When you die for the first time, falling out of a tree with a soft thump, impaled on a set of spikes. Put the hostile environment in contrast with that: every location oozes with death or desolation, or has prepared a trap for you. When knocked back, the boy lies there, dizzy, and it takes some time to compose himself again, crawling back up clumsily. Especially the detailed animations convey how feeble your character really is. The weakness of the boy is apparent the jumping height is very low and dropping down from heights is often not an option. No on-screen indicators, no cut-scenes, all the fat is cut away to get to the core of the experience. The controls are similarly simple: you can walk around, slide down slopes, jump, and use a button to interact with the environment. There is no music and sound effects are scarce, with the soft humming of the forest in the background, hungry in anticipation for your next step. Not only in visual design is the game an exercise in minimalism. Limbo is that place between heaven and hell, but you're not sure which one you are heading to. Resigned, he awaits where you will take him and he won't convey any emotion for the rest of the journey. What did you think? There is no way back. Try to walk left and you receive the Wrong Way achievement. He is standing there, a dark silhouette with no discernible features and two glowing eyes. When the boy awakens and painfully slow picks himself up from the forest floor, he is in a bleak environment, rendered entirely in monochromatic colours with a soft filter on top. But starting over can be an unnerving period to become at ease again with the new circumstances.ĭespite the Microsoft marketing blurb describing this game as the search of a boy for a girl, Limbo is in fact the metaphor for that process. You count your loss, adapt, and move on it's the survival struggle that determines man and gives meaning to life. Relationships strand, companies cut workforces and accidents happen. If you're a bit like me, you don't see every change pushing you out of your comfort zone as an exciting opportunity to tackle new challenges. There is only a single path through the levels and generally there is only a single solution to a problem. Most of the game elements are discovered through experimentation, like the effects of a glowing worm that attaches itself to The Boy's head, changing the flow of gravity, or what happens when a giant spider captures him. Other elements serve only for setting the scene, when The Boy gets to ride a boat to cross a lake (he cannot swim and drowns immediately) or finds the corpses of the people who did not make it in Limbo. Most of the encounters are centered around puzzles and these are sometimes based on timing or speed when being chased. When dead, the game immediately reloads before the current puzzle. In the same vein the boy cannot jump from great heights or jump very far. Every single misstep, often with gruesome consequences, is fatal. Music and sound effects are minimal and there are no on-screen elements referring to health or other statistics. These account for most of the horror moments, of the psychological kind, with other unnerving sequences like when the player is forced to use the corpses of other children as a bridge. Encounters with other humans are however brief and rare. There are obstacles where The Boy simply needs to find a way to progress, there are dangerous creatures that hunt him down and try to kill them, and finally there is a gang of children who band together to ward off the intruder and set up traps for him, with a touch of Lord of the Flies. The player faces three kinds of challenges. It moves from a forest to an abandoned city and eventually an industrial zone. The world is rendered in 2D but with different layers of depth in the scenery. It is divided into 24 chapters that seamlessly flow into each other, only from the level selection in the main menu can be derived where a new chapter starts. The gloomy world has a dusty filter showing the game through misted glass, and no vivid colours are present. This allows him to explore the world and hang on ledges, slide down slopes, push objects, pull levers, and cling to ropes, but the player has to make most of what is present in the environment to get by, often with physics-based elements. Only two buttons are used, a feeble jump and one to perform an action, combined with movement. In that world filled with hazards and danger, his means are few and he is extremely vulnerable. Not a single clue is given at the start, there are no cut-scenes and the game starts right away. However, the story as a whole can also be seen as a metaphor for the search for companionship and getting around in a new environment. The player controls a protagonist simply known as The Boy, who is said to enter the world Limbo in search of his sister. Limbo is a side-scrolling puzzle platformer set in a sinister, monochromatic world.
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