Obvious to everybody, except to whom it isn't, so here's babby's first tip: Baba Is You is a Sokoban-like at its core. Remember, once something is pushed into a corner, there's no pushing it back out.

In all the messing around with words and rules, don't forget to lean back, take a breath, and work out the logistics of what can be pushed around, where it can be pushed around, what's trapped forever, what isn't, which movements will trap things forever, which won't, and so on.

With its undo function and relatively generous amounts of empty space, Baba Is You usually isn't as cruel about pushing as Sokoban levels are (it's cruel in other ways), but Sokoskills will still serve you well.

Many games ease you into new techniques and mechanics by making you utilize that technique, or by subjecting you to that mechanic, several times before considering you reasonably proficient in it. But Baba Is You often expects you to be a little quicker on the uptake than that.

If you've completed a level where you were introduced to something new and strange, stop a moment and reflect on what you've encountered before you jump into the next challenge. You may even want to go back into the just-completed level and screw around, to make sure you have a decent grasp on what happened. Besides, screwing around with things is what this game is all about.

If a level starts getting frustrating (especially in the early-to-mid game), try doing some other levels. I know, most obvious tip in the world, but it's amazing how hung up people get on doing a level--and in this game, backing up and doing other levels is really, really helpful.

This is especially true in the mid-game, where jumping around the level order helps you avoid the game's misdirection techniques trapping you in the wrong mindset for a level. (See "Be Paranoid" below.) And it goes double for the game's "extra" levels. Extra levels are extra hard.

Remember how other games ease you into new challenges? They'll prepare you for an upcoming boss fight or whatnot by making sure that whatever techniques needed for fighting the boss are primed and ready in your mind.

Baba Is You, however, delights in misdirection, especially in the mid-to-late game. (Google "Baba is you and the art of misdirection" if you don't want to take my word for it--it's a nifty, if spoilery, article on the subject.) In the early mid-game you'll find that one level will be solvable with one technique, followed by a level where that same technique is a surefire path to fruitless misery. As you get further into the game, many levels will have two "solutions": one obvious solution that's marginally clever, elegant, and wrong; and the real solution, which is bizarre, obscure, and fiddly as hell.

While this is a game about changing the rules, the rules themselves do have their own consistent meta-logic. And no, the game is not altering its own rules just to screw you over in "this particular case." Trust me, it is not. The hard truth is that you are misunderstanding something about the rules, and you need to reexamine your assumptions.

When the game wrecks your plans, try to figure out why. It's not because it suddenly decided to be malicious or inconsistent with its rules. (It might be due to malicious level design exploiting the rules, but that's another story.)

Slight spoiler: Consider "Baba Is You And Wall". Many players form a sentence like this, promptly lose, shout "what?!?", and indignantly whack Undo without really considering what just happened. Here's what happened:The "And" word effectively creates two separate "Is" statements. In this case, one is "Baba is Wall". This turns all the Babas in the level into walls. The other is "Baba is You". Since there are no Babas in the level for you to control anymore, you lose. The newly-created walls do not remember or care that they were Babas a moment ago. This makes little sense to our squishy monkey brains, but as far as the game's ruthless pseudo-programming logic is concerned it's exactly what should happen.

To complete all the game's levels, you'll need a fairly comprehensive understanding of the game's meta-rules. Some levels will teach you these rules... by requiring you to figure out a rule in order to solve the level. A very school-of-hard-knocks method of teaching. Stay alert and inquisitive, and try not to grow too discouraged.

A good tip for any puzzle game where the whole puzzle is visible from the start, like this one. It's not always easy to do, but in many cases you can say: "What is my desired end state, or possible desired end states? What's the first step back from those states?" And keep working back from that. Slight spoiler: So far, every winnable puzzle in this game has one and only one "Win" adjective, and the level is only winnable by getting that "Win" into a statement of some kind. "Win" can't come back if destroyed.

If you're hopelessly stuck on a late-game level, and playing other late-game levels isn't helping (or feasible), try taking a break from the game and watching a streamer or two play some earlier levels: it can end up jogging your memory and reminding you of a critical technique you've forgotten. I've benefited from this tactic more than I'd care to admit. (Remember not to backseat! Unless asked...)