Baba Is You

A puzzle game where the rules of each level are written on the floor as pushable blocks of text. BABA IS YOU is why you control Baba. Push the word BABA out of that sentence and you stop being Baba. Push WALL into it instead and you become the walls. Every level is solved by rewriting the sentences that define it.

The base level pack holds 231 levels, 12 flowers and 3 orbs. The free 2021 update added two further packs — Museum, a collection of cut levels with developer commentary, and New Adventures, original levels built from words that never made the final game — plus a level editor. This guide covers the base pack, which is what the achievements are attached to.

Read this before you start. Nothing is missable and there is no fail state — you can undo any move and restart any level instantly. What actually blocks people is the map itself: three gates need flowers to open, and the entire second half of the game is hidden behind a trick you have to discover on the overworld rather than inside a level.

The three gateswhat unlocks what

Gate	Flowers	What it opens
Gate 1	3	The path to the finale level, A Way Out?
Gate 2	5	Volcanic Cavern
Gate 3	7	The top area — Mountaintop, and map levels 08 to 10

Each of the ten main worlds gives exactly one flower when you clear it, so the gates open naturally as you work through the map. You do not need to clear a world fully — each one has a threshold below its total level count.

The map at a glancelevels per world, and how many you need for its flower

#	World	Levels	Needed for the flower	What it teaches
—	Map (Overworld)	14	—	The map is itself a level. This is the key to the whole endgame.
1	The Lake	15	8	SINK, OPEN and SHUT, the basics of rule-breaking
2	Solitary Island	18	8	FLOAT, MAKE, and turning objects into other objects
3	Temple Ruins	10	6	WEAK, HAS, and using one IS for two rules
4	Forest of Fall	20	7	MOVE, and objects that act on their own each turn
5	Deep Forest	21	9	SHIFT, PULL, and conveyor logic
6	Rocket Trip	15	8	Vertical thinking, and rules read top to bottom
7	Flower Garden	12	4	ON, NEAR and the other positional modifiers
8	Volcanic Cavern	15	9	HOT and MELT, TELE, and multi-object chains
9	Chasm	16	9	MORE, SWAP, and abstract rule manipulation
10	Mountaintop	9	6	LONELY, IDLE and the conditional modifiers

Roadmap to 100%the order that works

Work through the ten main worlds in map order, clearing at least the threshold in each one so the flowers accumulate and the gates open on schedule.

Solve A Way Out? the ordinary way for the level, then solve it again with [X] IS END for the normal ending. Both are needed — the first gives only the spore.

Clear the Map's own 14 levels. Map-10 teaches LEVEL IS FLAG, which is what lets you treat the overworld as a playable level.

Use that to reach the map's secret level, then ???. From there ABC, Depths, Meta and finally the Center open in sequence. See the Hidden Areas tab.

Finish The End for the true ending, and sweep the remaining levels for Baba Is All.

Core Mechanics

A rule written on the floor — push a word out of line and it stops being true

Every rule is a sentence of text tiles read left to right or top to bottom, in the shape NOUN IS PROPERTY or NOUN IS NOUN. Push any word out of the line and the rule dies that instant. Text itself is pushable by default, which is what makes all of this possible.

The timing rule that solves half the game. Rule changes are evaluated at the end of a turn, after movement has already resolved. That means you can move into a square that would kill you and break the rule that kills you in the same step, and survive.

Word classeswhat each kind of tile does

Class	What it is
Nouns	Objects: BABA, KEKE, FLAG, WALL, ROCK, WATER, SKULL, LAVA, KEY, DOOR and so on.
Verbs	IS, HAS, MAKE, FEAR, EAT, MIMIC — the joint of the sentence.
Properties	YOU, WIN, STOP, PUSH, SINK, DEFEAT and the rest — what the noun becomes.
Modifiers	LONELY, IDLE, ON, NEAR, FACING, WITHOUT, SEEING, FEELING, and the directional words. They narrow which copies of an object a rule applies to.
NOT	Negates whatever follows. NOT can also stack.
AND	Joins two nouns or two properties into one sentence.

