[Disclaimer: I received a review key for Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game 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.]
Systems: Windows, Linux
Release Date: September 16, 20204
Publisher: Steelkrill Studio
Developer: Steelkrill Studio
Time Spent: 3 Hours 48 Minutes
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I had moderately high hopes for Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game even though the first-person toddler perspective survival-horror genre only has a few games to this niche sub-genre, one of which I first played in Among the Sleep after it was released following its successful Kickstarter back in 2014. In "Among the Sleep," you play as a toddler in onesie pajamas as they navigate a somewhat disturbing fantastic setting of real-world locations melded with fantastic story-book-like settings, all the while avoiding gigantic horrors that turn out to be an alcoholic parent. You also have a smarmy-cabby-like-talking teddy bear as a companion. In Baby Blues Nightmares, while you are another onesie-clad toddler, you now find yourself in the real-world location of your house and Red Belly's Funhouse & Childcare facility where you're tasked with locating your dolls to help you fight off and defend yourself from the titular character of Red Belly.
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Since I played on the Steam Deck, I didn't have to do much to get the game to play the way I wanted it to. I didn't need to use any compatibility settings and the game ran at a consistent 30 fps with a combination of Ultra/High/Medium graphical settings. I did have to map a few keyboard buttons to the L4 and R4 back buttons like Left-Ctrl to crouch and Q to pick up and interact with certain items in the game. In Chapter 3 after acquiring the map and tinkering with the not-always-intuitive control UI, I tried creating a shortcut for the map to the 1 key (the game lets you create shortcuts for up to four items using the 1,2,3,4 key), but I couldn't get the game to pull up the map for me when I pressed the button on the Steam Deck. By default, the 1 key is mapped to the Up button on the left touchpad, but since that didn't seem to work, I created another mapping for the Up on the directional pad, but that didn't work either. Another gripe I had to deal with was opening drawers to use as steps to get on top of dressers and the like. Like a good Amnesia game, you had to click and hold on the drawer then manually slide the drawer out. The way that the controls on the Steam Deck were set up, was that I to either use the Claw Grip to press the B button with my index finger and swipe the right touchpad (or the right joystick, but I never did this), or use my right thumb on the B button and swipe with my left hand. Very inconvenient all around, but thankfully I was never forced into this kind of maneuver while being chased.
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Another complaint rests with the saving mechanic and its implementation. In the opening stage, from what I could tell, there were no save spots and I didn't notice any autosaving happening. Only after reaching Chapter 2 are save spots introduced, which feels rather late considering the first chapter really felt like an otherwise well-constructed tutorial chapter. Don't get me wrong though, I love that a separate nap room is a brilliant use the environment and maintaining a sense of continuity for the player playing as a onesie-clad toddler. However, later in Chapter 3, I discovered, I think, that you're able to save only once per room, with no indication from the game that this is a mechanic. In my Chapter 3 Part 2 video, at about 24:30, I figured I would unload the items I had collected and then save and quit, but I couldn't without the game telling me why, which is why I assume save/nap rooms are like one-time-only consumables. I might've chalked it up to a glitch, but it happened again in my Chapter 3 Part 2 video (x:xx.xx). I'm not against a survival horror game having limited saves (a la the original Resident Evil), but that information needs to be relayed to the player.
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There were several other mechanics that I ended up either not using, or didn't see the point of, mainly the tricycle. In Chapters 1 and 3, a tricycle with a trailer to load with items is available. In Chapter 1, you only ride the tricycle out of the garage and around a corner before you either stop at the sight of your mom being creepy, or you just continue another couple of yards before that goopy mass bursts through the hedges and ends your ride. I never felt that this was enough of a tutorial or plants the incentive with the player that the tricycle was an integral part of the game to warrant locating it in Chapter 3 as a necessary survival mechanic, especially since you had to locate the spare wheel first. For me, by the time I really understood the map and where I was in it at most times, I felt confident in being able to navigate around the facility while being able to avoid Red Belly. I also felt that I had better mobility on foot if I needed to make a quick turn, or if I needed to crawl into a duct or a locker to avoid Red Belly, assuming that the time required to dismount from the tricycle or even make an about-face would hamper me from being able to make a faster escape. So even though I found the spare wheel, spray paint, bike bell, and teddy bear, I felt no need to actually find the tricycle. And relating to running away from Red Belly, I felt that the rate that your stamina replenished outweighed the amount of time it would take to open up the menu to drink a bottle of milk in time to continue running away, so I never ended up using milk to replenish my stamina; unless I completely misunderstood what Fresh Milk was supposed to do.
