This babysitting job should be easy enough to handle...right?
The Baby in Yellow is a freeware first person horror game, originally created in 48 hours for the GMTK Jam 2020 by Team Terrible on the Unreal Engine.
In the original game, you play as a babysitter taking care of a weird baby. With every evening the two of you spend together, it becomes more and more clear that the baby has changed into something terrible...
As of the "White Rabbit" Update on December the 12th 2021, you now also have to try and free the souls trapped by the Baby in Yellow and save yourself from becoming his next victim.
The "Bedtime Stories" Update from June the 4th 2022 brought yet another alternate story path and ending, as well as several more secrets and easter eggs.
The "Christmas Chapter" Update released on December 12, 2022, brought a special chapter where you spend Christmas with the Baby in Yellow.
On May 26, 2023, the game was released for Steam Early Access. A third playthrough, the Black Cat playthrough, was added, and the update promises more in future.
The game is available for free on itch.io
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Contains examples of:
- Adorable Abomination: The baby might be some kind of eldritch being, but his squeaks and noises along with the fact that he's just a baby, dampen the scare factor more than a bit. Subverted once he drops the innocent baby-facade on either Night 3 or the White Rabbit route. As of the Bedtime Stories update he drops it as soon as you read him the second bedtime story.
- And I Must Scream: The apartment is full of small cat figurines that contain the trapped souls of the baby's previous victims. In the Sheep Ending, you share their fate.
- Animalistic Abomination: Implied — the Cat never explicitly does anything beyond what a normal cat can do, but it knows routes to travel between worlds and seems to be a rival or equal of the baby in some sense.
- Animal Motifs: Each of the three paths has an animal motif. Fleeing the baby is represented by rabbits, trying to uncover the secrets of the baby by cats and serving the baby by sheep.
- Ambiguously Evil: The Cat is a far more sinister figure than the unambiguously benevolent Rabbit, leading you into a dangerous other world and noted to only provide help "when it suits her". However, she is working with the Doctor and does show horror at the baby in the storybook. On the other hand, her actions lead to the baby being unleashed upon the multiverse. It's unclear if it's intentional or not, but it's notable the objective to do so is simply "Curiosity..."
- Apocalyptic Log: On Night 2, a key appears that can be used to unlock one of the doors upstairs. In it is an audio recording by one of the baby's former sitters, detailing his slow descent into madness as he keeps taking care of the baby. After the "Bedtime Stories" update, the recording is now available on all nights and the room doesn't require a key to open anymore.
- Badly Battered Babysitter: The baby uses his powers to mess with you throughout the game and he doesn't seem to care about his shenanigans potentially hurting or killing you. The bedtime stories imply that he's been going through babysitters for a while.
- Big Eater: In the "Christmas Chapter", the baby eats up the first turkey cooked the moment the babysitter turns away, leaving only the bones.
- Big Good: The Rabbit, whoever or whatever they are, is the only force clearly trying to help you. Following their advice provides the only outright happy ending.
- Bittersweet Ending: The good White Rabbit Ending. With the help of the white rabbit markings, you manage to escape the baby and its hold on you. However, the parents will most likely just hire a new babysitter and the baby himself will continue to kill unhindered.
- Creepy Child: In a game where you're babysitting an eldritch abomination, that's a given.
- Creepy Doll: The "Doctors" who you can create from the unlockable toy box. They’re modeled after Priests of Hastur, move behind you when your back is turned, and in the rabbit route larger-than-human-sized versions block your way in the climactic chase sequence, with one seeming to serve as The Dragon to Baby Hastur. However, they're actually Creepy Good agents of the Doctor, the primary force working to stop the baby.
- Creepy Good: The Doctor is a deeply creepy and sinister figure performing dubiously ethical experiments in an overgrown extra-dimensional ruin while watching the world through creepy animated dolls. He's the only person working to stop the baby, and he responds with horror when you unleash it upon the multiverse
- Color Motif: Yellow, naturally. The apartment has a lot of yellow furniture, the tapestry is almost wholly yellow and the baby itself is wearing a yellow sweater and has yellow (sometimes glowing) eyes.