The verbsbeyond IS

Verb	What it does
IS	Be, or become. NOUN IS PROPERTY grants the property; NOUN IS NOUN transforms every copy.
HAS	Drops the named object when the subject is destroyed. BABA HAS KEY means killing Baba leaves a key behind.
MAKE	Continuously spawns the named object underneath the subject, every turn.
FEAR	The subject flees from the named object.
EAT	The subject consumes the named object on contact and survives.
MIMIC	The subject copies the rules currently attached to the named object.

The properties that matterthe ones puzzles are built from

Property	What it does
YOU	You control it. Nothing is YOU means you cannot move at all — but the level is not lost until you also cannot undo.
WIN	Touch it while being YOU and the level ends. Something can be both YOU and WIN, which wins instantly.
STOP	Blocks movement without being pushed.
PUSH	Shoves when walked into. Text is PUSH by default.
PULL	Dragged behind you instead of pushed ahead.
SINK	Both objects are destroyed on contact. Water is the classic.
DEFEAT	Destroys anything that is YOU on contact, and survives.
HOT and MELT	A HOT object destroys a MELT object. Neither does anything without the other.
OPEN and SHUT	Mutual destruction — the key and door pairing.
MOVE	Steps one tile per turn on its own and bounces off obstacles.
SHIFT	Carries whatever is standing on it, one tile per turn.
FLOAT	Puts the object on a separate layer. Floating and non-floating things pass straight through each other.
WEAK	Destroyed by contact with anything at all.
TELE	Teleports whatever stands on it to another tile of the same type.
SWAP	Trades places with whatever moves into it instead of blocking.
MORE	Duplicates the object into adjacent free space each turn.
SAFE	Immune to DEFEAT, SINK, HOT and the rest.
END	Ends the game. This is how the real ending is reached.

Implicit rulesalways true, never written down

Rule	What it means for you
TEXT IS PUSH	Every word can be shoved. This is never printed in a level but is always in force — unless a level overrides it.
LEVEL IS STOP	On the overworld map, level icons block the cursor. Changing this is the single most important discovery in the game.
CURSOR IS YOU	On the map, you are the cursor. It can be freed from its track.

Meta objectsthe words that break the frame

Word	What it refers to
LEVEL	Either a level icon on a map, or the level you are standing inside. LEVEL IS WIN, LEVEL IS YOU and LEVEL IS FLAG are all legal sentences.
TEXT	All text collectively. TEXT IS YOU, TEXT IS WIN and TEXT IS HIDE are common twists.
EMPTY	An unoccupied tile. EMPTY IS WIN and EMPTY IS BABA both work, and both are strange.
ALL	Every object present in the level at once.
GROUP	A bundle defined by the level author. GROUP2 and GROUP3 also exist.
CURSOR	The map pointer, which is itself an object you can write rules about.

World Walkthrough — 11 Areas

Pick a world below, then use the Previous / Next buttons at the bottom of each one to move through the map.

How to read this. Every world lists all of its levels in map order, what it teaches, and how many you need to clear for its flower. Levels marked HARD have a full written solution on the Hardest Levels tab.

MAPThe Overworld14 levels — and the key to the entire endgame

The map is not just a menu. It is a level, with its own rules and its own cursor, and fourteen of its tiles are solvable puzzles. Map-10 is the one that matters most: it teaches you to write LEVEL IS FLAG, and that single idea opens everything hidden in the game.

Map-00 — Baba Is You. Walk right into the flag. The tutorial: BABA IS YOU and FLAG IS WIN are both already written.

Map-01 — Where Do I Go? Break WALL IS STOP by pushing one of its words out of line, then assemble FLAG IS WIN and touch a flag.

Map-02 — Now What Is This? WALL IS YOU is active, so you are the walls. Break FLAG IS STOP, rebuild it as FLAG IS WIN, and move a wall into a flag.

Map-03 — Out of Reach. Push a rock into the water to bridge it, cross, then rearrange the text into ROCK IS WIN and touch a rock.

Map-04 — Still Out of Reach. Push rocks upward and use them to shove the SKULL text rightward, breaking SKULL IS DEFEAT. Then simply walk to the flag.

