Beloved puzzle game Baba is You is back with another weirdo spinoff: Mobile Suit Baba, which puts the titular star and friends in giant mecha versions of themselves to engage in tactical, turn-based puzzles all about predicting how enemies move, knock them around, and in true Baba is You fashion change the fundamental rules of the cosmos by rearranging phrases.
The short, cute little game has enemies with predictable moves each turn that you've got to counter in order to prevent them from stealing and/or destroying all your fruit. That leads to clever tactical concepts like rearranging words to make 'Water Is Sink" into "Forest Is Sink" while your enemies take cover in forests. Brilliant. Mobile Suit Baba takes clear inspiration from Subset Games' excellent tactics title and PC Gamer's 2018 game of the year Into the Breach. Very clear:
"Yes, the game is very strongly inspired by Subset Games' Into the Breach," says developer Hempuli. Ah, well, sorts that out for the curious.
- The team behind one of 2024's hidden gems is following it up with a stop-motion 'relaxed digging and discovery' game about a happy robot's underground adventures beneath a lake of slime
- This '90s PC game's one-of-a-kind combination of puzzles and RPG heroics was the perfect way to jumpstart my brain for the new year
"A mysterious force is out to steal all the Fruit! Help Baba & friends foil their plans by maneuvering gigantic mech suits around. Features tactical puzzling action, heart-wrenching storytelling and extra challenges over a total of 43 missions," says the game description.
Baba is You has held up as one of the great puzzle games on PC, 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. PC Gamer calls it one of the best low-spec or laptop games on PC and it got a whopping 90 in Philippa Warr's 2019 review.
You can find Mobile Suit Baba on Hempuli's itch.io for US $4. It's hardly the first Baba-themed spinoff Arvi "Hempuli" Teikari has goofed around and made since the first game released, though the pure torment of Baba Files Taxes is one I'm not keen to repeat. You can keep track of developer Hempuli on his website.
