Game EXP: BAISU (VSD) - Walkthrough Video & Commentary

  [Disclaimer:  I received a review key for BAISU through Keymailer, a third-party website/company that connects publishers and developers with content creators.  The game was given without promise or expectation of a positive review, only that the game be played and content be created through the playing of the game and the experience.  Unless otherwise noted, all content in the following article is from my own playthrough of this game.]

BAISU
Systems: Windows, Linux
Release Date: May 30, 2024
Publisher: TripleDucks Studio
Developer: TripleDucks Studio 
Time Spent: 5 Hours 30 Minutes

Below I am including an entire walkthrough for BAISU that I cobbled together from three different play sessions on my Steam Deck.  I had not originally planned on doing a complete walkthrough video but ended up filming the entire thing my second time sitting and playing through the game.  Kind of.

So let's do a written commentary track of sorts, which I apologize up front turned out to be rather long.  There is no tl;dr for this one.

I first filmed the intro/tutorial sequence by acquiring the flashlight but I didn't like how I played the first part in the house; I grabbed the key before I was supposed to in the living room because I knew it was behind the picture.  So after going through the game, I refilmed the opening again through when you find the flashlight.  This is why the clock on the video jumps around a bit even while trying to splice the three separate clips together where they would normally overlap.  Those splices happened at 06:44 and 14:21.  I tried to mask the second splice with the static on the body camera, but it happened in a slightly different spot both times, so I just tried to mask it or at least make it less obvious.

The way I played the game while recording was a little bit different than how I first played the game, although I still tried to "react" in a similar manner, while also not intentionally looking for keys where I knew they would be (more on that once we get upstairs).  When there were jump scares I would stop forward movement and take a step backwards.  I already knew that with the exception of the final puzzle/encounter you could not actually die so I could have just maintained forward momentum for the entire video, but I didn't like the way that looked in a previous video I had recorded.

