Awesome Games in the 21st Century: Limbo

Hi, I'm hardcopy, and I know the true meaning of Christmas.

I have been hearing a lot of buzz on Limbo, and eventually I bought a passcode to download the game on my friend's XBox (and I don't have one because I think XBoxes are shit).  When I played the game, I truely felt disturbed.  Then I felt like this was more of an experience than just a game.  Also it was probably one of the most challenging puzzle games I have played through, and I highly suggest you try the demo. 

Limbo was released in the summer of 2010, and immediately there was a big response of an overall satisfaction with the game.  While most believe the game was too short or not long enough to be worth around 15 dollars, everyone can basically agree that the style of this game was very original and boils down to being as creepy as it could get.  Judging by the above screenshot you could determine for yourself that limbo is possibly the most f'ed up place you could be in let alone try to survive. 

In the game's description, the only thing you know is that the main character is looking for his sister.  There is no dialog, but the real-like sound effects and certain points where there is music doesn't make you feel completely alone.  In fact you are never truly alone in this game.  The main character you control is a young boy who goes through this hell in a side scroller engine.  There is no color, just the use of various shades of black and white.  Still the graphic shadows and environment are very fluid and well done. 

Everything kills you, but there are endless continues.  Because the game is also puzzle, you have to really think about your moves to survive.  On average someone who first plays the game will be expected to die about every five to ten minutes.  There are twists and turns and plenty of surprises unless you get lucky, know exactly what you are doing, or have to go ahead just to see how you can get out of a certain section.  There are pitfalls, spikes, spiders, heavy machinery, turrets, water, and other kids with big pointy sticks who can kill you.  You can, however, interact with objects, push or pull crates, climb ropes, jump, and grapple edges to help escape limbo. 

Each level has its own theme.  During the first part of the game you are mainly in the forest trying to escape very obvious threats of death.  The giant spider makes an appearance in the demo, but throughout the first level you don't really realize how many times these freakin things chase you.  You have to be clever and fast to get through.  Once you get through, you find dead bodies everywhere, and it introduces the feeling that you are not alone.  You will find other village kids who will kill you, but once you master how to use other objects to survive, then you can continue to progress.  You have to interact with everything.  One of the elements of this puzzle game is that it always offers the right amount of objects you can use to continue to move forward.  You will never be stuck wondering how many crates you need because you will end up using all of them.  But that doesn't take away from its challenge.

The second half of Limbo involves knowledge of physics.  You get trapped in a sawmill like area, and then the danger dial flips a shit.  Before you know it, you have to understand how to use magnetism, anti-gravity, and the most perfect timing to get through.  This time around you are challenged with how far you have to think ahead.  Now some gamers can find this game easy and get through without a problem, but most of the time on your first try the second half gets difficult because it's covered in death traps.  But the rush of getting through pulls you along and most of the time if you just keep a straight head, you can manage to get through the toughest puzzles.

The brain slugs/brain worms are very annoying.  It only lets you go down a linear path and the only thing that slows you down is pushing back on the analog stick.  You have to find these birds who eat these worms by jumping, but to even get to them, you have to navigate through more death traps with timing and precision.  The worms do not like light, and when you get to a well lit area, it will only piss off the brain worm and reverse your direction.  This feature does infuriate many gamers, but it only bumps up the variety. 

(Warning: Spoilers)

Here is the experience I had with Limbo.  Like I said before I bought it to play with someone I know, and playing with someone else didn't, from what I think, affect the experience.  In fact, I admit I am pretty game stupid, that it saved me time by not dying.  Still all in all it took about maybe six to seven hours getting through it on a first time.  Not bad, but hey, if you don't know me by now, I like to take my time with this stuff. 

One thing that got me confused with the ending was the lack of story that I didn't realize the game even had.  I didn't read the description, which is the only way you know unless someone else told you or you look it up online, so I just assumed he tried to get out of limbo.  Then he finds a girl at the end.  So ok, while I didn't understand anything about what was supposed to happen, I still thought the ending was good and was pressing me to think about what really happened. 

Then I found out he was supposed to find his sister.  You don't know why, but if you interpret the ending right, then you'll understand what actually happened that made him fall into limbo.  Eventually I'm going to play this game again and see if there are any motifs that I missed in the actual gamplay.

I researched the hell out of finding out how the ending can be explained.  Many forums had different theories, but in the end you won't know unless the creators tell you.  While many of these theories make sense, I'm going to go with one that I think does the ending the most justice.

The boy in the game is trying to find his sister but ends up going through limbo, a place between life and death.  When he breaks through a glass or a barrier after the last puzzle, he breaks through limbo literally and gets out.  He wakes up in the area you first start off at.  You walk towards the left and see a figure sitting on the ground tending to the grass.  When you walk fowards just a little bit, the girl stands up startled and it ends.  Pay attention after the credits.  When you do, you'll notice the start menu screen will appear like normal, you get an achievement, but then the scenery is different.  Instead of the normal start up menu, where you get a foresty area with a breezey sound effect, you get a damaged structure on a short platform with a broken ladder above grass with flies buzzing; you can also hear them.

From what I got the best out of these theories is that the boy is dead.  He is trying to find his sister, which makes him think he is alive so therefore he is stuck in limbo because he can't accept death. I believe when he wakes up that he can't find his sister's body.  Either the boy understands that she is dead or just missing.  When he finally sees her again, he comes to the reality that he isn't alive or is able to leave limbo because he was able to find his sister again.  I'm figuring that the same idea is shared with his sister, who was probably trying to find her brother this whole time, too.  Because she seems startled that she found her brother, the viewer should think that she wasn't expecting to see him.  Or maybe to see that he is alive.  Whatever she was doing before he found her, they end up in the same area near a broken ladder that is also in the new start up menu screen after the credits.  That is probably where they originally died.

There is also a point where the boy sees a girl's body in the distance, but he isn't able to get to her.  You could think that the sister doesn't want to find him or she was trying to find him until a brain worm eats away at him and scares her away. 

The broken structure above them must have caved in or did something that killed them both.  From what other people have said, they thought the structure was a tree house.  But whatever it is something must have broke down to kill the siblings because where the flies are are two corpses; you don't see them so clearly but if you look closesly, you can make out two mounds on the ground. 


With that said there are also other theories that look  more closely into why the two are dead.  Others say that the things you see in the game have to deal with their lives before they died and others say that because it's limbo they are just places for the boy to pass on through in order to get to the end.  While a few think it has to do with a car crash because he broke through glass at the end, others will also go deeper into it and put together the different places you go through in the game such as the forest, the hotel, and the saw mill.  You can say all of this, but you also just take a simplier ending.

Limbo was an enjoyable game.  I hope the creators will end up making another type of puzzle side scroller with as much innovation was this had, and I will be considering purchasing more of their products.  Although it was short, I think it was worth the money because I ended up spending a good amount of time trying to solve puzzles and getting my ass handed to me.