Why The Baby Steps Game Is Definitely Not For Kids

My mom swears that whatever video games my six-year-old nephew plays are totally fine for my three under five as long as I just cover their little eyes during the scary parts. My sister, bless her heart, thinks any screen more advanced than a wooden block will instantly turn a toddler's brain into actual mashed potatoes and ruin their future SAT scores. And my husband? He saw a title on the PlayStation store this weekend and said, "Hey, it’s an educational walking simulator, how bad could it be?"

Well, I'm just gonna be real with you right out of the gate. It's bad. The game he found is an adult-only, completely unhinged fever dream that has absolutely zero business anywhere near your kids, your living room, or your family's eyeballs.

I know what it sounds like. It sounds like a cute little app where a diapered infant learns to walk to upbeat xylophone music. If you're a tired, time-strapped parent frantically searching for something to keep your three-year-old occupied while you scrub oatmeal off the baseboards, you might see that title and hit download without a second thought. But you need to know exactly what you're actually paying for, because the gap between the title and the reality is wider than the Grand Canyon.

A cute name for a very weird adult problem

Let's set the scene here. You boot up this supposedly innocent game, and you're not playing as a cute infant. You're playing as Nate, an unemployed thirty-something adult man who lives in his parents' basement and wears a filthy, stained adult onesie. Through some bizarre turn of events, Nate is teleported to a strange world where he literally has to learn how to put one foot in front of the other.

It's not an educational game about toddler milestones. It's a dark comedy satire about an adult manchild who has completely failed to launch in life. You have to physically control his left foot and his right foot using the controller triggers, and because the physics are designed to be an absolute nightmare, Nate basically just flails around, trips over rocks, and face-plants into the mud.

I mean, I appreciate a good metaphor for the struggles of modern adulthood as much as the next exhausted millennial mom, but this is clearly not something made for the preschool demographic. And the frustrating controls are just the tip of the iceberg.

Let's talk about the donkey hybrids

Y'all, I need to prepare you for the actual visual content here, because the explicit nature of this game is completely wild. At some point while you're hopelessly trying to make Nate stumble up a mountainside, you encounter these bizarre creatures that the ratings board casually describes as "human/donkey hybrids with exposed male genitalia." Read that sentence again. That's what your kid will see if they walk into the living room asking for a juice box. Full, graphic, male nudity slapped right in the middle of a frustrating hiking simulator. It's absurd, it's meant to be shocking adult humor, and it's absolutely the kind of thing that will have you diving across the sofa to unplug the television before your oldest points at the screen and asks a question you don't have the biological vocabulary to answer at 8:00 AM on a Tuesday.

Now, to be fair, there's a censor option that pops up when you first start playing. The game literally asks, "Do you want to enable nudity?" If you click no, it slaps these giant, comedic black censor bars over the lower halves of the characters. But the dirty jokes, the crude taunts telling the character to strip, and the overall incredibly mature themes are still fully intact. There's also a scene with a smoking bong and some text referencing molly, which is just lovely, but let's be honest, it's the unedited graphic anatomy swinging around that's going to make you spill your coffee.

What actual milestones should look like

When my oldest was learning to crawl and walk—a terrifying era I affectionately refer to as my cautionary tale years—I genuinely thought we needed all the flashy digital stuff to help them learn. I bought the plastic walkers that lit up and blasted electronic barnyard sounds until my ears rang. We didn't need any of that junk.

If you want to support your baby's physical development, you just need a safe spot on the floor and some well-made basics. That's why I started ditching the screens entirely for the babies and relying on stuff like the Bear Play Gym Set. I'm telling you, this thing is a lifesaver. It’s made of untreated solid wood, so it's completely safe when my teething nightmare of a youngest child inevitably chews on the frame. The little hanging toys have these neutral wooden textures with just a splash of pastel, so it actually looks nice in my living room instead of looking like a neon plastic explosion. Plus, the wooden rings make a soft little rattle noise that stimulates their visual and motor skills without giving me a migraine. It costs way less than buying the latest video game, it folds up flat when my mother-in-law comes over, and most importantly, it involves zero inappropriate donkey hybrids.

I also tried out the Tent & Ring Hanger recently, and I'll just be upfront with you: it’s just okay. The design is super boho and cute, but the fixing rope setup on the sides is a little finicky for me when I'm trying to break up a wrestling match over a sippy cup with one hand and set up a play area with the other. I much prefer the sturdy, basic A-frame construction of the Bear gym where I don't have to fuss with adjusting anything.

