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This thread has been linked to the game 'Limbo'.
Limbo is an Indie 2D platform puzzler by Danish developers, Playdead. I wanted to play this game because my favourite genre of games is puzzle adventures. It was released in July 2010 and so I have read a lot about it before playing it. The developers proudly stated that the type of gameplay in Limbo is “Trial and Death”, which I considered to be quite odd as trial and error gameplay isn’t usually good games design. However, in Limbo the punishment for death doesn’t set you very far back at all, which makes death a weak de-motivator for playing. If this game worked like Demon’s Souls and took you back to the start of the game, then it would have been a very frustrating experience.
I think this is the first black and white game I’ve played on a console (not counting Gameboy) and it works with the ambient flickering and glowing background sound to create a memorable atmosphere. The game starts with a boy awakening in the woods, with no explanation as to how or why he is there and I ultimately wouldn’t have known about the overall goal, if I hadn’t read it in articles before playing (Searching for his lost sister)
The first few minutes of the game is spent walking forward with little of interest happening. This acts as a sort of build up to your first encounter. I hate spiders, they creep me out with their spindly legs and the way they move, but due to watching trailers I wasn’t surprised about meeting them. What did surprise me was how I wasn’t scared at all, but I consider that a positive, as I wouldn’t have been able to finish it otherwise.
Because the developers call the gameplay “Trial and Death”, they expect you to die before figuring out what to do. This allowed them to create very interesting gruesome death animations, which I would have found disturbing if I didn’t laugh at them so much. Throughout the game I have been impaled, crushed, sawn in half, drowned, burnt, electrocuted, poisoned by darts and more. It’s like groundhog day.
The first half of the game is spent in a forest surviving creatures, death traps, humans, and death traps created by humans before the game moves into an industrial factory area for the rest of the game and the gameplay starts to focus on physics puzzles. This takes the impact of the atmosphere out of the game a bit, but I still found it to be interesting.
I have to say that each section in the game has something memorable in it, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for a three or so hour game. Most of the puzzles near the end have a twitch based time element to them rather than a cerebral challenge, but they are fun to execute. You also start to manipulate gravity to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, which I thought was pretty fun.
It is hard to not draw comparisons to Braid, especially in a story sense. In Braid, you were told about your relationship with the princess and how you were searching for her through text books and through the ending cut scene. How the story matches the gameplay can be opened up to interpretation and the same can be said about Limbo. What does the forest, the spider or the factory represent? If these things mean nothing to you, then you won’t see any story until the final cut scene, which is similar to Braid's final level.
Also the ending can be considered somewhat disappointing in the same way. Braid ended with loads of mismatched text books to confuse you and then the game ends. Limbo has an abrupt ending, which like Braid’s final level brings significant conclusions to the story, but it leaves you hanging and wanting to know more answers.
Of course being an “Arty” game, you can see it as a positive as people like to draw their own conclusions and interpretations from the events, but I just like to see it as it is.
That said, as a game, Limbo delivers and I enjoyed every surprising and varied moment. I read that the publishers wanted to add a multiplayer mode and extend the game, but the developers declined. It is good to see the independent scene making games like these and I’m looking forward to the next Playdead game.
Good
+ Interesting and Varied Puzzles
+ Eerie atmosphere
Bad
- Little story context
- A tad short
9/10
I think this is the first black and white game I’ve played on a console (not counting Gameboy) and it works with the ambient flickering and glowing background sound to create a memorable atmosphere. The game starts with a boy awakening in the woods, with no explanation as to how or why he is there and I ultimately wouldn’t have known about the overall goal, if I hadn’t read it in articles before playing (Searching for his lost sister)
The first few minutes of the game is spent walking forward with little of interest happening. This acts as a sort of build up to your first encounter. I hate spiders, they creep me out with their spindly legs and the way they move, but due to watching trailers I wasn’t surprised about meeting them. What did surprise me was how I wasn’t scared at all, but I consider that a positive, as I wouldn’t have been able to finish it otherwise.
Because the developers call the gameplay “Trial and Death”, they expect you to die before figuring out what to do. This allowed them to create very interesting gruesome death animations, which I would have found disturbing if I didn’t laugh at them so much. Throughout the game I have been impaled, crushed, sawn in half, drowned, burnt, electrocuted, poisoned by darts and more. It’s like groundhog day.
