Playtime's in-game sprite is a poorly drawn, animated image of a small girl with a jump rope.
She has light skin, a smile (which turns into a frown when the player uses the Safety Scissors on her jump rope), and a long, cartoony nose. She is described to have poor eyesight, but she is not entirely blind. Her black, scribble eyes possibly indicate retinal damage, or were just drawn for stylistic purposes. She is proposed as "short-sighted" in her poster in the Principal's office.
Even though Playtime is young, two lines on both sides of her face under her eyes make her look older. However, it could possibly be bags under her eyes, or even, based on the position of the lines, scars.
Her pixie-cut long hair is mostly black, but there are some tan strands. Upon closer inspection, the tan strands appear to be scribbled in a circular spread-out style, while the black strands appear to be cross-hatched zigzag lines, implying that the tan strands are curly and/or more tangled than the possibly-straight black strands. Additionally, only the black part of her hair moves compared to the tan strands.
Her pose makes her appear as if she is balancing on her left foot, and her arms are outstretched as if she is trying to hold her balance.
Her hands are misshapen as well; her left hand is a side-viewed open palm as if she was leaning against a wall, and her right hand somewhat resembles a 4-digit hand with her thumb (or index finger, if she has 5 digits counting a hidden thumb) and pinky fingers sticking up.
She wears a red, long-sleeved dress with a pair of cyan pants and simplistic light brown shoes, which could possibly be boots since they go up to her pants sleeves.
Her jump rope and some parts of the black hair constantly move, the former in a manner that makes her appear to be jumping rope, hence her name, and the latter as if it is being blown by wind.
She does not appear to jump over the rope when it comes down though, because, apart from her rope and her hair, the rest of her remains stationary. When her jump rope is cut, however, her entire sprite becomes a static image.
The jump rope itself has two scribbly handles, and the rope is a single, curved line connecting the handles. Each handle is drawn on each of Playtime's hands, so they appear to be attached to her hands and it does not actually look like Playtime is holding it.
The entire jump rope is black, and when it is cut, each half resembles a short whip being held upside down.
Her voice is distorted by poor audio quality, and her speech is consistently monotone and somewhat masculine for a little girl because Micah McGonigal provided her voice. Her voice is also constantly peaking in audacity, making her one of the loudest characters speaking "naturally".
Personality
Playtime's personality ranges from being inconsistent to inscrutable, as her voice, mannerisms, and behavior are illogical and uncanny.
Whenever she is happy, cheerfully seeking a playmate, or congratulating the player for winning her game, she always maintains a flat and deadpan tone in her voice. Her few genuine responses are when she is upset, specifically her outcry when she has her rope cut by the Safety Scissors.
Despite this, she is apparently very social and is always searching for someone to play with in her game. She seems to be very optimistic about being friends with others, but is also unprepared for hostility, which will leave her upset and confused for a short time once it happens.
However, after said short time passes, she will continue to be social and cheerful again, and she will trust the player again.
Her poor eyesight and short memory is possibly why she never turns corners after the player and immediately trusts them again after they bully her, respectively.
The poor eyesight might make her unable to tell if the corridors are still straight during a chase, and the short memory presumably prevents her from remembering that the player is mean to her, or even recognizing them for that matter, also possibly explaining her being unprepared for conflict.
All in all, her true intentions are never to purposely cause harm or make others upset, despite them thinking otherwise. Hence her name, she just wants to play with others and have fun. She most likely does not realize Baldi is pursuing the player with sinister intentions.
Playtime will roam the hallways in unspecified directions, playing her signature jingle. If she spots the player while not on cooldown, she will immediately chase them until she loses track of or catches the player. Playtime's speed when chasing the player is slightly faster than the player's running speed. Playtime stops chasing the player and wanders randomly if the player is walking around a corner, as she forgets the player's location as soon as they are out of her sight.
Playtime plays her jump rope minigame with the player
When Playtime catches the player, she will force them to stop moving and jump over a skipping rope five times in a row, otherwise, the player will have to restart from the first jump. The player must press the "Interact" key (Left Mouse Button by default) to jump. They have to time the jump rope's position correctly in order to successfully jump over. During the minigame, the player can slightly move while jumping the rope. After successfully completing the game, Playtime will leave, and the player will earn You Thought Points and be free to walk again. 15 seconds will pass before Playtime can catch the player again.
