Play Styles

Before every Hide & Seek run in Baldi’s Basics Plus you choose a play style. It decides how many lives you get and whether they come back, and one style removes Baldi from the hunt altogether. The choice changes how you should play every level, so here is what each style does and who it is for.

The four styles

You pick the style in the Hide & Seek menu, together with challenge options and the seed field. Normal, Arcade and Strict arrived in version 0.8, and Explorer moved into the play styles in version 0.9.

How lives work

Your lives are green power tubes. When Baldi catches you, you lose one, return to the Pitstop and replay the level from the start, with your inventory and storage locker reset to how they were when the level began. When the last tube is gone, the run is over. The play style only changes how many tubes you have and when you get new ones.

Normal

Normal gives you three power tubes at the start of every level. A disastrous level 2 doesn’t carry over into level 3: you start fresh with three again. That makes Normal forgiving without being easy, because you still have to clear every level before you run out.

• Play it to learn the later level types, where a first attempt often goes wrong.
• Use the extra tries. A lost life shows you the layout, the characters and the level type. Use what you learned on the next attempt.

Arcade

Arcade starts you with three power tubes but gives you no new ones between levels. Three lives have to last all five levels, so every catch on level 1 is one you won’t have on level 5.

• Play it when you can clear the school levels without losing lives.
• Change your habits. Spend items earlier to avoid catches, and buy defensive items over YTP investments.

Strict

Strict gives you one power tube for the whole game. In the words of the 0.8 changelog: lose once and that’s game over. Every level has to be cleared on the first try, including the special levels you may never have seen before.

• Play it when you know all three special level types well.
• Play safe, not fast. A careful run with fewer YTPs beats a greedy one that ends on level 3.

Explorer

In Explorer, Baldi counts down as usual and then disappears. You can walk the whole school, try the activities and learn the routes without Baldi on your heels. It is the best way to learn a new level type before you meet it in a real run.

• Learn layouts. See how Maintenance power, Factory belts or Laboratory teleporters work without pressure.
• Plan routes. Find the classrooms, faculty rooms and elevators, and work out the order you would visit them in a real run.
• Practice activities. Math Machine, Balloon Buster and Match Machine get easier with repetition.

Which style should you pick?

Combining styles with challenges

The Hide & Seek menu also has challenge options, such as an inventory that shrinks as you play. They stack with the play style, so a Strict run with a challenge on is one of the hardest ways to play. Add one change at a time: if you jump straight to the hardest combination, you learn less from each loss.

FAQ

For a level-by-level strategy that works with every style, read How to Beat Hide & Seek. The other modes are covered in our game modes guide.