Baldi

Baldi is the head teacher of the Schoolhouse and Super Schoolhous, and he is also the main antagonist of the Baldi's Basics game series.

Description

Baldi is a 3D-generated character that resembles a human. He has a slim figure and wears a green shirt and blue jeans. As the name suggests, he has a balding head with nothing left but one strand of hair. He is always seen holding a ruler and will slap it to his hand constantly as he tries to chase after the player.

At first, Baldi will welcome the player to his school, but his attitude changes quickly once the player answers a math problem incorrectly. He will start creeping up towards them and walk faster the more math questions are answered wrong. Once the player manages to collect all the notebooks, he will let them get away from the school within a limited time while laughing at their effort to escape the place.

Gameplay

Baldi's Basics Plus

General

Baldi first appears at the beginning of the game, albeit with different roles and actions depending on each game. In Baldi's Basics Plus, Baldi greets the player happily and welcomes them to the Schoolhouse. His line changes depending on the player's progression:

• In Floor 1 (and Endless Mode), he will say, “Oh, hi! Let's play hide and seek!”
• In Floor 2, he will say, “You're good! Let's keep playing!”
• In Floor 3, he will say, “What fun! Goo-”

Once the player moves far enough, Baldi will play a hide-and-seek-like game and count down from 10. When the number reaches one, Baldi will start chasing after the player with the iconic ruler in his hand. On the other hand, in Explorer Mode, he will simply disappear after the countdown.

In all games, Baldi is the only person capable of giving the player the game over once he manages to catch up with them. Each time he slaps his ruler, he will dash forward for a short distance. The interval of ruler slapping shortens each time the player finds a notebook or answers a math problem incorrectly. In addition, Baldi can hear all the sounds and who makes them. As such, one strategy is to wait for another student to open the door so players don't have to do that themselves and alert Baldi, which can be seen in how the Baldicator acts.

Apart from the player, there are other characters that can alert Baldi:

• Arts and Crafter: Once triggered, he will teleport both the player and Baldi, or Baldi will go to the location where the player appears after the teleportation.
• Principal of the Thing: When the player is in detention, Baldi will head to the Principal's office if there is nothing that creates a higher noise value.
• 1st Prize: When he sees the player, he will rush towards them and inevitably crash into a wall, creating an extremely loud noise and attracting Baldi.
• Chalkles: Once he materializes, he will lock the door of the classroom, trapping the player for 15 seconds while alerting Baldi.
• Mrs. Pomp: If the timer runs out, she will attempt to drag the player to her class while creating the loudest noise in the game, and Baldi will go to the center of her classroom.

Once Baldi manages to catch the player, the latter will be forced to face him. Then he will make a very loud static noise as the map starts to de-load around him. Depending on the game and the number of lives left, the player will appear in the elevator or on the title screen.

To protect themselves against Baldi, the player can make use of these items:

• BSODA: When used, this item pushes every character (including Baldi) away until they touch the wall.
• Dangerous Teleporter: When used, this item will teleport the player to a random location in the school, which could be either very far from or very close to Baldi.
• Portal Poster: This item allows the player to pass through walls quickly. Unfortunately, Baldi can also go through it.
• An Apple for Baldi: When the player is caught by Baldi with this item, he will take the apple and eat it quickly, buying some time for the player.
• Grappling Hook: With this item, the player can move at a faster speed.

Baldicator

In this game, some characters and structures may let out sounds of various intensity, each of which has its own “noise value.” Once Baldi hears a certain noise, the Baldicator, which is a Baldi head on the screen, will show two different expressions:

• The smiling face means that he is heading to the place where the noisiest sound was made.
• The confused face means that he has heard more than one sound from different places and will investigate the place with the highest noise value before going to the other.

There are four different ways to distract Baldi with noise:

• Alarm Clock: Unless Baldi sees the player, he will head to the place where the alarm clock goes off.
• WD-NoSquee: This item enables the player to open the doors and blue lockers without making a sound.
• Baldi's Least Favorite Tape: Plays static noise using the tape player.
• Payphone: Plays static noise when a Quarter is put in.

When the player uses Baldi's Least Favorite Tape or the payphone, the annoying noise will distract Baldi. He won't remember the places he was going to investigate and will start wandering around the school until he sees or hears the player. 

Baldi's Basics Classic/Birthday Bash

In Baldi's Basics Classic and Baldi's Basics Birthday Bash, Baldi is the one to read out the math questions in the beginning once the player finds a notebook. If the player manages to answer all three questions correctly, he will give them a Quarter (or a present in Birthday Bash). However, next time they try to collect a notebook, one of the math problems will be impossible to solve. As soon as the player answers a question incorrectly, Baldi will get angry and read out a line, such as “I HEAR EVERY DOOR YOU OPEN," and the chase begins.

