Baldi's Basics
Collect seven notebooks in a school that looks like a 1999 edutainment CD, pursued by a maths teacher with a ruler.
Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning was made for a game jam in 2018 as a parody of cheap nineties educational software, and it accidentally became one of the most recognisable horror games on the internet. The presentation is a deliberate mess of untextured corridors and stock sound effects.
The hook is the maths. Every notebook asks you questions, the third question in each is unanswerable, and getting it wrong speeds Baldi up permanently. So the game is a resource puzzle: you need the notebooks to progress and each one makes the chase harder. The supporting cast — the jump-rope kid, the broom, the principal who sends you to detention for running — each break the escape route in a different way.
Controls
WASD or arrow keys to move, mouse to look, left click to interact, Shift to run
Tips
- Learn the exit route before collecting the later notebooks. After the fourth there is no time to explore.
- Save your energy bars and the other items for the end. Running out of stamina near Baldi ends the run.
- The principal is the real threat, not Baldi. Detention costs the seconds that get you caught.