Get Educated For Free! Or Actually, Don't; Just Keep Moving...
Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning is a free first-person horror game with no actual educational elements. It's designed as a parody of weird educational video games from the 90s, with neon colours, odd graphics, and an "educational" tutor that pursues you, with his allies, as you attempt to collect seven notebooks. It's not too dissimilar from other first-person horror titles like Amnesia: The Dark Descent.
An essay on learning and fear
Baldi's Basics doesn't really use mechanics like lighting up a narrow area of the game world with a flashlight, or other "dark" horror elements that some games feature. Instead, it focuses more on looking bizarre and slowing down the player with a strange, clunky interface. Though this adds some actual difficulty to the game, it doesn't always seem to be intentional, and it's not always fun. More enjoyable is the cast of characters: there's multiple pursuers besides Baldi who all behave differently, like the ghosts from Pac-Man.
Flawed fun
Overall, Baldi's Basics in Education is a fun little game with understandable flaws. If you used to play the titles it's parodying when you were younger, or you want an Amnesia-style survival horror collection game with some interesting additions, Baldi's Basics is worth trying out. After all, it's free.
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