Why this game will teach your kid new swear words

Even if you manage to censor the visuals and explain away the weird adult onesie, you still have to deal with the fact that this title was created by Bennett Foddy. If you don't know who that's, he's famous for creating a genre known as "rage games." These are games purposefully built to be so incredibly frustrating and difficult to control that you lose hours of progress from a single tiny mistake.

You know what happens when an exhausted adult plays a rage game? They swear. They swear loudly and creatively. The game itself is rated M for Mature not just for the visuals, but for pervasive profanity, including the F-word, sprinkled all over the dialogue.

My pediatrician looked me dead in the eye at our last well-child visit and told me that little toddler brains basically just marinate in whatever emotional reactions they observe around them. So if they're sitting on the rug watching a grown adult pitch an absolute fit, screaming profanities at a television because a digital man tripped on a rock, I guess that gets wired right into their little emotional regulation systems or whatever. They don't have the prefrontal cortex development to understand irony or adult frustration. They just see you losing your mind, and they learn the words you use when you do it.

The sneaky streamer loophole

Here's the real kicker. Even if you're smart enough to read the ratings, realize the title is a trap, and refuse to purchase this mess for your home console, your kids might still see it. Because of the outrageous humor, the weird censorship options, and the hilarious reactions it causes, this game is wildly popular among YouTube and Twitch streamers.

If you leave your kid unsupervised on a tablet with access to video game streams, the algorithm is absolutely going to feed them "funny rage compilations." They will be watching their favorite internet personalities yell at the screen while a pants-less digital man tumbles down a cliff. You can't rely on the internet to filter this stuff out just because the word "baby" is in the title.

Instead of relying on an iPad to keep them busy, redirect them to something tangible. Check out Kianao's full educational wooden toys collection if you need a distraction that doesn't require a WiFi connection and a parental advisory warning.

Personally, I really love the Leaf & Cactus Play Gym Set for the younger babies. The unfinished wooden toys are cut silk-smooth into these adorable little llama and cactus shapes, strung up with BPA-free silicone beads. It's totally free of chemicals, offers safe sensory play, and unlike a streamer screaming through your iPad speakers, it's completely silent. It's peace of mind for under fifty bucks, which is basically priceless when you're running on four hours of sleep.

Taking back your living room

Look, parenting in the digital age is exhausting, and game developers naming an M-rated, drug-referencing, full-frontal rage simulator something that sounds like a Fisher-Price toy is just incredibly unhelpful. We already have enough on our plates trying to figure out which organic cotton leggings won't shrink in the dryer; we shouldn't have to be forensic investigators just to buy a family video game.

Lock down your PlayStation account settings, activate the ESRB rating filters on your digital storefronts, and maybe hide the controller if your partner insists on torturing themselves with this ridiculous walking simulator after the kids go to bed. Protect your peace, protect your kids' eyes, and stick to the real baby steps on the living room rug.

Need some actual, safe floor activities for your little ones? Browse our collection of untreated wooden play gyms to support their real-life motor skills right here at Kianao.

Messy questions you probably still have

How can I tell if a game is safe just by looking at the store page?

You really can't, and that's the annoying part! You have to look for the black-and-white ESRB box in the corner of the screen or the store listing. If it says M (Mature 17+), don't trust the cute cover art or the innocent name. Click on the rating details to see exactly why it got that score—it'll explicitly list things like "Nudity" or "Strong Language" so you don't get blindsided.

Can I just use the censor toggle and let my older kids play it?

I wouldn't. Even with the giant black censor bars over the characters' junk, the dialogue is completely packed with adult jokes, drug references, and F-bombs. It's satire meant for grown-ups who hate themselves enough to play incredibly frustrating physics games. Your ten-year-old doesn't need to hear a video game character talking about molly, censored or not.

What if my kid watched a YouTube video of this game by mistake?

Take a deep breath, first of all. We've all had those moments where we glance over at the tablet and panic. Just calmly close the app, don't make a massive dramatic scene out of it (because then they'll just want to watch it more), and go into their YouTube history to block that specific gaming channel. Then maybe use it as an excuse to do some actual floor play for the rest of the afternoon.

Why do developers name things like this?

Because they think they're being funny and ironic. The developer is making a joke about an adult man having to learn to walk like an infant. It's an inside joke for the gaming community, but it totally throws busy parents under the bus when we're just scrolling through the "New Releases" tab looking for something family-friendly.