Full Steam Ahead: LIMBO

For the year of 2019, both Erin and I have come to realize that we have way too many games hanging out in our Steam library that we still haven’t played. Our resolutions? To whittle that number down to something much smaller. Given that 2020 is only a handful of months away, I think it’s safe to say that neither of us is doing too well. Though to be fair, Erin is doing far better than I am, especially since my resolution was to play a minimum of 3 games.

Initially I started out with Hollow Knight, a choice that I sort of came to regret for a variety of reasons. For now I’ll lay that story aside and reveal it when I either finish the game or fail miserably in my resolution. In the aftermath of that choice, I played something else.

LIMBO (2010)
Developer: Playdead
Publisher: Playdead, Xbox Game Studios
Director: Arnt Jensen
Lead Designer: Jeppe Carlsen
Platform: PC (available on numerous other platforms)
Genre: Puzzle platform
Mode: Single-player

Why I Chose It: I remembered that I’d never finished LIMBO, a fantastically atmospheric game with stunning visuals, despite being done wholly in black and white. I’d turned off my game in 2017 to go eat something — and never finished. I figured now was as good a time as any, since as with Hollow Knight, I had a sliver of work left to do.

The Premise: Uncertain of his sister’s fate, a boy enters LIMBO.

Discussion: The premise above is taken straight from the game’s Steam page. It’s meant to tell potential players what the game is about. It’s simple, but leaves you with a lot of questions. What is LIMBO? Why are you here? What happened to your sister? Who knows? Then again, the game itself is simple, relatively speaking. You begin by waking in a forest before going on a journey that takes you past giant spiders and rickety trees into industrial areas with electric rails, buzzsaws, and gravity switches. Maybe there was a city here once, with electric HOTEL signs still snapping their neon lights, everything in disrepair. But your goal is not to die — a difficult feat, considering pretty much everything is either directly or indirectly out to kill you. There’s even an achievement to complete the game with five or less deaths (good luck with that).

The developers apparently decided to keep it simple with this game, as it’s crafted as a 2D side-scrolling platformer. You start on the left and make your way to the right. Although there are times in the industrial section of the game when the entire screen will shift and twist based on what buttons you need to press or levers you pull — not to mention the occasional brain-controlling grub that will force you to walk in whatever direction you might be facing at the time. As the character (who remains unnamed), you can jump, climb, push and pull objects, and walk/run depending on how far you’re pushing the stick. To note, I played on a controller, but you can also use a mouse and keyboard if you prefer.

The bulk of the game is puzzle-solving, or having some damn good timing. Placing boxes in the right areas to climb, pulling levers at specific instances to swap gravity power and float your way past massive saw blades, or timing a jump just right so you avoid getting smashed by a rolling boulder or electrocuted by a floor. I admit, I got impatient on a few remaining puzzles, and rather than get frustrated or shut the game down, I simply turned to smarter minds at YouTube. I’m glad I did in a few instances — at one point I was trying to figure out a puzzle with only one box, which made no sense to me. Turned out I needed two boxes, and had to go to another area I didn’t know existed to get the second. Besides, I didn’t want to be frustrated while playing. I don’t play games to get annoyed. Yes, sometimes that happens when things get tough, but I like to have a decent time while I play. If I’m not enjoying myself in some fashion, then why play at all?

Luckily the game also auto-saves at numerous points and lives are infinite, so be ready to die over and over as you attempt to complete certain sections. It also provides you with checkpoints should you need to turn it off and come back at a later time (in my case, 2 years later). Once you finish, you can go back to any of those points and replay a section. This might be useful in case you want to snag one of the 13 available Steam achievements, assuming the game allows you to snag them piecemeal rather than from a full playthrough. Personally, I’m not that motivated. I ended up with 4, and that’s good enough for me.

LIMBO is a very beautiful, albeit often horrific game. The black-and-white style works perfectly for the feel of this game. The sound design is simple, yet effective. There is virtually no music, and it really is the atmosphere that gets you. Things are nice when they seem safe. Things are awful when you’re in a panic and trying not to drown, or getting chased down by a giant freaking spider. It can be light and you’ll feel relatively okay, or it can get very dark, oppressive, and uncomfortable in every way. Even after you finish, the story as a whole is one you may only be able to guess at, but at least it feels good and seems to be on the happily-ever-after side of things.

Final Thoughts: If you want a single-player game that’s puzzles-only and fairly chill (and I use the term “chill” in the loosest way possible here), then LIMBO can be worth checking out. It’s won numerous awards, and honestly doesn’t take that long to complete in the world of gaming. Granted, I started it in 2017 and finished in 2019, but the reality is that it only took me about 6 hours to finish. Just be ready to die. A lot.