Friendly Steps Walkthrough
A night route that prefers sidewalks over glowing shortcuts.
This walkthrough is a night plan, not a room-by-room spoiler dump. Friendly Steps changes details between the June demo, the Construction / Trip / Tornado playtests, and the September 3, 2026 full launch. The spine stays the same: leave the bar, stay on the rope, spend checkpoints like they are water, and treat every shortcut as a dare.
If you cannot walk yet, stop here and open Getting Started plus How to walk. This page assumes tiny steps exist in your hands.
Opening: the bar and the texts
Public sessions start at a bar. Phones go off. Partners want you home. The group decides a rope is a plan. That decision is the tutorial. Do not skip the first flat street even if a glowing object is already visible. Use the street to set a metronome: the co-op guide wants a named lead before the first hill.
Ignore the first bottle. The HUD in some builds tracks drinks and a timer. A 01:09 run with 128 drinks is a comedy save, not a route. Items explains when a beer is actually worth it (almost never before a beam).
Segment 1 — sidewalks, curbs, and other people
The city press shots show benches, trash, a burst pipe, a cop, and NPCs who do not care about your rope. Walk the long way around furniture. Call benches. If a cop or a weirdo is in the path, stop rather than thread a gap that only one body fits through. The rope needs a lane, not a hole.
Hills come next. Shorten uphill taps. On downhills, plant fully before the next lift or the lead becomes a sled. Parks look friendly and hide slope changes. If the camera is pretty, you are probably about to trip.
Segment 2 — stairs, bridges, and the first real wipe
Stairs are a station puzzle. Both feet of the lead should sit on a step before the middle player steps up. If the anchor is still on the previous step, freeze. Bridges are worse because the fall is longer. The broken night bridge in our hero image is the teaching picture: one planted, one hanging, one still walking. Pull, do not sprint.
Checkpoints start to matter here. If you see a checkpoint flag, take it even if the squad feels “almost there.” Falling back to the bar is how nights die. The HUD flag in the bench screenshot is your friend.
Segment 3 — named maps mixed into the city
Depending on the build, the night injects specialist spaces:
- Construction. Cranes, rebar, open floors, a tractor far below. Read Construction before you step onto yellow steel.
- The Trip. Lantern caves, skeletons, a tone shift. Read locations for how that slice sits next to the city streets.
- Tornado. The last open playtest map, sold as vertical and unforgiving. Read Tornado and do not bring extra beers.
If your build does not include a named map yet, skip those pages and stay on the city spine. The full launch is scheduled to add more locations, quests, and wardrobe options on top of what the demo already showed.
Shortcuts, side quests, and sketchy bozos
The Steam copy brags about hidden shortcuts, items, quests, and side paths. That is true and it is bait. A shortcut that skips a hill often adds a beam with no rail. Take shortcuts only when:
- The whole rope is vertical and sober.
- You can see the landing, not just a glow.
- The tier list does not mark the space as a wipe farm.
Side quests are for a second run. Suspicious NPCs exist to create stories, not to save time. If a character offers a detour while you are already crawling, say no.
Speedrun mode versus story night
Steam lists a speedrun mode for the fastest way home. Play it after you know the sidewalks. Speedrun still uses the same legs. It just removes your excuse to pose on benches. For a story night, allow emotes from the players hub at checkpoints only.
A practical finish condition: the front door, everyone standing, drink count low enough that the last curb is still a walk. If one person is still a ragdoll on the welcome mat, you have not finished. Pull them up. Then emote.
If the night goes bad
Reset to the last checkpoint instead of crawling a whole district. Swap the lead. Ban bottles for ten minutes. Open the controls page if someone still thinks Space is jump. If the physics hitch, check system requirements rather than blaming the rope.
Jozzoh’s video in the middle of this page is a mid-length co-op attempt with the same lesson as every other honest session: the squad only progresses when two feet land on the same idea of “forward.”
Frequently Asked Questions
Quick answers to the most common Friendly Steps questions.
Is there a single correct path home?
No. The city mixes main sidewalks with optional shortcuts and quests. Use sidewalks until your rope is stable, then experiment. Named maps have their own pages.
When should I take a shortcut?
Only when everyone is standing, sober, and you can see the landing. The tier list flags routes that exist to farm wipes.
Do checkpoints rewind drinks?
Treat drinks as sticky. Even if a flag saves your position, the drunk modifier is not a reward. Details are on the items page.
Where do Construction and Tornado fit?
They are specialist maps from playtests that can appear as brutal slices of the night. Open Construction or Tornado when the skyline turns into a drop.