• 1:17 - I didn't mind that there was a floating circle showing you where to go and what to do in the police station and not later in the game.  It's a tutorial level so it makes sense that there would be markers showing you where things are and what they look like, and then not include them later.
• 07:00 - I wish the game would let me close the car door after letting Bella out.  It's raining after all.
• 8:00 - I liked that the frame around the light switches was illuminated, especially in a game that ends up relying heavily on a flashlight; and I don't think the light switches remain illuminated when after the power goes out or individual fuses are blown.
• 8:20 - I told Bella to search for clues at this point because I wasn't sure what she would find or where it would direct me to look as the only other time was when you needed to unlock the painting room; this happens about 9:27 and from what I can tell, is the last time that Bella is useful as a game mechanic.
• 8:45 - I don't know if there was supposed to be a connecting story about someone breaking in/out and the muddy footprints or the bloody handprints.  Maybe it was someone who had broken into the house (footprints) and then fled (handprints)?
• 10:14 - I love that once you enter the kitchen, before you turn on the lights you can hear Jolie's ghost smacking her head against the wall.  It really makes turning the lights on as quick as possible a priority to figure out what the sound is and where it's coming from.  
• I'm also not sure if I'm giving more credit where it's due, but the fact that the pillar is placed in a way that obstructs your view of Jolie's ghost is brilliant.  That the lights are now on, but that you still can't see what's making the noise adds to the creepiness.  And even after you move to see the figure, it's still very faint and obscured.
• However, I don't like that you have to walk almost literally right up to the ghost in order to trigger the next transition with the ghost "running" away and the lights being turned off.  I also think that there should've been some dialogue from Detective C/Kriest.
• 11:04 - I intentionally walked closer to the window to have it break.  I don't know if it looks natural or not, and maybe it was supposed to be triggered before finding out the ghost's location, maybe thinking that the sound was the sink dripping.
• 12:19 - I missed the rocking chair moving on its own, which you can hear as I approach the door.
• 12:37 - I don't know what that ripping sound is supposed to be or where it's coming from.  Maybe behind and I just didn't look?
• 13:07 - That light blowing out gets me every time.
• 14:21 - While I like that you can kind of see something move away from the door as Bella whines and the door slams, I wish that the front door was lit just a little bit more; or maybe it's just from having recorded it off of the Steam Deck.
• 14:37 - I think the developers should have had either the windows slam shut as you approached them, or have them already shut because as a gamer, I would think that I should be able to crawl through an open window if my character is trying quickly to get inside the house.  Either that, or have the C/Kriest say to himself "The window's too small for me to fit through."
• The same goes for the open window at 15:07.
• 18:07 - The first time through, I was legitimately terrified that something was going to jump out at me while trying to pick up those tiny fuses.  Although I do love that nothing occurs while you're in the basement because it really feels like something is supposed to happen.  Building tension.
• 19:14 - That really startled me the first time and I just stood there for a few seconds.
• 19:39 - I still can't quite tell what was happening there.  I don't know what the sound is supposed to be, or if that was supposed to be someone's shadow in the hall closet.
• 20:25 - I just noticed that the hall closet door opens on its own at some point between when I walked passed the pillar.
• 20:38 - I don't know if the sound of the light switch clicking is just a delayed audio glitch, or if it intentionally plays shortly after you enter the closet.
• 23:03 - There's our song!
• 23:27 - I love the combination of the radio playing music automatically, coupled with the shattering of the glass door and the scream.  It's a creepy and effective way of opening up a new area to the player while also making the player question if they really want to go explore an area that was just opened by a scream and shattering glass.
• 24:05 - I regret not looking at the desk on the left when entering the bedroom to see if that box that the doll was facing was a music box.
• 25:40 - The game probably should have said that the door was locked and that a key was needed to unlock the door since it's already established that closed doors that are locked require a key and that they're not just closed and inaccessible.
• I also forgot that the door was locked from my first playthrough, so that's why I ended up wandering around the second floor for the next seven minutes
• At 25:49, you can see that this candle, and likely all of the other candles in the game appear interactable.  I wonder if there was a lighter or matches that used to be in the game that was later removed and if there was an additional mechanic apart from having another light source that remained stationary.
• 30:19 - Oh yeah, I can open drawers.  Maybe I should do more of that!?
• 32:08 - Jesus that took me forever figuratively.
• 32:22 - Similar to Jolie's ghost, this apparition (of Annabelle?), I think the event should have been triggered before you were right up next to her, and that K/Criest should have said something thinking that there was a real-life girl in the closet.
• 33:02 - I don't know why the mannequin/doll is hard to see in the video here.  I recall being able to see it pretty clearly while I was playing.
• 33:06 - Legitimately my favorite jump scare of the entire game.  That you see a ghostly figure crawl across the floor at you, then you see a waist-high doll standing in the room that you just left now looking at you, all in under 30 seconds, but none of which are Pennywise-level jump scares.  So when you re-enter the room to take a closer look at this doll and a head pokes out from the wardrobe to playfully say "Boo!" it's absolutely the best.  I'm just disappointed that I didn't have the camera looking down just another few inches because here you barely see the top of her head and even then it may not be clear.