Map-05 — Volcano. Form LAVA IS PUSH, shove the lava out of the way and reach the flag. Other routes exist using HOT and MELT.

Map-06 — Off Limits. Break WALL IS STOP, then reassemble it as WALL IS YOU and move the wall itself into the flag.

Map-07 — Grass Yard. The lesson here is that one IS tile can serve two sentences. Put FLAG above the IS and WIN below it, building FLAG IS WIN vertically.

Map-08 — Slideshow. Pure navigation, no rule changes: left twice, up three, right past the wall, down three, then left into the flag.

Map-09 — Fragile Existence. Introduces LEVEL IS WEAK. Several routes work, generally involving KEY IS YOU together with wall positioning. Clearing it changes the map itself.

THE IMPORTANT ONE Map-10 — Hostile Environment. Do not build FLAG IS WIN. Build LEVEL IS FLAG instead. The map becomes an object you can interact with, and that opens the secret map area.

ORB Map Secret Level. Reachable only once you can walk the overworld as an object. Three routes exist; the notable one is walking left and breaking TEXT IS HIDE, which reveals the hidden text. Orb 1 is here.

A Way Out? The finale, behind the three-flower gate. Solving it the ordinary way gives you the spore only — for the normal ending you must instead build [X] IS END. Do both.

The End. The true final level, reached through the Center after Meta. See the Hidden Areas tab.

WORLD 1The Lake15 levels — 8 for the flower

The teaching world. It introduces SINK, the OPEN and SHUT key-and-door pairing, and the habit that carries the whole game: when a level looks impossible, read the sentences on the floor and ask which one you can break.

Flower requirement. Clear 8 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Icy Waters	SINK — water and anything touching it both vanish
2	Turns
3	Affection
4	Pillar Yard
5	Brick Wall
6	Lock	OPEN and SHUT introduced
7	Novice Locksmith
8	Locked In
9	Changeless
10	Two Doors
11	Jelly Throne
12	Crab Storage
13	Burglary
E1	Submerged Ruins	Extra level
E2	Sunken Temple	Extra level

WORLD 2Solitary Island18 levels — 8 for the flower

Introduces FLOAT, which splits the level into two layers that ignore each other, and MAKE, which spawns objects every turn. This is also where transforming one object into another becomes routine.

Flower requirement. Clear 8 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
0	Poem
1	Float	FLOAT introduced
2	Warm River
3	Bridge Building
4	Bridge Building?
5	Victory Spring
6	Assembly Team
7	Catch the Thief!
8	Tiny Pond
9	Research Facility
10	Wireless Connection
11	Prison	HARD
E1	Boiling River
E2	Bridges?
E3	Tiny Isle
E4	Dim Signal
E5	Dungeon
E6	Evaporating River	HARD

WORLD 3Temple Ruins10 levels — 6 for the flower

The shortest world, and the one that teaches WEAK and HAS. It also drills the trick of sharing a single IS between a horizontal and a vertical sentence.

Flower requirement. Clear 6 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Fragility	WEAK introduced
2	Tunnel Vision
3	A Present For You	HAS introduced
4	Unreachable Shores
5	But Where's the Key?
6	Love Is Out There
7	Perilous Gang
8	Double Moat
9	Walls of Gold	HARD
E1	Further Fields	HARD — widely considered the first real wall in the game

WORLD 4Forest of Fall20 levels — 7 for the flower

MOVE arrives, and with it objects that take their own turn. From here on, timing matters as much as arrangement — you have to think about where something will be, not just where it is.

Flower requirement. Clear 7 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Hop
2	Grand Stream
3	Rocky Road
4	Telephone
5	Haunt
6	Crate Square
7	Ghost Friend
8	Ghost Guard
9	Leaf Chamber	MOVE introduced
10	Not There
11	Catch
12	Dead End
A	Literacy
B	Broken Playground
C	Fetching
D	Scenic Pond
E	Skeletal Door
E1	Jump
E2	Even Less There
E3	Deep Pond

WORLD 5Deep Forest21 levels — 9 for the flower

The largest world on the map. SHIFT turns floors into conveyor belts and PULL reverses how objects follow you, so a lot of these levels are about setting something in motion and getting out of its way.

