Filing taxes is awful. 2019 puzzle videogame Baba is You is great. What then am I to take from Baba Files Taxes, a game released this week by the developer of Baba is You about a good thing doing a bad thing? Am I to be disgusted?
I am to be entertained, actually. Baba Files Taxes is a goofy take on the process everyone doesn't like, a free goofy little game mixing both extremely realistic and extremely fanciful questions of the kinds you find on tax paperwork. Questions like "Responder's Home" and "What Are Clouds Made Of?"
As an American, I've always dealt with awful tax filing processes. I've heard there are countries where this is not true, and if you're from one I honestly don't want to hear about it, thanks.
I guess what I should be most concerned about here is that the game asks me to repeatedly forge Baba's signature. I didn't even know Baba could sign things. I didn't even know Baba had hands. I thought those were all legs. I guess not. Or perhaps that's why I'm doing this, because Baba cannot hold a pen, nor type?
Either way, it's the latest from Hempuli, whose game Baba is You is very fun to play. Hempuli, the sobriquet of developer Arvi Teikari, has released a few new games over the past years as he works on a larger new game.
Baba is You is a great game, and you should probably play it at some point if you're even vaguely interested in clever games or indie games or word games or puzzle games. We call it one of the best low-spec games on PC, and for a while someone on staff kept nominating it for one of the hardest games on PC.
We gave Baba is You a whopping 90 in our review on release, and it has literally doubled in size and had a level editor added since then.
It's definitely the best sokoban box-pushing game I'd played until Patrick's Parabox stole my heart earlier this year. I'd still rank Baba is You above it, but in a barely kind of way. Just barely.
You can find Baba Files Taxes on itch.io. You can keep track of developer Hempuli on his website, which has a blog. I quite like a blog, myself. Unlike filing taxes, which I do not like. Hope you're keeping track.
