Introduction :
In this Era of First/third person action-adventure and Role playing games, where most developers focus on graphics and realistic action, very few dare to create something exceptional in terms of gameplay mechanics and storyline. There are many platformers who are able to achieve this with their unique gimmicks like time control, dimension shifting or moving through portals. Limbo is just another platformer which doesn’t involve anything unique still has a lot of potential to get addicted to!
Read on to discover the thrill of a horror indie game that is immensely simple and intricately complex.
Limbo was originally released for the 360 in July 2010, and later made its way to PC in 2011.
| Developer | Playdead |
| Publisher | Microsoft Game Studios [Courtesy XBOX] |
| Writer | Arnt Jensen |
| Platforms | 2D Side Scrolling on PC, Mac and XBOX |
| Genre | Puzzle |
| Engine | Custom Game engine incorporating physics system Box2D |
Story and Presentation :
The title limbo derives its name from “Limbus” in Latin which mean “edge” where the game refers to it as “edge of hell”. While you progress through the game you will in fact experience events as in hell which narrates a tangled fable as to be witnessed rather than being told. I would refrain from unraveling the story and recommend you to play through the game to discover thrilling suspense.
It’s really unsettling to start a game without a cut scene that engulfs the player into the game’s atmosphere. However in limbo as the opening cinematic fades in it’s hard to realize that what looks like a completely empty scene, some grass in front of the sky, ghosts of trees in the distance, in fact contains a boy lying in the grass. Only once you start interacting with your controller/keyboard you sense the urge to wake him up.
As you gain control of the boy, the dark and gloomy world around will provoke you to move. What you witness as you move ahead are very gruesome environments with traps and puzzles and a few human characters that will simply attack you or run away or are already dead. It’s really hard to make a story out of it until you keep moving to the end.
It’s then that you assemble the glimpses of your journey to weave a legend built on trial and death. Read through the gameplay section for more details.
I wish the ending was more detailed and revealing. You may have a feeling of incompleteness with the last cinematic.
The game is presented in monochromatic black-and-white tones, using lighting, film grain effects and minimal ambient sounds associated with the horror genre. However it’s absolutely brilliant for a game that is less that 100 Mb in size and offers more than 4-5 hours of brain racking gaming sessions.
Gameplay :
You simply use the arrow and Ctrl keys to control the character which can be changed using a file in the game folder.
While controlling the boy only involves walking, jumping and interacting with levers and switches, you need to be exceptionally smart and quick to time your interactions while navigating the environment.
The only weapons you need in this game are your observation skills and the IQ to combine Newton’s laws with your scientific expertise.The dark environments hide environmental hazards and traps you can avoid only if you are extremely observant or you have to die and try!
The lethal elements range from bear traps or spiders to glowing worms that handicap you to move in only one direction.
Once out of the forest and into a crumbling city the traps are more non-organics involving puzzle machinery, Electromagnets, gravity and electrocuting floors causing more gruesome deaths.
In some environments the same traps will also serve as a benefactor to complete the level.
Most of the time you will move around trying to figure out an exit. In fact I was stuck in a couple of environments for 3-4 hours. While the task seems very daunting and frustrating the end result is very satisfying.I would say it’s a game that wants you to die to complete the game. It will take superhuman genius to complete the game without a single death.The learning curve of the game is implemented wisely and as the level progresses the player while develop a sense of incarnation while solving the puzzles.
Graphics & Audio:
Graphics
The monochrome approach coupled with film grain filter, focusing techniques and lighting, visualize dreamlike tableaus of silent films, allowing the visual elements of the game to carry much of the story’s weight.
It’s like watching the game through an old-fashioned film projector that creates “one of the most unsettling and eerily beautiful environments” in video gaming.
The dreamlike levels twist and spin in unexpected angles” project an art style minimalistic, and reminiscent of the art of classics like Tim Burton.
The game tries to misdirect us in the visuals, by using silhouettes to avoid revealing the true nature of the characters or shadows, or by showing human figures across a chasm that disappear once the player crossed the chasm.
The environment physics and interactions like walking in the mud or grass or sliding down a slope are very well executed.
What is more fascinating or I would say horrific is the way deaths are simulated. Falling on a spinning blade or being electrocuted by a charged floor or being decapitated by a Spiders look so gruesome that you could puke while watching those entrails fling out of the mutilated body.
The visuals surely complement the game’s Story and gameplay. And I will surely give an 11/10 if I could.
Audio :
The game’s audio was created by Martin Stig Andersen, a graduate from the Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus. The core sound focuses on depicting the environmental interactions like rustling of the grass while you walk or slide through it or the electricity sparks while you are near a broken neon sign or the machinery movement. The boy doesn’t even squeal while being killed but the sound of decapitating him feels almost real. In some level you need to analyze the sound to time the switching of the knobs or levers.
I wish it had some good more music to complement a puzzle solving along with the nerve tingling sounds.
PC Performance
Although this game is a port from XBOX 360 it does not tax your system. Apparently there are no graphics settings apart from the brightness adjustment but that’s all the game needs.
It may lag on systems with integrated graphics like the ones from INTEL rest assured with even a low end video card you will enjoy 60FPS smooth gameplay.
Conclusion & Final Thoughts :
It’s very difficult to find flaws in a game that employs mind bending puzzles and a unfinished story.The game could have put more focus on the story side and also integrate music to complement the gameplay.
But apart from the Game there is more interesting things you would like to know before I proceed with the final score.
- The in-house record for completing Limbo is 2 hours 26 minutes.
- 26% of the game’s code goes into the boy himself – it took 3200 hours to program him!
- The boy in LIMBO is 1.5 meters tall, weighs 50kg, and is made up of 13 different sprites.
- The fastest he can run is 3 meters per second, and any drop bigger than 10.3 meters will kill him.
- End to end, Limbo is 4.1km long!
- It took 3 and half years to make the game.
- Limbo’s audio was recorded on an eclectic mix of obsolete equipment – including antique wire recorders and reel to reels.
- The barfing sound of the worm eaters was obtained by playing a guiro with castanets instead of a stick, and then running the result through a talk box.
- The game engine used to create LIMBO was adapted so that it had no concept of color.
- There are only 8 people at Playdead – there have been more in the past, but even at the studio’s biggest there were only 16 people!