Baldi's Basics Plus

This shelf collects builds of Baldi's Basics Plus, the full sequel to the original Baldi's Basics. In every one of them you start a run in an elevator with no notebooks, an empty inventory and a teacher who has not heard you yet, and that last part matters more than anything else. The moment a door creaks, a locker slams or an activity goes wrong, Baldi knows roughly where you are, and the friendly Super Schoolhouse becomes a stealth roguelike where every floor is built from scratch. Pick a build from the list above, switch to full screen and you are walking the first hallway a few seconds later.

Style of play	Stealth horror roguelike wrapped in a 90s edutainment parody
Developer	Basically Games (mystman12), Early Access since June 12, 2020
What you actually do	Solve classroom activities for notebooks while Baldi tracks you by sound
Names to know	Baldi, Principal of the Thing, Playtime, It's a Bully, Johnny, BSODA, Zesty Bar
Setting	A randomly generated Super Schoolhouse plus Maintenance, Factory and Laboratory floors
Run length	Five floors in Hide & Seek, plus Endless Mode and Field Trips

Which Baldi's Basics Plus Build to Play

Baldi's Basics Plus has been updated many times, and each update reshaped the balance. Players often prefer a particular build because it matches the way they like to play, so the shelf keeps several of them side by side.

• Early builds keep the old maze-like libraries, the farm field trip and only three floors.
• Middle builds add the Pitstop, Diet BSODA, field trip hubs, time limits and vents.
• Recent builds bring five floors, Maintenance, Factory and Laboratory floors, stickers and the elevator button.

New players should start with a recent build: it has the interactive tutorial, signs outside every classroom and the Normal play style with three power tubes per floor. The full list of what changed in each version is in our update history for 0.4 to 0.9 and 0.10 to 0.14. The official game is sold in Early Access by Basically Games on Steam, itch.io and Game Jolt; if you enjoy it, the full version supports the developer.

Controls and First Steps

Press the full-screen button under the player before you start, because the halls are dark and long, and spotting Principal of the Thing at the far end of a corridor is much easier when the school fills your entire monitor. Full screen also keeps your mouse inside the window, which matters the first time you whip around to check whether the slapping is behind you.

Sound is half the experience. Baldi hunts by noise, and you hunt him the same way, so headphones make a real difference. The ruler slap speeds up as he gets faster, and players who learn to read that rhythm survive far longer than those who play muted.

Looking back with the spacebar is the habit that separates calm runs from panicked ones. A quick glance tells you whether Baldi is in the hallway or only in your head, and it costs nothing, while turning your whole view around in a narrow corridor can walk you straight into It's a Bully. The getting started guide covers the rest of the basics, from lives to saving a run.

Notebooks, Activities and the Ruler Slap

Every floor hides notebooks inside classrooms, and every classroom has an activity standing between you and its notebook. The Math Machine asks you to push the balloon with the right answer into the device. Balloon Buster gives you a target number and wants you to pop balloons until exactly that many remain, then pull the pulley. Match Machine is a memory game with question mark balloons that flip to reveal objects. Signs outside each door show which activity waits inside, and a hanging neon BONUS sign marks rooms with an extra question to earn more YTPs.

Get an activity right and Baldi stops to praise you while your stamina refills; bumping into him during that pause does not cost a life. Get it wrong and his speed climbs, which you hear immediately as the slapping in the distance gets quicker. Notebooks themselves give no stamina, so skipping classrooms to save time leaves you sprinting on an empty staminometer later. Step-by-step solutions for all three machines are in the activities guide.

Once every notebook on the floor is collected, the elevators reopen and glow green. Walk into one, turn around and press the button inside the car to finish the floor. Beginners often sprint in and wait for the doors to close on their own, which is a painful way to learn that the button is mandatory when Baldi is two steps behind.

The biggest early mistake, though, is treating the school like a race. Running is a rule break that Principal of the Thing punishes with detention, doors announce your position, and a sprint through a quiet hall can drag three characters toward you at once. Walking through empty corridors and saving the sprint for the moment the slaps get close is how most cleared runs actually look.

Modes Inside Baldi's Basics Plus

Hide & Seek is the heart of the experience. A run spans five randomly generated floors of rising difficulty, with notebooks to collect on each one and lives in the form of power tubes. Lose them all and you go back to the beginning; clear all five in a single run and you win. The Play Style option decides how forgiving that is: Normal gives three power tubes at the start of every floor, Arcade gives three for the whole run and Strict gives just one. Explorer sits on the same menu for anyone who wants to wander a floor without pressure, which makes it the safest way to test how sound and characters behave, and a seed field lets you replay a specific layout.

Endless Mode swaps the finish line for a score. You pick a level type and size, then collect as many notebooks as possible before Baldi catches you. Notebooks respawn, a fresh item appears every time you grab one, Students with lost items show up every two minutes and Johnny's Store is open from the start with a 250 YTP restock button. Score chasers live here, and because every failed activity keeps Baldi faster for the rest of the session, accuracy beats speed.

Field Trips are bonus outings reached by bus from the Pitstop with a Bus Pass in your inventory, and they can also be launched from the main menu for practice or high scores. The camping trip offers two minigames: Campfire Frenzy has you launch fuel into a fire while avoiding fuel that smothers it, and Pick-Quick-Nic asks you to grab food quickly without choosing Baldi's favorite dish. Win one inside a run and eight items spawn, of which you keep three, with a 250 YTP bonus for a perfect round. Both modes are covered in detail in the field trips and Endless guide.