Flower requirement. Clear 9 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Renovating
2	Toolshed
3	Keep Out!
4	Baba Doesn't Respond
5	Patrol
6	Canyon
7	Concrete Goals
8	Victory in the Open
9	Moving Floor	SHIFT introduced
10	Lovely House
11	Supermarket
12	Lock the Door
13	Factory
14	Tiny Pasture
A	Nearly
B	Not Quite
C	Passing Through
D	Salvage
E	Insulation
E1	Crumbling Floor
E2	Skull House

WORLD 6Rocket Trip15 levels — 8 for the flower

A vertical world. Sentences here are as often read top-to-bottom as left-to-right, and several levels hinge on realising that a word you thought was out of play is one tile away from completing a vertical rule.

Flower requirement. Clear 8 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Empty	EMPTY introduced — a bare tile is an object you can write rules about
2	Lonely Flag
3	Babas Are You
4	Please Hold My Key
5	Horror Story
6	Aiming High
7	Trio
8	Bottleneck
9	Platformer
10	The Pit
11	Heavy Words
12	Guardians
13	Sky Hold
E1	Existential Crisis
E2	Heavy Cloud

WORLD 7Flower Garden12 levels — only 4 for the flower

The positional modifiers land here: ON, NEAR, FACING and the rest, which let a rule apply only to the copies of an object standing in a particular relationship to something else. The flower needs only four clears, so this world is quick to bank even though its extras are hard.

Flower requirement. Clear 4 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Condition	The modifiers begin
2	Thicket
3	Sorting Facility
4	Relaxing Spot	HARD
5	Maritime Adventures
6	Ruined Orchard
7	Blockade
8	Jaywalkers United
9	Overgrowth
10	Adventures
E1	Secret Garden	HARD
E2	Out at Sea

WORLD 8Volcanic Cavern15 levels — 9 for the flower

Behind the five-flower gate. HOT and MELT only mean anything as a pair, TELE moves things between matching tiles, and the levels start chaining three or four rule changes together.

Flower requirement. Clear 9 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Tour
2	Peril at Every Turn
3	Pillarwork
4	Mouse Hole
5	Torn Apart
6	Vital Ingredients
7	Backstage
8	The Heist
9	Join the Crew
10	Automation
11	Trick Door	HARD
12	Trapped
13	Tunnel
14	Broken Expectations
E1	Coronation	Uses SWAP together with negation

WORLD 9Chasm16 levels — 9 for the flower

The abstract world. MORE duplicates objects, SWAP trades places instead of blocking, and several levels stop being about the objects at all and become about the text.

Flower requirement. Clear 9 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
A	Rocky Prison
B	Siege
C	Elusive Condition
D	Treasury
E	Looking For A Heart
F	Lava Flood
G	Entropy
H	Floodgates
I	Lonely Sight
E1	Metacognition
E2	Multitool
E3	Broken
E4	Alley
E5	Keke And The Star
6	Visiting Baba
7	Automated Doors

WORLD 10Mountaintop9 levels — 6 for the flower

Behind the seven-flower gate, and the last of the main worlds. LONELY, IDLE and the other conditional modifiers turn rules on and off depending on what is next to what — three of the hardest levels in the base game are here.

Flower requirement. Clear 6 of this world’s levels and its flower is yours — you do not have to finish every level here to move on.

#	Level	Notes
1	Shuffle
2	Love At First Sight
3	Solitude	HARD — LONELY
4	What Is Baba?
5	Connector
6	Floaty Platforms
7	Seeking Acceptance
8	Tectonic Movements	HARD
E1	The Floatiest Platforms	HARD

Hidden Areas

Roughly half of Baba Is You sits behind a discovery the game never prompts you toward: the overworld map is itself a level, with its own rules, its own cursor, and level icons that behave like objects. Once you accept that, five more worlds open in a chain.

The one idea that unlocks everything. Three implicit rules govern the map: LEVEL IS STOP, CURSOR IS YOU and TEXT IS PUSH. Map-10 teaches you to write LEVEL IS FLAG. Free the cursor from its dotted track, treat the level icons as objects, and the map becomes solvable like any other puzzle.

