I'm well aware of the love it or hate it reaction to ambiguous, exploration-driven indie games. For every rave about a Journey, there's an equally passionate pan. The pros and cons are sometimes even the same on both sides of the review spectrum.
Never has this been more clear than the critical divide over Limbo. The gorgeous side-scrolling puzzle platformer set in an inky black and white world of deadly traps allows you, the gamer, to create your own narrative. The mechanics and puzzles are locked into place with very exacting solutions. The actual story being told is intentionally left not only unresolved but underexplored.
The crux of Limbo is the maddening build of suspense. Your character, a young boy shown in silhouette alone, races through forests, rooftops, caves, and factories to achieve something. For a while, the motivation is staying alive. Other children lay traps and even attack him directly. Then a young girl enters the picture and the game changes tone entirely.
Throughout the exploration of the world, you come to distrust every element put in your way. Is that footswitch a bane or a boon? Will pulling that lever flood the forest or just the chamber you need to pass? And why are so many of the settings so familiar again and again and again?
About 2/3s of the way through the game, the truth of the design is revealed. The world seems to repeat itself because the environments of the game are recycled and revisited in unexpected ways. The neon signs you passed over long before are now your escape ladder from the murderous factory before. Signs you saw in the distance are shoved to the foreground, introducing new gameplay mechanics that make you realize anything is possible in Limbo.
The game creates a terrible sense of foreboding from the start. You learn quickly that not even light is your friend. Everything is an act of misdirection that can lead you right to a pit of spikes or murderous spider. The game begins to take on a rhythm of introducing a trap, then adding more and more encounters with the trap until the next big threat is revealed. For example, a puddle of water you drown in becomes a chasm becomes a lake becomes a spring at the bottom of a hill you have to go down to advance. The stakes are spun higher and higher until the new style of enemy--be it brain parasite, flooding structure, or spinning gears--steps up for its own set of rotations.
The traps and enemies do overlap in pretty challenging ways as the game progresses, but the prevalence of the trap stays true to the circular nature of the trap design and pacing. The technique forces you to question every move and really hone in on the environmental factors. Everything you will encounter in the game is foreshadowed in the first few minutes of play with the blurred shadows in the distance. Likewise, everything you play in the first few minutes swings around to the distant background as you explore the world. It's an inventive way to establish a cohesive world when the structures and environments look very similar but play in totally unexpected ways.
Whether or not Limbo physically begins and ends in the exact same place is one of the ambiguous elements of the story. My gut instinct says yes, but a bizarre almost-cutscene in the middle of the game might suggest otherwise. The important thing to realize is that the game repeats structural and design elements again and again as a way to increase the challenge level and suspense. Not knowing what exactly will come next but presenting it in a familiar way is a very cool way to build suspense and interest in the outcome of the game.
Thoughts on the structure and story of Limbo? Share them below.