The amount of You Thought Points earned after completing her minigame ranges from 0 to 25 in increments of 5. When the player jumps the rope five times without messing up, they will get 25 YTPs, but every time they miss the rope, the reward will be reduced by 5 YTPs. As a result, the player cannot get YTPs if they miss the rope five or more times before completing the minigame.
If the player uses Safety Scissors on the jump rope, it will be cut and Playtime will say "Oh! That makes me sad!", and she will frown before leaving. She will also get sad when her minigame is interrupted.
Other appearances
Playtime playing with the player in Baldi's Basics Classic on mobile.
Ditto, but as a GIF
In Baldi's Basics Classic, Playtime spawns in the middle of the left hall from the school's west wing. Sometimes she may keep going in the same direction even if the player exits her sight.[2] There is no control guide for jumping the rope. However, on the mobile version, there is text saying "Use "" to jump!" as control guide. She only gets sad when her jumping rope is cut by Safety Scissors. During the minigame, the player cannot move and look back.
Playtime appearing with the original cast for a birthday surprise.
In Baldi's Basics Birthday Bash, Playtime has the same mechanics as in Baldi's Basics Classic. However, she wears a party hat (which falls off when her rope is cut) for the celebration of Baldi's Basics Classic's first anniversary. As soon as the player reaches the last exit in the cafeteria, Playtime will arrive with the original cast to yell a surprise for the player. In one of the rooms in the glitched school, a total of 8 Playtime sprites can be found along with a giant PlaceFace and some Baldloons. One of them is frowning and out of the line while others are different Playtimes, which represent frames of the animated Playtime sprite. All of the sprites are in the same height as the player's. These Playtimes are not interactive, but instead used for strangeness.
Playtime playing with the player with Hard Mode in Classic Remastered
In Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered, the mechanics are same as in Baldi's Basics Plus. However, with the Hard ModeFun Setting, the player has to jump over Playtime's rope 10 times in a row. Also, the minigame is much quicker but more easy to mess up on, with the jump height being reduced.
In Baldi's Basics Full Game Early Demo, Playtime has a new spawn location. This is the first time, during her jump rope minigame, that there is no text. The jump physics were also slightly improved in such a way that the player would land on the ground quickly instead of seemingly floating. The text reappeared in V0.3.5 of Baldi's Basics Plus.
If the player is out of Playtime's sight or teleported, her minigame will be interrupted immediately. Here is the list of ways to interrupt her minigame:
Turning around a corner while playing jump rope minigame, so Playtime will lose the player.
Being moved or teleported by whirlpool during the floodevent.
Entering a different room and letting the door close.
If Playtime is squished by Dr. Reflex's hammer, she will not start the jump rope minigame, although she still can chase after the player.
Neutral
Some characters can still affect the player while playing the jump rope minigame.
Baldi can catch the player and send them to either the elevator or title screen, unless they have An Apple for Baldi.
Cloudy Copter can push characters, but it may hard to interrupt her minigame unlike 1st Prize and Gotta Sweep.
Dr. Reflex can do his reflex test while the player plays the jump rope minigame. Squishing either the player or Playtime will not interrupt the minigame.
Mrs. Pomp can invite the player to her class. However, even if she stops characters and game environment, Playtime's minigame still goes on.
The Test can freeze NPCs while the player is looking at him, but it does not interrupt her minigame.
Disadvantages
During the minigame, the player's movement is limited, so they become vulnerable to other characters.
Trivia
General
Playtime could possibly be considered the exact opposite of It's a Bully, evidence being:
It's a Bully is stationary and lazy, while Playtime is active and energetic.
It's a Bully, despite being tall, is not too big of a problem compared to Playtime.
While It's a Bully is greedy and selfish, and shows no remorse for the player regardless of whether Baldi is behind them or not, Playtime is generally good-natured and is completely unaware of Baldi's true intentions.
It's a Bully possibly has straight, neatly-combed hair, contrasting Playtime's messy, unkempt hair.
Playtime's scribbly-looking appearance, especially the eyes and hair, seems to be based on PilotRedSun's art-style, yet a bit more comparable to his "nesquik rabbit" video.
She is the only NPC to have her own theme. However, in Baldi's Basics Classic, she lacked her music before V1.3.
According to mystman12's stream, to make Playtime's voice, mystman12 records himself talking "like a clown" and then distorts it.[3]
Playtime's voice line "Let's play!" was originally a test for Arts and Crafters' voice, but then mystman12 realized that the line would fit Playtime more, so he ultimately decided to use the line for Playtime instead and that's how her voice "came to be".[4]
Playtime's clothes, skin, and hair have the same colors as some of the default colors in the Microsoft Paint application.