The chain, in ordereach one opens the next

ORB 1 The Map secret level. Reachable once you can move as an object on the overworld. Walking left and breaking TEXT IS HIDE reveals the hidden text. The first orb is in here.

ORB 2 ??? — the Glitch World. Opened by turning the overworld into a playable level. Deliberately corrupted-looking, and home to the secret levels Huh?, Orb (the second orb) and A Prize Well Earned (the third). Clearing it gives the achievement Not Baba.

ABC. Appears at the top of the map after you clear ??? level 05, Scale. Seven alphabet-themed levels, and it awards a flower. Achievement: B A B A.

Depths. Reached by winning the world map of ??? itself — the same trick, one level deeper. Ten levels.

Meta. Unlocked by winning the Depths map the same way. Levels about levels, including The Box and The Return of Scenic Pond. Achievement: What.

The Center, and The End. Completing Meta opens the Center, which leads to the final level The End — the true ending, and the achievement of the same name. Once you have been to Depths, Meta and Center, two-way shortcut icons are added to the map.

??? — the Glitch Worldthe level list

#	Level	Notes
1	Glitch
2	Error
3	Whoops
4	Mean Fence
5	Scale	Clearing this one opens ABC
6	Fireplace
7	Turn the Corner
8	VIP Area
9	Tense Atmosphere
10	Tag Team
11	Security Check
12	Ultimate Maze	The one level in the game that is genuinely easier watched than read
E	Across · Castle Disaster · Hazel Den · Baba Has Keke	Extras
S	Orb · Huh? · Getting Together	Secret levels — Orb holds the second orb
+	Do It Yourself · Write the Rules · Rewrite the Rules · Written Instructions	Added in a later patch

ABC7 levels — awards a flower

#	Level	Notes
1	Lunar Gallery
2	BA
3	AB
4	Queue	Introduces NEAR
5	Wall
6	Stardrop
E1	Meteor Strike

Depths10 levels

#	Level
1	Cleaning Service
2	Exercise Hall
3	Crushers
4	Collaborative Effort
5	Living Lands
E1	Priority Lane
E2	Parade
E3	Hidden Relic
E4	Buried Treasure
E5	Endless Corridor

Metalevels about levels

#	Level	Notes
1	Hot Potato
2	Adventure
3	Booby Trap
4	Canister
5	Avalanche
6	One-Way Entrance
7	Bramblevine
8	Mutual Feelings
9	Delicate Star
10	Just No
11	Acrobatics
12	The Return of Scenic Pond	Widely called the hardest level in the game
13	Breaking and Entering
14	Tangle	HARD — one of its solutions is required for The Box
15	The Box	HARD
E	Hidden Path · Triplets · A Prize Well Earned	A Prize Well Earned holds the third orb

The three orbspure bonus — they gate nothing

#	Where	Notes
1	The Map secret level	Finding any orb gives the achievement Orb Is Bonus
2	??? — the level called Orb
3	A Prize Well Earned

Hardest Levels

The levels that stop the most players, with a written route through each. Baba Is You usually has several valid solutions per level — these are the ones that are easiest to follow in text.

Temple Ruinsthe first real wall

Extra 1 — Further Fields. Break BABA IS MOVE at a moment when no Baba is touching the wall. Shift KEKE IS YOU upward so YOU lines up with GRASS. Build BABA IS PUSH with all three Babas on the left side facing right, convert that to KEKE IS PUSH, place MOVE beneath it, and form BABA IS MOVE with yourself under BABA and to the left of YOU. Then wait — the Babas push everything rightward into line on their own — and step down to the flag.

09 — Walls of Gold. Make WALL IS ROCK to convert the walls, shuffle the resulting rocks, then put IS and WIN under the enclosed rock to form ROCK IS WIN. Build ROCK IS YOU above YOU to reach it.

Solitary Island

Extra 6 — Evaporating River. Push IS SINK to the right of the river, then push WATER in beside it — WATER IS SINK forms and the water destroys itself. Next, put a cog below the left skull and push it up onto the skull, then build COG IS SINK to dissolve both. Finally push FLAG into place to make FLAG IS WIN.