Each time the player collects a notebook, they will need to solve three math questions. Similar to other games, Baldi moves faster the more math questions are answered incorrectly. When the player possesses six notebooks, Baldi's moving speed is the same as their running speed, and he will eventually outrun them with the seventh notebook.

Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered

The gameplay of Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered is similar to Baldi's Basics Classic/Birthday Bash, except in Demo Style:

• There are seven Math Machines scattered around the school; each contains a question (or three questions if the Hard Mode is turned on in Fun Setting). To answer the question, the player needs to take one of the floating balloons with the right number and put it into the machine. The notebook will pop out regardless of whether the right-numbered balloon is chosen or not, but the correct answer will make Baldi calm for five seconds. However, the question will become unsolvable from the second Math Machine onward.

Field Trips

During field trips, Baldi will be the one to instruct the player on how things work and will be disappointed if the player fails an objective. Before V0.3 of Baldi's Basics Plus, he didn't instruct the player at the beginning and would chase them with a ruler if they failed to do something. On camping field trips, Baldi wears a camping suit, while on farm field trips, he has a ranch outfit.

Challenge Mode

Baldi's behavior and movement speed change depending on the type of challenge. Regardless, he will chase after the player as soon as the elevator doors close.

• Speedy Challenge: Both Baldi and the player move extremely fast.
• Stealthy Challenge: Since Baldi is always inside the Principal's office, getting caught by the Principal of the Thing is the same thing as game over.
• Grapple Challenge: To counter the movement speed of the Grappling Hook, Baldi can move much faster.

Other Appearances

• Baldi's Basics Classic: As the original game, it also marks the first introduction of Baldi and his role as the main antagonist.
• Baldi's Basics Birthday Bash: Baldi acts the same as in other games, except that he wears a party hat and later joins the rest of the cast to surprise the player.
• Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered: Baldi looks and acts the same as in the original game, except that his voice lines have been re-recorded.
• Baldi's Basics - Field Trip demo: Camping: Baldi stands next to his “bus” as he waits for the player to join the trip.
• Baldi's Basics Kickstarter Exclusive Demo: This is the game in which the Baldicator first appeared.

Trivia

General

• Baldi has made a number of cameo and guest appearances in other popular media, such as in Strange Terror From The Deep and Night of the Consumers.
• The ruler slapping sound actually comes from a plastic ruler instead of a wooden ruler, like in-game.
• The design of Baldi is based on Baldimore, a series of short comic strips that the creator of the game drew when he was around 11 or 12 years old. While Baldi has a son and a wife in the old comics, it is not certain whether they will appear in the game in the future.
• Baldi's age is presumed to be 29, and his birthday is on June 3rd.
• His voice is inspired by the character Waluigi (from the Super Mario franchise).
• As confirmed by the creator, some of the Baldi's lines are references to other popular games: “FUS RO DAH!” (from The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim), “Hadouken! (from Street Fighter), and “Open Salami! (from Super Mario Sunshine).
• Baldi's preference for apples may be inspired by the stereotype of teachers liking apples.
• The image of Baldi giving a thumbs up to celebrate the game being downloaded 100,000 times is similar to the image from Sonic's Schoolhouse, one of the game's major inspirations.
• He, along with Gotta Sweep, are Micah McGonigal's favorite characters.
• Baldi's favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla, and he likes to eat it in a little cup.
• His original 3D model was created on March 21st, 2018.

Baldi's Basics Plus

• This version of Baldi's Basics has the cleanest rendering of Baldi.
• The nicer Baldi at the beginning of the game (before the player answers a question incorrectly) has no hitbox. This can be seen when a BSODA is used and goes past Baldi instead of pushing him away.
• Throughout the game, Baldi has created numerous things, including the Math Machine, the fog machine, the shrink machine, the Portal Poster, and the “toenail clippers."
• Based on its description, Baldi is apparently to blame for the Gravity Chaos event.
• Before V0.2, the game still ends, even if Baldi catches the player with a broken ruler.

Baldi's Basics Classic/Birthday Bash

• Many players heard and thought that Baldi said, “You failed all seven notebooks!" leading to the creator reconfirming that the word is “found” instead of "failed."
• The waving animation of Baldi in this version looks smoother than in other games.

Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered

• After Baldi has welcomed the player at the beginning of the game, pressing the P key will cause him to repeat his dialogue again.
• If the player uses hacks for Baldi to appear in NULL and Glitch Styles, he will follow them during the boss fight, similar to Null and the Red Baldloon.