Strangely, Playtime's rope is over her hands, as if it was glued onto her hands rather than holding it.
She is one of the smallest characters in the game, but despite this, she has the largest sprite in the game files.
There is a very rare chance that if both Playtime and Principal of the Thing come in contact with the player in the exact same frame, they will get detention and play Playtime's minigame at the same time. It can be easily executed in Baldi's Basics Plus, if the player uses a BSODA to push both characters, and interacting both characters while The Test stops all NPCs.
Baldi's Basics Plus/Classic Remastered
Playtime's animation has more frames than in Classic/Birthday Bash.
Playtime will still say "I wanna play with someone!" and laughs even if her jump rope is cut.
Baldi's Basics Plus
When the player hides in a blue locker while being chased by Playtime, her position would reset every time they exited the locker. This happens because she cannot see the player hiding inside it.
Prior to V0.1.2, Playtime did not get sad when her minigame was interrupted.
Prior to V0.1.5, Playtime's minigame was not interrupted when the player entered a blue locker while playing jump rope with her.
Prior to V0.3.8, the player could not move, look back, and use a quick map feature during her minigame.
Prior to V0.4, Playtime's minigame could be interrupted when the player is moving a certain distance and the minigame would not be interrupted if only Playtime is moved. Therefore, even if the player used BSODA to push her away, there was still a jump rope minigame.
Prior to V0.4, Playtime was teleporting away from the player a single tile when she plays her minigame. Since this version, she slowly walks away from them.
Playtime's captions could sometimes move when in field trips, however, the full circumstances for this to happen were unknown. This no longer happens in the current version.[version information needed]
In the game files, there are unused voice lines where Playtime counts up to 10.
This indicates that Playtime was originally going to make the player jump rope 10 times, but it was reduced to 5 when the final product was released. According to mystman12 during his livestream, this was because 10 jumps would take too much time to complete. Playtime was also supposed to be faster, too.[5]
Playtime also has a voice line where she tells the player how to play her minigame, only used in the very first version. This was likely cut as it took too long.
Playing jump rope 10 times was later introduced in Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered's Hard Mode Fun Setting.
The "5!" sound file is never played, even though the player has to jump rope 5 times. An exception is in the earliest version where she does say "5!" after the fifth jump, overlapping with the "Wow! That's great!" sound file.
The "5!" voice line is used since Full Game Early Demo.
Prior to V1.3.1, Playtime could enter rooms randomly. Since then, she will only enter a room if she is following the player.
When she was able to enter rooms randomly, she could enter faculty rooms but not get sent to detention for doing so.
Prior to V1.4.1, Playtime's speed when chasing the player was higher than the player's running speed itself. Since the update, Playtime is now slightly slower than the player's running speed. She is still, however, considerably faster than the player's walking speed.
She would not be sent to detention by Principal of the Thing for running in the halls if he saw her, despite being faster than the player's running speed. This is likely because Playtime is jumping, not running, given her animation.
Playtime rarely uses the long hallway of the east side with the two classrooms and the faculty room with the Swinging Door Lock.
In V1.0, Playtime could attract Baldi to where she and the player are, with an unused quote. She could not lose the player, even if they turned a corner. Also, if the player missed the rope, it would restart after her quote was over.
Prior to V1.4, her minigame was interrupted if the player got closed on by a standard door. Also, there was text saying "Press the space bar to jump!" during the jump rope minigame. It was removed mainly because the player can customize the controls on PC.
When decompiling the game and entering the secret ending scene, Playtime is in the scene, albeit disabled. If enabled, she cannot move, as she is out of bounds.
According to the tape recording #3, Playtime used to have a tripping mechanic.
Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered
Prior to V1.1, the player could not move while playing with her.
In V1.0, there was a lack of the "and short memory" phrase in the description of the poster in the Principal's office.
Glitches
Baldi's Basics Plus
Prior to V0.3.6, Playtime's jump rope was still seen when opening the advanced map.
Baldi's Basics Classic/Birthday Bash
If the player cuts Playtime's skipping rope on the same frame Playtime catches them, even though she says "Oh! That makes me sad!", her minigame will not end. Instead, the Safety Scissors will vanish but the player will still have to jump all five times. In Baldi's Basics Classic, this only happens in mobile version.