The first half of the game is spent in a forest surviving creatures, death traps, humans, and death traps created by humans before the game moves into an industrial factory area for the rest of the game and the gameplay starts to focus on physics puzzles. This takes the impact of the atmosphere out of the game a bit, but I still found it to be interesting.
I have to say that each section in the game has something memorable in it, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for a three or so hour game. Most of the puzzles near the end have a twitch based time element to them rather than a cerebral challenge, but they are fun to execute. You also start to manipulate gravity to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, which I thought was pretty fun.
It is hard to not draw comparisons to Braid, especially in a story sense. In Braid, you were told about your relationship with the princess and how you were searching for her through text books and through the ending cut scene. How the story matches the gameplay can be opened up to interpretation and the same can be said about Limbo. What does the forest, the spider or the factory represent? If these things mean nothing to you, then you won’t see any story until the final cut scene, which is similar to Braid's final level.
Also the ending can be considered somewhat disappointing in the same way. Braid ended with loads of mismatched text books to confuse you and then the game ends. Limbo has an abrupt ending, which like Braid’s final level brings significant conclusions to the story, but it leaves you hanging and wanting to know more answers.
Of course being an “Arty” game, you can see it as a positive as people like to draw their own conclusions and interpretations from the events, but I just like to see it as it is.
That said, as a game, Limbo delivers and I enjoyed every surprising and varied moment. I read that the publishers wanted to add a multiplayer mode and extend the game, but the developers declined. It is good to see the independent scene making games like these and I’m looking forward to the next Playdead game.
Good
+ Interesting and Varied Puzzles
+ Eerie atmosphere
Bad
- Little story context
- A tad short
9/10
Davidm4 wrote:
Thanks. I found it hard to write much about a three hour game and because of your comments on previous posts I was expecting you to tell me to add more lol =D
Don't you fret about that ;¬)
Thanks. I found it hard to write much about a three hour game and because of your comments on previous posts I was expecting you to tell me to add more lol =D
Don't you fret about that ;¬)
Thanks. I found it hard to write much about a three hour game and because of your comments on previous posts I was expecting you to tell me to add more lol =D
Great review :)
I like the general summary of positives and negatives at the end. May start doing that myself ;)
I like the general summary of positives and negatives at the end. May start doing that myself ;)
Limbo is an Indie 2D platform puzzler by Danish developers, Playdead. I wanted to play this game because my favourite genre of games is puzzle adventures. It was released in July 2010 and so I have read a lot about it before playing it. The developers proudly stated that the type of gameplay in Limbo is “Trial and Death”, which I considered to be quite odd as trial and error gameplay isn’t usually good games design. However, in Limbo the punishment for death doesn’t set you very far back at all, which makes death a weak de-motivator for playing. If this game worked like Demon’s Souls and took you back to the start of the game, then it would have been a very frustrating experience.
I think this is the first black and white game I’ve played on a console (not counting Gameboy) and it works with the ambient flickering and glowing background sound to create a memorable atmosphere. The game starts with a boy awakening in the woods, with no explanation as to how or why he is there and I ultimately wouldn’t have known about the overall goal, if I hadn’t read it in articles before playing (Searching for his lost sister)
The first few minutes of the game is spent walking forward with little of interest happening. This acts as a sort of build up to your first encounter. I hate spiders, they creep me out with their spindly legs and the way they move, but due to watching trailers I wasn’t surprised about meeting them. What did surprise me was how I wasn’t scared at all, but I consider that a positive, as I wouldn’t have been able to finish it otherwise.
Because the developers call the gameplay “Trial and Death”, they expect you to die before figuring out what to do. This allowed them to create very interesting gruesome death animations, which I would have found disturbing if I didn’t laugh at them so much. Throughout the game I have been impaled, crushed, sawn in half, drowned, burnt, electrocuted, poisoned by darts and more. It’s like groundhog day.
The first half of the game is spent in a forest surviving creatures, death traps, humans, and death traps created by humans before the game moves into an industrial factory area for the rest of the game and the gameplay starts to focus on physics puzzles. This takes the impact of the atmosphere out of the game a bit, but I still found it to be interesting.
