Lessie

Review: Limbo

First things first: HOW? HOW CAN YOU GET INTO SO MUCH TROUBLE LIKE THAT, BOY?

Ahem.

This game has actually touched me in several ways. No, not in an emotional way, mind you, but as a developer. The atmosphere was engaging, the graphics were simple yet coherent, clean and powerful. The sound effects and music (and often the lack thereof) were in perfect sync, none overwhelming the other. The storytelling was a bit too subjective (sorry, I’m just more of a straightforward person, so not always I understand more elaborate storytelling mechanics) for my taste, but it had a good flow and did not disrupt the gameplay in any way, and it did not rely on anything other than the way you could interact with the the world around you, making for a great example of language-independent storytelling. The puzzles were interesting, not too obscure but not always obvious, although I did find the last couple a bit too reliant on timing and finger skill than it could have been.

Oh well, nothing is perfect. But this here is a gem of game design, and should be played by anyone that either wants to have a good time or wants to know how a really good game looks like.

On to the game itself: you play a small, unidentified child (who most assume is a boy, but really, could just be a girl with a short hair) and you quickly find yourself in a rather dangerous envirornment, from bear traps and pistons to a (rather iconic) and pretty large spider, and you die a lot. But that’s okay, you don’t really lose any progress by dying, you just go back to the beginning of the puzzle section you are at.

That’s all on it, actually. Unless you guys want the more spoiler-ish details (which I might have just blurted here, I’m not really good at judging what is and isn’t a spoiler). Just, you know, go play it. It’s good.