If Playtime is inside the cafeteria and the player is behind furniture, her AI will start to fail and her "Let's play!" line will repeat several times, as she oscillates between chasing and wandering. This is because her raycast is located at her feet, which means that the furniture blocks it from detecting the player, then when it is no longer blocked, it makes Playtime chase them, and the cycle repeats.
Playtime might enter a classroom that the player entered, even when she is not close to them.
In Birthday Bash and earlier versions of Baldi's Basics Classic, there is a rare glitch where Playtime would not leave the player after the jump rope minigame ended, getting stuck in an infinite loop.
Prior to Baldi's Basics Classic V1.4, if the player was standing in a standard doorway and was caught by Playtime, the player would escape the minigame as soon as the door closed, and Playtime would wander off as if the player had jumped all five times. This was due to how collision worked then.
Baldi's Basics Kickstarter Exclusive Demo
Playtime appears as a static image rather than being animated.
During the jump rope minigame, there is another jump rope that appears to be tiny and has a billboard.
The player can play the jump rope game while hiding in a locker. When the player gets out of the locker during the minigame, the player can still jump but the camera's height will not change. This bug was brought over to Baldi's Basics Plus until V0.1.5, as entering a blue locker while playing the jump rope game will immediately cancel it since that version.
Most of the time, Playtime is not shown.
When using the Safety Scissors on Playtime, she does not say "Oh! That makes me sad!" and does not show her sad sprite. This bug was brought over to Baldi's Basics Plus until V0.1.2.
Counting to 5 during the minigame right before congratulating the player. Note that "5!" was used in Baldi's Basics Classic, but only in the first version. It was later reused since Full Game Early Demo.
2!
3!
4!
5!
Oops! You messed up!
When the player fails to jump over the jump rope during the minigame.
Wow! That's great! Let's play again... Sometime soon!
When completing her minigame.
Oh! That makes me sad!
When the player uses the Safety Scissors to skip the minigame or when she is interrupted in Baldi's Basics Plus and Classic Remastered.
Classic/Birthday Bash
Quote
Transcript
Description
Oops! You messed up! Let's try again - from the top! Ready? Go!
When the player fails to jump over the jump rope during the minigame.
Birthday Bash/Classic Remastered
Quote
Caption
Description
Surpriiiiise!
When the player reaches the cafeteria exit after collecting 7 notebooks.
Baldi's Basics Classic Remastered
Quote
Caption
Description
6!
Counting to 10 after 5 during the minigame with Hard Mode.
7!
8!
9!
10!
Sound
Caption
Description
*Music*
Playtime's jingle.
Playtime's jingle in Baldi's Basics Birthday Bash and Party Style of Classic Remastered.
Quote
Caption/Transcript
Description
Jump rope ten times in a row. Once you do, I'll let you go! E-he-he-he! (transcript only)
Giving instructions before starting the minigame. Was only used in Baldi's Basics ClassicV1.0.
A Playtime figure and plush on Basically, Games!' office.
A Playtime figure behind mystman12 wearing sunglasses.
A Playtime toy as Christmas tree decoration.
References
↑ 1.01.1"Playtime? More like "Get-away" time!" - Baldi's Tips'n'Tricks'n'Lessons part in README.txt of Baldi's Basics Classic
↑"In the original game, Playtime will stop chasing you and wander randomly again if she loses sight of you. Problem was, sometimes she would still keep walking in the same direction! Now, she's guaranteed to turn around every time." - Kickstarter UPDATE #20: Status Update #8 - Everyone is here!
↑"Playtime's voice is the only voice I can't do. When I recorded Playtime's voice, "I talk like this, like a clown," (clown-like voice) and then I just do a whole lot of distortion to it." - Livestream archive 18:15-18:26
↑"Actually, when I recorded Playtime's line, "let's play," I was actually doing it as a test for Arts and Crafters, I went "let's play!" (clown-like voice) and then... I remembered I actually had a plan for Arts and Crafters which was a screeching noise he has, so I was like, 'Oh, I must just use it for Arts and Crafters,' then I realized this is perfect for Playtime, so that's how her voice came to be." - Livestream archive 18:28-18:56
↑"I had to nerf Playtime a whole lot after the game released. I've slow her down... I know I've mentioned before, but I almost have seen jump 10 times for Playtime right before the release of the game. Like yeah, 10 times... Too much... Just too much." - Livestream archive 17:28-17:48
" to jump!