• 33:36 - Very, very, very close second favorite jumpscare right here.  I've never personally seen this type of jumpscare happen in a video game, let alone one that happens that doesn't actually do anything aside from turn the player 90 degrees.  There's surprisingly a lot that happens though in this one event.  First, the hand that grips your face, turning you towards the TV, which is now on but then turns off.  Then the radio in the hall turns on.  The game doesn't give you time to catch your breath either, which is amazing in this particular case.
• 33:59 - Part of me likes this sequence in this hallway.  I like that the walls change so that there are only two doors.  I like that you leave one room to open another door to find the same room.  I like the wardrobe door that closes right after you open the door to go inside.  I like the mannequin that is there in one room, then gone in the next, then is there again but holding a VHS tape.  However, I do think that this sequence goes on for a little bit longer than it should and probably could have been cut down by removing the number of times you pass through one room into another or just double back.
• 38:28 - While mostly effective, this jumpscare didn't really do anything for me as it was predictable.  I mean, it felt pretty obvious that all of the mannequins were going to turn their heads to look at you, granted I wasn't expecting their faces to be painted and have red glowing eyes.
• 38:50 - This part was pretty unnerving, just with the jerking movements of the head and the whispering sound going on.  I think there was a similar scene in the trailer, so I had that in my head too.
• 39:03 - Sorry about this part.  I paused the game to make myself and Conklederp a cup of tea (Sleepytime for me, and chamomile for Conklederp).  I had planned to cut the next minute out before posting, but then I forgot and then decided to leave it in after posting it to YouTube.
• 40:35 - Ahhh, another VHS tape incident.  Still don't like this mechanic.
• 41:33 - You know, I can't tell if the woman in the video is supposed to be Jolie, just because here her hair looks white whereas all of the other depictions of her she has dark hair.  It could be that she has a light-colored bandana on while she paints?
• 41:52 - I love the misdirection here.  That you're watching the video and trying to determine if the woman in the video (Jolie?) is looking up at the camera and why would there be a camera there recording her, but then the video cuts out and there's a knock on a door to your left, coming from the laundry room.  Then you hear some noise behind you (I think it's the same painting sound effect used earlier) and you find another doll/mannequin positioned in a way that makes it appear that it was watching the video with you, but now it's looking directly at you.
• 42:40 - The bedroom was a strange room for me, both this time and my first time.  The first time, when I saw that the balcony door was open, I stepped out then immediately backed up so I was back inside the room.  That's when the door closed automatically and the "tap-tap-tap" sound started.  Normally, as in the video, you're supposed to think that someone is tapping on the inside of the windows, but since I was inside, I thought it was coming from outside.  Looking out the windows revealed nothing, so I continued walking through the house.  What was strange about this was that I could hear the tapping even when I was downstairs, so I ended up wandering around a lot trying to find the source of the tapping.  I don't remember how I triggered the next event, but I was able to finally progress.  I do wish that I had been looking more in the room in this video to see the shadowy figure at 43:03, but I do kind of like that it's only visible out of the corner of your eye.
• 45:06 - This was me getting up and delivering Conklederp her cup of tea and taking mine to the table where I was playing.
• It's after this that I think the game could have done a better job of directing/reminding the players where they needed to go.  The video was the clue, to go look downstairs in the painting room because the painting was knocked over followed by the sound of painting, but because there's the sequence in the bedroom, you kind of immediately forgot about the content of the video, or at least I did.  Thankfully there is the vocal reminder, but only after you go downstairs and are headed towards the painting room.
• 47:32 - At this point, I thought I would take pictures of some of the other paintings, just to see if anything else, like the letters on the paintings, showed up.  I do this a couple of other times for paintings that look either out of place or just grab my attention.
• 50:53 - I'm not sure if I fully understand the purpose of this room.  There might be some environmental storytelling going on with Annabelle's drawing in the picture frame of the shadowy figure behind the family, but why would anyone frame this?  It seems more like a drawing you'd find under Annabelle's bed or pillow.  But maybe that's supposed to show the mental state of Jolie or Jack if they're framing this?  Also, at 52:30, why would this particular specter cause K/Criest to call out?  Is it that it looks more corporeal than all the others or because it's actively moving past the door?
• 53:41 - Yeah, no shit.  I made that same determination about 40 minutes ago.  I do love the heavily distorted version of "Skipity Beat" as it usually takes me a bit to realize what the sound is.
• 56:00 - This is a strange sequence.  The jumpscare here, presumably with Jack sitting on the bed is initially scary, but the animation lasts too long, even though it's only three seconds.
• 56:42 - I think the kettle whistling is there to trigger whatever that clattering noise was that happened a few seconds later.  I don't know if it makes sense to have something happened behind you for a split second if your attention is on the kettle and why it's there.
• 58:43 - I feel like this whole sequence could have been cut and K/Criest could have just found this letter in the wardrobe instead.  It's only a few minutes long, but I don't think it really adds anything to the story that we didn't already know.  We knew that Jack had a cabin in the woods somewhere, and if the letter we saw him writing in the cabin was the one that was daggered to the wall of the wardrobe would have achieved the same goal.
