Don’t you just love it when games that we all thought had fallen into the ether end up discovered, brought back, and remade thanks to the retro gaming community? Archeologists aren’t the only ones preserving our history, you know, and thanks to Late Night Tom on itch.io, we now have another game that’s been saved from disappearing into the void.
Some of you might have played Baldi’s Basics, a strange game that’s essentially a weird horror title where you have to collect schoolbooks and answer questions along the way. It’s pinned as this mathematical game, but there’s no real learning to be found in the game at all. Well, Baldi’s Basics is a remake of a game for the ZX Spectrum called Mr. Baldimore’s 3D Schoolhouse, and Late Night Tom has discovered and restored some of the game for us to experience it.
According to the official description on the game page, this odd educational game was made for the Speccy by an unknown developer and combined ‘combined math drills with a surreal and unsettling atmosphere’ in some sort of hybrid genre-fusing title. Mr Baldimore’s 3D Schoolhouse never actually had an official release and was distributed through back channels on unofficial tapes. This demo version of the game gives us a chance to experience the game, which looks and feels ike a cross between Silent Hill and Donkey Kong Jr. Math, a combination that should never exist.
The game currently ends after you’ve collected your first book, but Late Night Tom is working to restore the rest of the game for us to play it in its entirety. I’m not going to lie, Mr. Baldimore standing there with his vacant expression and the fact that his eyes seem to mould into the windows as you move through him definitely gives me an odd feeling. I don’t want to see what happens when you get put in detention!