The interactive Tutorial rounds out the menu. Chalk boards inside it display the controls you currently have set, and it walks through items, activities and the Pitstop in a calm space, which makes it a sensible first stop for anyone who has never heard the ruler slap before.

Five Floors, From Classrooms to the Wormhole Room

Early in the game the school feels almost manageable. Levels 1, 2 and 3 use the classic school layout with classrooms, a cafeteria, a faculty room, a library and the principal's office, and each comes with a time limit of 5, 7 and 9 minutes. When the clock hits zero, the hallway lights shut off one by one, you are marked guilty for being in school after hours and Baldi slowly speeds up. Standing in the darkest cells hides you from characters, so darkness becomes both the punishment and a hiding spot.

By the time you reach Level 4, the school is gone. The last two floors draw from three special types, never repeating one in a run:

1. Maintenance floors tie classrooms to power levers through humming colored cables; overload them and a blown fuse darkens everything until you reset the breaker.
2. Factory floors split the map with a conveyor belt room whose belts reverse at the press of a button, plus lockdown doors on levers and rotating roto-halls.
3. Laboratory floors divide into four sections linked by teleporters with a 30-second cooldown, with the Wormhole Room in the center flinging anyone nearby to random spots.

The late floors are where Baldi's Basics Plus earns its reputation. Level 4 asks for seven notebooks and Level 5 for nine, and Baldi's speed curve is steeper on both. This is where most runs end, and it is also where the community argues the most: some players love how different each late floor feels, while others say a bad combination of floor type and character spawns turns the finale into a coin flip. Every floor type is broken down in the Hide & Seek floors guide.

Random events add another layer on every floor. A Flood slows everyone and spawns whirlpools, Fog cuts vision, Gravity Chaos flips the school upside down, Balder Dash sends rolling balders crashing through windows and Student Shuffle floods the halls with crowds that shove characters aside. Baldi TV, the little screen that drops from the top corner, announces each one, and that static crackle is a sound regulars learn to dread.

Johnny's Store, YTPs and the Pitstop

Between floors the elevator drops you into the Pitstop, a small rest area with unlimited stamina where items cannot be used. A chalkboard names the type of the next floor, so you know whether a Factory or a Laboratory is coming before you spend anything. A storage locker keeps up to three items between floors, a poster lets you save and quit, and the bus waits outside for anyone holding a Bus Pass.

YTPs are the currency that makes the Pitstop matter. You earn them from activities, from returning lost items to Students for 100 YTPs each, from passing Dr. Reflex's reflex test and from field trip wins. Johnny sometimes runs random discounts and, once per run, lets you buy an item while you are up to 100 YTPs short, a lifeline many players forget exists.

Stickers are the system that most changed how a Baldi's Basics Plus run builds up. Sticker packs from the store go onto the back of the You Can Think Pad through the Packet-O-Matic, up to four at once, and a Glue Stick makes one last for the entire run instead of a single floor. The Backpack sticker for an extra inventory slot is a community favorite, while the YTP Multiplier adds 25 percent to every payout.

Items are where good runs are won. BSODA pushes characters down a hallway, the Energy Flavored Zesty Bar refills stamina, a Swinging Door Lock forces Baldi to route around a door and a 'Nana Peel sends anyone who steps on it sliding, including you. The Super Stretchy Glove lets you click any interactive object you can see for a minute, and the Invisibility Elixir hides you for 30 seconds. Most beginners burn these on the first scare; most finished runs save them for the walk back to the elevator. The items and YTPs guide lists every effect, and the Pitstop checklist tells you what to buy for each floor type.

Who Else Roams the Super Schoolhouse

Baldi is the only character whose catch costs you a power tube, but the others make sure he gets the chance. Principal of the Thing hands out detention for running, drinking BSODA in sight or opening a storage locker, and his raised hand means he is already chasing someone. Playtime starts jump rope the moment she sees you, and a missed jump makes a sound Baldi hears. It's a Bully plants himself in a hallway until you hand over an item, Gotta Sweep shoves everyone in his path and 1st Prize pushes you around until Safety Scissors cut his wires.

Several regulars belong to Baldi's Basics Plus rather than the original school. Beans spits gum that sticks you in place, Chalkles fills a classroom from its chalk board if you take too long on an activity, Cloudy Copter blows wind through the halls and Mrs. Pomp announces a class and rewards you based on how fast you arrive. Dr. Reflex wanders with his reflex test, and if you walk away mid-test he returns with a giant hammer that squishes anything in its way. The Test slows time when you look at it and explodes if you stare too long. Full profiles live on the school staff and troublemakers pages.

One detail catches nearly everyone once: lockers are not perfectly safe. If Baldi hears you climb in, he walks over, says his line and pulls you out, and the slap you were hiding from lands anyway. Plenty of lost runs get blamed on bad RNG, but locker deaths almost always come down to noise you made yourself.

Puzzle fans tend to love the activities and the sticker builds, horror fans come for the dark halls after the time limit runs out, and players who enjoy roguelikes keep returning because no two floors share a layout. The honest downside is that the cast can stack unfairly, with a Bully in a narrow hall, Beans by the elevator and the principal right behind you, and that kind of pile-up is the most common complaint you will hear.

Questions Players Ask Before Their First Run

Baldi's Basics Plus rewards anyone who listens before running, treats each floor as a fresh puzzle and keeps one Zesty Bar for the walk back to the elevator. If you would rather start where it all began, the original school with seven notebooks and four exits is waiting on the Baldi's Basics home page.