• I saw someone else's walkthrough at this point (I forgot why I was looking it up), but in theirs, you could see a pair of legs hanging in the closet, presumably Jack's body after he hung himself there.  I don't know if his legs should have been there before or after the cam static at 58:22.  There does look to be a noose in the closet though (59:38), or just a really poorly rendered clothes hanger.
• 1:01:54 - Yeah, that was a good one.  I think there's a voice that says, "Help me! It's coming, but I can't quite tell."
• 1:02:22 - Yeah, I realize I probably should've gone to the painting room because there's the sound effect of paint being scraped on a canvas.  I did check it out on my first playthrough, but I just B-lined it for the kitchen to make the phone call.
• 1:03:35 - I kinda like this reveal, that the house has been derelict and decaying this whole time.  It's reminiscent of the scene in IT with Beverly Marsh returning home and finding that Mrs. Kersh now lives there only to find out that the house is empty and boarded up, except here it's more literal because everything is on the bodycam and there's no attempt to say that what Kriest has been seeing isn't reality.  I also don't know why the game went to a loading screen as it didn't happen during my first playthrough.
• 1:05:29 - God damn doll mannequin thing again.
• 1:05:37 - Oh boy, this.  I get that TripleDucks Studio may not have someone on staff to check their English translation, and the text-to-speech that reads the news report about the house and the missing people, I feel is all overshadowed by how bad the English translation is.  It's a bit immersion-breaking, but still kind of funny.  I'm also not sure how important this news report is as we've already been shown that the house has been empty, and the information about additional people having gone missing in/around this house doesn't factor into Kriest/Bella's story.
• 1:06:08 - I do really like the creepy whispering voices.
• 1:06:52 - I feel like this is supposed to be the big showy jumpscare, and it worked a lot better during my first playthrough.  Here, I tried to have the framing look organic, but I didn't back up fast enough to be able to see the whole effect as well as I had been hoping.
• 1:07:12 - Don't know what that ripping or breaking sound was all about.
• 1:07:34 - I'm not also 100% sure what the point of this typewriter room was about.  Were we supposed to be able to read what is being typed?  Is it a reference to The Shining ("All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy") or IT ("He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts")?  I get that it kind of acts as a transition into the final moments of the game, and that the wall by the front entry hall needs to open up to give access to the new cellar area.  Maybe it just functions as a loading area?
• 1:08:55 - I really think that there should have been a candle here to better show where the player is supposed to look, but I know I missed it during my first playthrough and only stumbled across it while trying to figure out where to go.  Plus it would have tied in nicely with the candle-lit hallway when you were leaving the bathroom upstairs.
• 1:09:06 - Here you can barely, if at all, see the image of someone moving at the bottom of the stairs.  Maybe it was just more visible when I was playing it in the dark?
• 1:09:18 - I don't know if the character model is supposed to be bald here, or if it's just a mistake as I don't think we've seen Jolie without hair before.
• 1:09:33 - I think you're supposed to see a group of chains moving, like an invisible person pushing their way through, but it doesn't show up here, really at all.
• 1:10:05 - I get that this section is supposed to show what looks like burnt corpses, presumably of the other people mentioned in the news report and that this is supposed to warn you of your possible fate if you fail, but it just kind of confused me as after seeing that I needed to find another key, I kept searching one and around all of these bodies because it's where I would have hid a key if I had designed this area.
• 1:10:58 - I don't know how obvious it was that I knew where I was going to find this key, which I feel is very poorly placed.  There's no indication that there should be a key on this random shelf in this area of the basement.  My first time though I must have circled the entire area for a good 7 minutes, looking over everything for a key except this one shelf.  I just think it could have been put in a more natural spot considering you only have your flashlight as a light source.
• 1:12:08 - Like a lot that happened in these last few minutes, you can't really see the figure barreling towards you in slow motion while specific pictures you took are plastered on the screen and giving you five spaces to quickly play a game of Hangman before the timer at the top runs out and you die.  The first time I played this, I tried doing everything except manually bring up the keyboard on the Steam Deck.  The second attempt, I discovered that the keyboard completely covered up where you're supposed to type out the answer to the puzzle, and that the game started to lag a bit here, so having to use the two touchpads to type with a bit of a delay meant that the first couple of attempts ended in Bella escaping but Kriest dying.  I already talked about my feelings about the end of the game in our article from Monday, so I won't go more into it here other than to say, and I feel kind of bad saying it, that having the answer to an end-game puzzle be in a language that is never hinted at (apart from the title of the game) is just bad game design.  Yes, if you had found all of the paintings you could figure out the answer, but if you're missing just one painting, then unless you read/speak Lithuanian, you're going to have a hard time.
• 1:13:17 - Oh you just know that this is going to be bad.
• 1:14:01 - You know, I'm okay with how this ends, and I like that Detective Kriest's final word in the game is just, "Fuck." when he realizes that whatever it was in the house has likely followed him back.  Although the house did call him at the beginning of the game, so you have to wonder how he was even connected to the house in the first place or is the house just making random calls until someone picks up?

Well, that's my obscenely longer-than-I-planned text commentary for BAISU.  I don't know if I'll do this same format going forward, especially since this playthrough was only 75ish minutes, I can't imagine doing a longer written commentary.  Maybe I'll just have to record my own audio commentary then.

~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
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