I have to say that each section in the game has something memorable in it, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for a three or so hour game. Most of the puzzles near the end have a twitch based time element to them rather than a cerebral challenge, but they are fun to execute. You also start to manipulate gravity to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, which I thought was pretty fun.
It is hard to not draw comparisons to Braid, especially in a story sense. In Braid, you were told about your relationship with the princess and how you were searching for her through text books and through the ending cut scene. How the story matches the gameplay can be opened up to interpretation and the same can be said about Limbo. What does the forest, the spider or the factory represent? If these things mean nothing to you, then you won’t see any story until the final cut scene, which is similar to Braid's final level.
Also the ending can be considered somewhat disappointing in the same way. Braid ended with loads of mismatched text books to confuse you and then the game ends. Limbo has an abrupt ending, which like Braid’s final level brings significant conclusions to the story, but it leaves you hanging and wanting to know more answers.
Of course being an “Arty” game, you can see it as a positive as people like to draw their own conclusions and interpretations from the events, but I just like to see it as it is.
That said, as a game, Limbo delivers and I enjoyed every surprising and varied moment. I read that the publishers wanted to add a multiplayer mode and extend the game, but the developers declined. It is good to see the independent scene making games like these and I’m looking forward to the next Playdead game.
Good
+ Interesting and Varied Puzzles
+ Eerie atmosphere
Bad
- Little story context
- A tad short
9/10
I think this is the first black and white game I’ve played on a console (not counting Gameboy) and it works with the ambient flickering and glowing background sound to create a memorable atmosphere. The game starts with a boy awakening in the woods, with no explanation as to how or why he is there and I ultimately wouldn’t have known about the overall goal, if I hadn’t read it in articles before playing (Searching for his lost sister)
The first few minutes of the game is spent walking forward with little of interest happening. This acts as a sort of build up to your first encounter. I hate spiders, they creep me out with their spindly legs and the way they move, but due to watching trailers I wasn’t surprised about meeting them. What did surprise me was how I wasn’t scared at all, but I consider that a positive, as I wouldn’t have been able to finish it otherwise.
Because the developers call the gameplay “Trial and Death”, they expect you to die before figuring out what to do. This allowed them to create very interesting gruesome death animations, which I would have found disturbing if I didn’t laugh at them so much. Throughout the game I have been impaled, crushed, sawn in half, drowned, burnt, electrocuted, poisoned by darts and more. It’s like groundhog day.
The first half of the game is spent in a forest surviving creatures, death traps, humans, and death traps created by humans before the game moves into an industrial factory area for the rest of the game and the gameplay starts to focus on physics puzzles. This takes the impact of the atmosphere out of the game a bit, but I still found it to be interesting.
I have to say that each section in the game has something memorable in it, which probably shouldn’t be surprising for a three or so hour game. Most of the puzzles near the end have a twitch based time element to them rather than a cerebral challenge, but they are fun to execute. You also start to manipulate gravity to solve puzzles and overcome obstacles, which I thought was pretty fun.
It is hard to not draw comparisons to Braid, especially in a story sense. In Braid, you were told about your relationship with the princess and how you were searching for her through text books and through the ending cut scene. How the story matches the gameplay can be opened up to interpretation and the same can be said about Limbo. What does the forest, the spider or the factory represent? If these things mean nothing to you, then you won’t see any story until the final cut scene, which is similar to Braid's final level.
Also the ending can be considered somewhat disappointing in the same way. Braid ended with loads of mismatched text books to confuse you and then the game ends. Limbo has an abrupt ending, which like Braid’s final level brings significant conclusions to the story, but it leaves you hanging and wanting to know more answers.
Of course being an “Arty” game, you can see it as a positive as people like to draw their own conclusions and interpretations from the events, but I just like to see it as it is.
That said, as a game, Limbo delivers and I enjoyed every surprising and varied moment. I read that the publishers wanted to add a multiplayer mode and extend the game, but the developers declined. It is good to see the independent scene making games like these and I’m looking forward to the next Playdead game.
Good
+ Interesting and Varied Puzzles
+ Eerie atmosphere
Bad
- Little story context
- A tad short
9/10