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I have mixed feelings about the in-game map that you find, since it's not readily provided and easily accessible. when I first came upon the map, I nearly missed it because it was darkened by the blood/goop on the ground and I only saw it because of the white hand that appeared over it. Upon seeing the size of the facility, I was pretty overwhelmed especially this is a map in a video game operating in a very non-video game manner. There is no compass, there is no "you are here" on the map, and a lot of what is depicted on the map could be categorized as subjective to what is actually in the room. But that does make a certain kind of sense. The map is hand drawn, presumably by Aiden or someone a little older, so it's not going to be as accurate and as easy to follow as something you might find in "The Elder Scrolls Online" or "Assassin's Creed: Origins." By the end of the game, I was finding that I wasn't looking at the map as long to figure out where I was, but to figure out how to get to where I wanted to go as I already knew my location, but while I felt more comfortable navigating this massive space, I still wasn't overly thrilled with the color scheme of the X's denoting the dolls, or something important, or a point of interest as under certain lights, they all kind of looked the same.
Let's briefly review the game's ending, as there is some potentially heavy and triggering material here.
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After collecting all five of Aiden's lost dolls, he is all of a sudden on a narrow path leading up towards the unknown, flanked by scenes from his recent memory. Most of these scenes could be considered memories, except that there are a few that are before Aiden's birth, but I understand the desire and need for an exposition dump here at the end of the game. You pass scenes of spousal abuse that were pretty difficult to hear since the scenes looked more like animatronic displays with simple movements. But still hearing the repeated slaps/punches was difficult to listen to. It is then revealed that Aiden's father murdered his mother, likely at the beginning of the game during Chapter 1. I'm not quite sure how to feel about the semi-rosy ending about Aiden ending up in foster care while having experienced all of this trauma, before, during, and after the actual gameplay. Was then Aiden's running around Red Belly's Funhouse & Child Care facility supposed to have only occurred in his mind, or did Aiden's father take him there and then somehow lose track of him? I assume that's who Red Belly was in the game, a visage that Aiden placed over his Dad when he was in a violent and abusive rage. And then the stinger at the end of the game actually made me really sad, seeing Red Belly's hand rise up from the base of the crib while knowing that this is likely a figment of Aiden's imagination, but that he is currently and will likely relive this trauma while in the foster care system for years and likely decades to come. I don't know if I can or want to further analyze Aiden's living situation and past/present trauma because I'm not set up for that kind of analysis; also reading a book where physical child abuse happened against a child by a once-loving parent coupled with this game is hitting particularly hard right now.
It's a difficult topic. While I don't mind using video games as an avenue to talk about and discuss trauma, I don't know if "Baby Blues Nightmares" is the best game to be that vanguard. But honestly, who am I to tell someone that what doesn't sit well with me is the wrong approach, especially if the game was created as a coping mechanism? But that's just how I feel.
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Despite all of that, there was quite a bit that I actually enjoyed. I still think that having a survival horror game from a child's perspective is still novel when handled well. Having to think about how you're going to unlock and open a door when you can't even reach the door knob is a neat idea. I didn't mind the immersion-breaking mechanic of a toddler throwing a wooden truck hard enough to break a sheet of glass and then crawling up and over the shards of glass without taking any damage, that just would've been annoying despite it only happening a handful of times. There were a handful of well-placed jump scares that weren't dependent on the player being a child that I found genuinely frightening. Moments that involved stationary dolls like clowns in Chapter 1 and the wooden puppet in Chapter 2 I thought were well executed. Each jump scare involving Red Belly I thought was well timed and helped to maintain the physical weight and terror of this creature as he/it never felt that it was some flitty entity moving about the facility. There were a couple jump scares related to finding Aiden's coveted dolls but they didn't always happen after acquiring each doll, which made the actual scare that much more impactful. I also liked the auto-blinking mechanic as it kept me on edge, not knowing if something was going to appear between blinks.
You know, despite there being significantly more criticism that I had to say about Baby Blues Nightmares - Toddler Horror Game, I did enjoy it for the most part, and despite all of the negative things I had to say about it. While there were some mechanics that I enjoyed, others didn't feel well implemented or even necessary, but that didn't take away from the moments I was enjoying the game itself. I never felt that the game was cheap in its jump scares, and being able to hide from Red Belly successfully without getting caught was always satisfying; in that the two times I was caught felt fair, that I had messed up and not that the game broke its own rules. Oddly enough, being lost with the map was probably the lowest point in the game for me, but at the same time, figuring out the map and getting to where I needed to go was the high point.
If you'd like to watch one or all of my playthrough videos, they're up on YouTube here; although I do apologize for the videos being darker than they were on the Steam Deck, I'm still working on that.
~JWfW/JDub/The Faceplantman/Jaconian
The Shadows Come to Dance, My Lord
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