Bambas! is a game about walking, but not in the way you might expect. Developed by DevilishGames, this urban walking simulator puts you in control of a disembodied pair of sneakers exploring a compact seaside town. With its unique control scheme and focus on freeform exploration, Bambas! aims to capture the spirit of childhood afternoons spent roaming the neighborhood, getting into mischief, and letting your feet decide the destination. Getting your feet wet Bambas! is a sandbox walking simulator that channels the nostalgic freedom of childhood – including the unique ability to invent games on the fly with nothing but your footsteps to guide you. From playing hopscotch and kick-the-can, to turning tree limbs into jungle gyms, you are free to explore the urban setting the way they did in the good ol’ days, one step at a time. You take control of a pair of shoes, each of which is independently controlled using a unique bipedal movement system. The game kicks off in a vibrant coastal town where its citizens, who are also empty pairs of shoes, are strewn about partaking in various activities. You are free to roam around the town to get acquainted with its distinct regions and local personalities. Everybody 1, 2 step While meandering through the skate parks and sandy beaches of Bambas!, you’ll encounter other pairs of shoes, each brimming with personality despite the absence of spoken dialogue. These NPCs (or more appropriately, NPShoes), hint at the lives of their unseen wearers, often engaging in quirky, lore-heavy exchanges. Character dialogue is written with a wit and humor that certainly warrants a few chuckles. There is a loose story connecting the local shoes together, which you can glean by striking up conversations with various characters. While charming at first, the novelty of these silent interactions can wear thin over time, especially when many of them exist mainly to deliver backstory rather than deepen gameplay. While many interactions serve primarily to flesh out the world, a few dole out objectives, such as popping balloons, matching patterns, delivering pizzas via electric scooter, or navigating a set path. Completing objectives typically rewards you with coins that can be spent on new shoes for your collection. Some tasks are timed, while others involve meeting certain criteria. Most missions can be canceled by exiting the mission area, allowing you to dodge tasks you would rather postpone for later. The game is afoot Although it can be played using a keyboard and mouse, Bambas! recommends you use a controller. Successfully getting your pair of shoes to walk requires coordination between the triggers and joysticks, which control the raising of each foot and moving them forward or backward, respectively. The unique movement system takes some getting used to at first, but once you find a rhythm with the controls, you will be well on your way to trekking across the town. That’s not to say that the controls are intuitive or necessarily easy to learn, however. The control scheme is challenging by design and consistently feels a bit odd no matter how far you are in the game. It does not help that your shoes will also frequently clip and glitch through objects, making mobility that much more arduous. Luckily, you don’t need to walk everywhere you go, as there are vehicles such as scooters and skateboards for you to find as alternate modes of transportation. If the shoe fits Since there is no formal tutorial, it took me a moment to realize that the mini map in the lower corner of the screen happens to be a smartwatch that allows you to track your steps and distance traveled. You can also monitor your completed quests and how much money you’ve accumulated. The smartwatch is also where you go to customize and expand your shoe collection with a plethora of footwear that can be re-colored to better suit your style. While the differences in shoes are purely cosmetic, there are some styles that I prefer over others not only due to aesthetics, but simply because they glitch less than others while interacting with the environment. Aside from tracking personal progress, the smartwatch features several stations that you can tune to for custom background music during their adventure. The stations include Grafitti Radio, Rave FM, Headbanger FM, Devilish Radio, and Clef & Quaver Radio. The musical selection ranges from upbeat ska-hop and energizing electronic vibes, to quaint folk tunes and steady rock beats. While it is nice to have a variety of background music to choose from, the stations seem to have a set playlist and tuning to each station causes the playlist to start over again. So, if there is a particular song you want to hear on a station, you will likely need to wait until it comes up in the rotation after tuning in. The smartwatch also allows you to pause the music entirely if you prefer to explore without it. However, this does not get applied to the shoe customization menu, which will blare the main song of the soundtrack, regardless of whether you have the game music paused. Watch your step Nearly every action you do in Bambas! is part of a tracked mission for you to complete, many of which are repetitive tasks that can be completed as you wander about the world. Crunching leaves, crushing cans, splashing in rain puddles, and collecting coins are among the standard activities available throughout the game. When you aren’t kicking rocks or stamping out cigarette butts, your time in Bambas! will likely be spent interacting with characters and objects to complete objectives and earn achievements. Speaking with certain characters or stepping into designated areas can trigger the start of missions that you can complete to earn coins. One example is The Floor is Lava, which begins when you step onto a crosswalk. After chatting up another pair of shoes, you may be wrangled into a bubble-popping game, pulled aside for an impromptu round of soccer, or tasked with delivering pizzas via electric scooter. Or, you may be offered an easy fetch quest to complete at your leisure. The difficulty of objectives ranges from exceedingly simple to rather frustrating, with several activities being as much of a test of patience as they are a manual challenge. You can back out of activities by stepping outside of the mission area to cancel the quest. While this is typically a convenient feature, sometimes I would accidentally step too far from the activity area while completing a mission, causing me to lose progress and forcing the mission to start over. This can be quite frustrating when certain tasks are already tedious and repetitive. Getting around in Bambas! isn’t always easy. Forward visibility is often limited, which can make it tricky to find your bearings as you explore the seaside locale. There’s a map you can bring up on the display, along with a smaller version on your smartwatch, but both are a bit clunky and not particularly user-friendly. I often found myself wishing for a simple compass on the HUD or the ability to mark and follow locations of interest, features that would make wandering feel more purposeful and less aimless. Tread lightly Despite its charming concept and whimsical world, Bambas! struggles under the weight of its own design. Camera angles are occasionally obstructed by trees and objects, which can block your view or even get you temporarily stuck. Each time you boot up the game, you start from the same location and cannot select where to start from, which makes picking up where you left off feel unnecessarily repetitive. Objectives often fall into the “fetch quest” category, with few offering meaningful engagement or variety. And while the shoes you meet hint at a more interconnected narrative, the story never gave me much reason to care about it and was ultimately forgettable. That's not to say that Bambas! does not have redeeming qualities. The dialogue is humerous and well-written, and there is some satisfaction to be found in overcoming challenging controls to complete simple tasks. Bambas! valiantly attempts to expand the definition of "walking simulator" to include a more mechanically driven approach, paving the way for more innovation in the genre. Although the game is a creative endeavor that shows a lot of promise, Bambas! unfortunately does not quite stick the landing. Its quirky, physics-driven foot controls are more awkward than intuitive, and what initially seems like a charming sandbox quickly becomes a series of underwhelming chores. Missions sometimes feel like busy work, hindered further by visual glitches and inconsistent gameplay. You earn coins to buy more shoes, but with no compelling gameplay loop or narrative hook, it's hard to feel motivated to keep playing. Bambas! has style and heart, but without clearer direction or refinement, it ends up walking in circles. Bambas! is available on PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and S, and Nintendo Switch on June 27, 2025. A Steam code was provided by the publisher for this review.