' lockers, Playtime would give you instructions on how to do the jump rope (which was unused due to it increasing the difficulty and not being necessary) and the jumps you are required for Playtime to let you go was going to be 10 instead of 5 (likely for the same reason the instructions went unused). Luckily, you can use a mod (Baldi's BRUTAL Basics) that makes the game harder and puts the 10 jumps requirement back in.
 * There are good mods for this game, like Baldi's Basics: The Old Laboratory, Cutman's Clues in Boo Boo Stuff, The School, Retro's Basics in Fun Activities (the first decompile mod), and the infamous Garfelf's Guide series.
 * According to mystman12, Principal of the Thing is in fact wearing a yellow bow-tie, but it is extremely hard to see because he uses very few colors to dither the Principal's image, as Principal's skin color is very similar to the color of his bow-tie. It is located on his neck and can more clearly be seen in his merchandise items.

Videos
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