Disguised only as an educational game, it is set in a schoolhouse, where the player must locate seven notebooks which each consists of math problems without being caught by Baldi, his students and other school staff members, while also avoiding various obstacles.

The game became popular for its difficulty, nostalgic gameplay and graphics and elements of surreal humour and simplicity.

As the player continues to fail the impossible problems, Baldi moves faster and becomes harder to avoid.

Additionally, the player has to face six non-player characters: It's a Bully, Principal of the Thing, Playtime, Gotta Sweep, 1st Prize, and Arts and Crafters.

[1] In Baldi's Basics Plus, more content was added, including characters such as Cloudy Copter,[b] Chalkles, Beans, Mrs. Pomp, The Test, and Dr.

[1] If the player gets all of the math problems wrong, a secret ending will be triggered in which they meet with an unnamed figure (often referred to as "NULL"), who states that the game is corrupted and must be destroyed.

Baldi's Basics was created by Micah McGonigal, and it was initially made as an entry in the 2018 Meta-GameJam on Itch.io,[3][4] where it received 2nd place.