Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning

Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning is a survival horror game that parodies 1990s educational video games,^[1][2][3] and is played from a first-person perspective.^[4] The player must collect seven scattered notebooks to escape the school, in which the game takes place.^[2][5][6] The notebooks belong to the player character's friend, who cannot retrieve them so as to not be late for "eating practice".^[3][7] Each notebook contains three simple math problems,^[2] but starting with the second notebook, the unsolvable math problems start to occur, after which Baldi, a school teacher, becomes hostile and begins chasing the player.^[2][8] Baldi chases the player with a ruler while smacking it against his hand as he moves,^[2][3][9] and can hear every sound that they make (e.g. opening doors).^[1][10] As they continue to collect more notebooks (and answer unsolvable math problems), Baldi becomes increasingly faster and harder to avoid.^[6] If the player gets caught by Baldi, they are jump scared, causing game over.^[2][8]

The player may encounter other characters that may impede their progress, such as "Principal of the Thing", "It's a Bully", and "Playtime".^[3][8][10] The principal locks the player in detention room, after breaking one of the school rules, such as running in the halls or entering the teacher's lounge. The bully takes one of the player's items upon interaction, and Playtime forces the player to jump rope.^[3][10] Items are scattered around the school, which the player can use,^[1] for instance, by cutting Playtime's rope, temporarily preventing her from stopping them via safety scissors.^[10] As well, they must manage their limited stamina.^[3]

Baldi's Basics in Education and Learning was developed by Micah McGonigal.^[a][11] Its main character, Baldi, originated from the comic strips that Micah had made during his youth.^[12][13] The comic revolved around Baldi's then-personality, where he was an inventor whose inventions always failed, Micah abandoned the comic sometime later.^{[14]: 11:21} Prior to the game, he learnt how to code on his Nintendo 3DS through SmileBASIC,^[15] and later with Unity.^{[14]: 26:36} In 2018, McGonigal cancelled remakes of the Petit Computer games that he made on, in order to enter a "Meta Game Jam", to gain experience in making games on the Unity engine.^{[14]: 27:40} At "Meta Game Jam", the contestants including Micah had to make a game from the start within two weeks, based on other video game genres.^{[15][14]: 33:25} Despite not knowing why he chose him initially, McGonigal recruited Baldi to be a school teacher to fill his role of the game's antagonist.^{[12][13][14]: 15:32} The game's design and its main inspiration was the 1996 video game Sonic's Schoolhouse. While Micah never played it, he chose it due to the unsettling visuals of the game, and its blend of 3D and 2D elements.^[12][13]

The game was released on March 31, 2018, on Itch.io,^[2][10][16] where it placed in second place in the competition.^[1][10][11] In June, the game was released on Game Jolt and received an update, which slightly lowered its difficulty.^[16] Mobile ports on iOS and Android were released in December 2019, under the name Baldi's Basics Classic.^[6][17] It features endless mode, where the player must keep collecting notebooks until Baldi catches them, but solving math problems will slow him down.^[6] In April 2025, McGonigal hinted at plans for the release of Baldi's Basics on consoles, where he began the search for a publisher.^[15]

Since May of 2018, Baldi's Basics went viral, after several Let's Play YouTubers, such as Markiplier, PewDiePie, and Jacksepticeye have made videos on the game.^[9][15][16] Various content videos were made, like animations and song adaptations, such as "Baldi's Basics: The Musical", made by the musical YouTube channel "Random Encounters".^[5][9][11] On YouTube, all Baldi's Basics videos gained over 500 million views in total.^[1][17] Fans were involved in modifications, with journalists noting appearances of the game in Roblox and Minecraft as recreations, as well as unauthorized mobile game knockoffs.^[5][9][16] It was also highly successful; by August 2018, the game had been downloaded over a million times,^[4][10][16] and by December 2019, it was downloaded over 5 million times,^[6][17] similarly to the mobile ports.^[1]

• Baldi's Basics Plus was announced on July 24, 2018, for a Kickstarter campaign as a "full game" of the original Baldi's Basics, following its popularity online, with a funding goal of US$50,000 (€43,000).^[4][19][20] The campaign succeeded, surpassing over half of its initial goal with a total pledged amount of $61,375 by the end of the funding on August 23.^[4][20] It was planned to release in December of 2019,^[5] and later delayed to early 2020,^[6][17] until its launch as early access on June 12, 2020, via Steam, Itch.io, and Game Jolt.^[10] It introduced new characters as well as roguelike elements such as randomly-generated maps and random events like fog or floods.^[10]
• Baldi's Basics: Field Trip was released on July 24, 2018, as a demo to promote the launch of a Kickstarter campaign for Baldi's Basics Plus.^[19][20][21] It is set in a forest on a field trip, where the player must keep a campfire burning by gathering firewood. Failure triggers Baldi to chase the player, leading to a game over.^[19][22] The demo would later be repurposed in Baldi's Basics Plus.^[10]
• Baldi's Basics Birthday Bash was released on April 1, 2019, as a birthday-themed version for the first anniversary of the original game. It adds randomly chosen items, decorations and costumes for the characters.^[5]
• Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered was teased in the spring of 2021 and later released on October 21, 2022, via Steam, Itch.io, and Game Jolt.^[1] It is a remastered version featuring both the original Baldi's Basics and the remake of the Birthday Bash, alongside a "Demo Style", which adds elements from Baldi's Basics Plus to the layout of the original game. All modes also include endless mode.^[1]