- Deadly Euphemism:
- The Prince and the Sheep ends with the prince telling the sheep that he will share his dreams with her now. The page shows him transforming into a terrifying monster with a big maw and preparing to eat the sheep, who just obediently lets it happen.
- The baby offering to "share his dreams" with you is really him announcing that he's ready to take your soul now. If it gets to that point, you have no option to refuse.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the earlier installments of the game, the story seemed to imply that the baby himself wasn't an eldritch creature, merely possessed by one and that his parents were either trying to find a way to turn him back to normal or at least raise him without the thing inhabiting his body causing an incident, as implied by them having a talisman in their room that breaks the baby out of his demonic temper tantrum on Night 3. As of the "Bedtime Stories" update, the story has changed course to the baby being a straight-up monster whose parents seem to nurture his eldritch powers, have sacrificed a lot of babysitters to him and will continue to do so in the future. The talisman is completely absent from their room as of the update and there is mention of several babysitters before the player character who are all heavily implied to have suffered a Fate Worse than Death.
- Eldritch Abomination: The baby displays several eldritch powers like teleportation, reality warping and burning messages into carpets and walls. It's not entirely clear if the baby is an eldritch being himself or if he just acts as the vessel for one. The "White Rabbit" update clarifies that the baby is an eldritch creature. Apart from his name, the apartment is full of references to The King in Yellow, who in this game seems to be synonymous with Hastur in the Cthulhu Mythos, as well as sheep and king imagery.
- Enfant Terrible: The baby is a horribly Spoiled Brat who throws you around like a ragdoll and bullies you into obedience even when you're on his good side. The bedtime stories imply that he sees the babysitters as nothing more than his toys and takes pleasure in tormenting and killing them.
- Exorcist Head: Before the Bedtime Stories update, the baby started floating and spinning his head 360 degrees on Night 3 when you tried to change his nappy. You could get him to stop by using the parents' talisman.
- Foreshadowing: The Prince and the Rabbit tells the story of a terribly spoiled young prince who is given a rabbit as a companion. The rabbit, scared of the prince's otherworldly appearance, runs away with the prince giving chase. Luckily, she's too fast for him and escapes. The baby does not like this story and even slaps it out of your hands at one point. In the White Rabbit route, you can escape the baby's clutches by following mysterious markings that are implied to have been left by the person the rabbit represents.
- Follow the White Rabbit: The "White Rabbit" update added an alternate route in which you follow a bunch of mysterious markings in the from of either green arrows or a white rabbit to escape the baby. At one point during a chase sequence, the baby tries to trick you by imitating those markings.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: The baby frequently messes with the instructions on the screen to get you to do his bidding, so he can trap your soul.
- The Ghost: The baby's parents are never seen, though they supposedly show up every night to relieve and pay the babysitter.
- Greater-Scope Villain: While they never show up, it's strongly implied that the baby's parents are also eldritch horrors and are actively choosing babysitters to be consumed by him.
- Hero of Another Story:
- Whoever left you the white rabbit-markings that aid your escape in the White Rabbit-route not only managed to escape the baby, they were also kind enough to leave instructions so that their replacement could do the same.
- In the Cat playthrough, it's mentioned this is only one "Yellow Site", implying that there are other people encountering the baby in other forms throughout the cosmos as well as you.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Newt bars the door to try to buy time for the Babysitter to escape the Doctor’s study, but the Baby strikes the door hard enough to blow it open, sending Newt flying across the room, whereupon he smashes into the wall hard enough to kill him.
- Hope Spot: At the end of the Cat Playthrough, it seems like you've finally destroyed the Baby. Then you realize the only thing left to interact with is the orb and the orb-shaped hole in the door that must never be opened...
- It Can Think: For all his eldritch powers, the baby shows no more intelligence or planning then a normal fussy, hungry baby... until you try to escape.