11 — Prison. Make Keke pushable, then position Keke above WALL so the wall becomes passable when you need it and immovable when you do not. Swap which object is YOU so you can walk through the wall, then bring WIN down onto WALL and touch it.

Flower Gardenthe positional modifiers

04 — Relaxing Spot. Get a rock onto the belt, then the KEKE text onto the belt, and arrange ROCK ON TEXT IS PUSH vertically. Push Keke onto the rock against the wall, then into the water, and finally line Keke up with FLAG and push it up into IS WIN.

Extra 1 — Secret Garden. Build TEXT ON ROCK IS KEKE to turn the rock into a Keke. Alternate between ROCK IS PUSH and KEKE IS PUSH to walk each of them onto the skull, then use ROCK IS TEXT together with KEKE IS PUSH to push Keke into the water and open the way to FLAG IS WIN.

Volcanic Cavern

11 — Trick Door. Push the ghost up one tile. Build GHOST NOT FACING WALL IS PUSH along with KEY IS PUSH, then push the ghost to the right so that it forms TILE IS WALL. From there the flag comes into reach.

Mountaintopthree of the hardest in the base game

03 — Solitude. Put a rock two tiles above the water. Make KEY IS PUSH and move the key onto the rock. Push LONELY onto the skull, then raise all four words to form LONELY KEY IS PUSH. Stand on the key and rock, push LONELY to the left, and send the key into the water. Finally make ROCK IS OPEN and push the box up into the rock.

08 — Tectonic Movements. A long pillar-shuttling sequence. Park the first pillar through the right-hand gap, then break PILLAR IS PUSH at exactly the right moment so the pillars stay where they are. Push IS to the left to form FLAG IS WIN, re-enable PILLAR IS PUSH, and drive the last pillar into the cloud.

Extra 1 — The Floatiest Platforms. Use both Babas to shuffle rocks into a three-rock bridge. Then park ROCK IS PUSH off the right edge of the platform so the two Babas end up overlapping and stop counting as LONELY, which lets you push the key into the door.

Metathe last two

14 — Tangle. The quick route is simply breaking FLAG IS PUSH. The completionist routes are different: either LEVEL IS MELT AND FLOAT, or LEVEL IS with AND FLAG below it and MELT pushed in, which turns the level itself into a flag. You need that third solution before The Box is solvable.

15 — The Box. This requires the adjacent map level to already be a Flag, which is what Tangle's third solution does. Then make ROCK IS PUSH and break ROCK IS DEFEAT by pushing the rock up one tile. Build LEVEL NEAR ROCK IS PUSH so you can walk over the rock and push it upward, then push LEVEL and NEAR over the rock pair to form LEVEL NEAR FLAG IS WIN.

Achievement	How
Baba Is End	Beat the game through A Way Out?
Orb Is Bonus	Find any one of the three orbs
Baba Is All	Complete the world map — all ten worlds plus the Map's own levels. The grind achievement.
Not Baba	Complete ???
B A B A	Complete ABC
Baba Is Baba	Complete a secret area — attributed to Depths and Meta
What	Complete Meta. The rarest achievement in the game.
The End	Finish the level The End — the true ending

Collectible	Count	Notes
Levels	231	The base level pack. Counted in-game as spores.
Flowers	12	Ten from the main worlds, the rest from the hidden areas
Orbs	3	Pure bonus — they unlock nothing
Achievements	18

Achievement	World
Water Is Sink	The Lake
Cog Is Push	Solitary Island
Box Has Key	Temple Ruins
Leaf Is Move	Forest of Fall
Tree Is Shift	Deep Forest
Rocket Is Dust	Rocket Trip
Hedge Is Stop	Flower Garden
Lava Is Hot	Volcanic Cavern
Baba Is More	Chasm
Bird Is Float	Mountaintop

BABA IS YOU

Baba Is You

Core Mechanics

World Walkthrough — 11 Areas

Hidden Areas

Hardest Levels

Achievements

100% Checklist