If you’ve spent any time looking at what kids are playing lately, you’ve probably seen a lot of high-octane, dopamine-flooding chaos like Roblox or Fortnite. Baba Is You is the complete opposite. It’s a quiet, lo-fi, minimalist puzzle game that looks like something from a 1990s GameBoy, but it has more "brain" than almost anything else on the market.

The premise is simple: In every level, there are objects (like Baba, a little white creature), obstacles (walls, water, lava), and "rule blocks." These rule blocks are words like BABA, IS, YOU, WALL, IS, STOP, and FLAG, IS, WIN.

The genius—and the madness—is that these blocks are interactable. If the screen says WALL IS STOP, your character can’t walk through walls. But if you push the word STOP away, the rule breaks. Now the walls are just decorations you can walk over. If you change the blocks to read WALL IS YOU, you suddenly stop controlling Baba and start controlling every single wall tile on the screen.

It is a game about breaking the rules to solve the problem.

We talk a lot about "coding" as a vital skill, but often we get bogged down in the syntax—the commas and brackets of Python or C++. What we actually want our kids to learn is systems thinking: the ability to understand how different parts of a system interact and how changing one rule affects the whole.

Baba Is You is a pure systems-thinking simulator. It forces kids to:

This is exactly how debugging works in software engineering. It’s how high-level strategy works in business. It’s moving from "I can't do this" to "What are the underlying rules of this situation, and how can I rearrange them?"

Ask our chatbot about other games that teach logic and strategy

You might think a game that looks like a spreadsheet from 1988 wouldn't stand a chance against the flashy graphics of Minecraft, but Baba Is You taps into a very specific kind of satisfaction: the "Aha!" moment.

There is a genuine "I am a genius" rush when you solve a level that seemed impossible. It appeals to kids who:

It’s also become a bit of a cult hit in the "cozy gaming" community because there’s no timer, no enemies chasing you, and no way to "fail" other than just getting stuck and needing to reset the level.

While the ESRB rating is "E for Everyone," that doesn't mean it's easy. Here’s how it typically breaks down by grade level:

They might enjoy the very first few levels with some heavy hand-holding, but the abstract logic quickly becomes too much. At this age, they are better off with ScratchJr or Kodable.

This is the sweet spot for starting. They’ll fly through the first 10-15 levels and then hit a wall. This is a great time to play with them. Don't give them the answer; ask them, "What rule is stopping us right now?"

Perfect. If your teen says they want to get into game design or computer science, this is a must-play. It’s also a great "palette cleanser" for kids who are spending too much time in the toxic chat rooms of competitive shooters.

From a digital wellness perspective, Baba Is You is a rare "clean" win.

Check out our guide on how to spot predatory monetization in games

If your kid is playing Baba Is You, they are going to get frustrated. Instead of telling them to "just take a break" (which we know never works), try engaging with the logic.

Questions to ask:

Baba Is You is one of the few games that actually delivers on the promise of "educational gaming." It’s not a boring math quiz disguised as a game; it’s a brilliant puzzle that treats kids like the smart, capable problem-solvers they are.

It’s the perfect antidote to the "brain rot" of endless scrolling. If your child can wrap their head around the logic required to beat the later levels of this game, they are well on their way to understanding the fundamental architecture of the digital world we live in.

Learn more about the best logic puzzles for kids