- Made of Iron: You can put the baby through a lot of abuse in the game, from throwing him around, to dropping him to putting him into kitchen appliances. It doesn't do anything to him and he even seems to enjoy being handled this way. Of course, him being what he is, this is more than justified.
- Multiple Endings:
- The Sheep Ending. You do everything the game (or the baby) tells you to do. On Night 3 The baby drops all pretense and reveals his true nature to you, kidnapping you to an Eldritch Location and trapping your soul forever.
- The White Rabbit Bad Ending. You abort your escape, do the baby's bidding and take it to bed. The baby rises with his eldritch power and consumes your soul.
- The White Rabbit Escape Ending. Instead of serving the baby, you follow the white rabbit markings and escape the house, the baby hot on your tail. The narration congratulates you on your escape, but dismisses it by stating that "there will always be more".
- The Cat Ending: After seemingly killing the Baby, you take the orb and open the sealed door in Carcosa, unleashing multiple babies upon the multiverse as the Doctor demands to know what you've done.
- Never Say "Die": After Newt’s Heroic Sacrifice, interacting with or lifting his lifeless body simply prompts text to display, stating that he is "gone".
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished:
- You can be the most attentive, most caring babysitter you can be, despite the baby's horrific antics, and still, your only reward will be to become yet another casualty of the baby.
- In The Prince and the Cat, the titular cat leads the prince to a secret garden he found, simply so he can share its beauty with the child. The prince thanks him by immediately destroying the garden and everything within it, because he can't stand how pretty it is.
- In the sheep story, the sheep fulfills the prince's every wish and loyally stays by his side, even as he gets more and more demanding. In the end, it's implied the prince "rewards" her by subjecting her to a Fate Worse than Death.
- Offscreen Teleportation:
- The baby has a habit of teleporting himself away once you turn your back on him. He never goes really far, though. Subverted as of the "White Rabbit" update. On Night 2, the baby teleports right out of your arms and to the bottom of the stairwell. Further subverted in the White Rabbit route where the baby makes frequent use of his teleportation to mess with you and hinder your escape.
- The Doctor Dolls also like to sneak behind you when your back is turned.
- One-Winged Angel: In both the Rabbit and Cat playthrough, the baby takes on the form of a winged, serpentine horror when he gets sick of playing around. His true form appears to be a huge sphere with a single glowing eye, as seen in all the endings so far.
- Plague Doctor: The Doctors that you can take out of the Toy Chest are possessed dolls that are harmless, but like to skulk around behind you when your back is turned. A giant one obstructs your path in the good ending’s climactic chase, and is later seen standing beside the Baby when the latter is mocking you from inside a vent. Upon collecting all Lost Souls, you unlock a gift from the real Doctor, which is a bunch of humorous potions that cause the Baby to do anything from shrinking to levitating.
- Please, Don't Leave Me: In the White Rabbit route, the baby gets increasingly desperate in his attempts to stop you from leaving, writing you messages that beg you to stay and using his entire arsenal of eldritch powers to sabotage your progress.
- Robot Buddy: Newt, the positively adorable (and just as helpful) robot built by the Doctor. Newt resembles a cross between EVE and an old tin robot toy, with an amphibian flair.
- Royal Brat: The prince in the bedtime stories, who regularly torments his animal friends no matter how nice they are to him, with his mother doing little to nothing to curb this behavior.
- Schmuck Bait: One of the items you can get from the toy box is a strange, eye-like thing that floats in the air and constantly whispers to you in Black Speech. Clicking on it too many times will lead to a Jump Scare and a Game Over.
- Twisted Christmas: The entire "Christmas Chapter". The baby makes mischief even on Christmas (eating an entire turkey, making dirty nappies appear on the babysitter's plate, using its eldritch powers), but nothing too harmful happens to the babysitter.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: You can do all sorts of things to the baby, including dunking him through a basketball hoop and putting him in the oven. Strangely, he seems to enjoy it.
- Wham Line: As you get closer to escaping in the White Rabbit playthrough, the following objective shows up, which casts the former objectives in a very different light:Objective: Don't leave me
