Limbo

[mikemariano]

The plot of Limbo is you move to the right.

It's the same plot as Double Dragon! Except Double Dragon had that superfluous cutscene where your girlfriend gets punched in the gut.

[Twig]

Those kinds of achievements I never even consider. How long did each playthrough take you? How many hours have you spent in all working on that achievement in particular?

I would say that I spent maybe 3-4 hours going specifically for that one, although I think I'm overestimating. I didn't really keep track. Aside from a few really early screw-ups - like if I died before killing the spider - where I would restart immediately, I'd say it took about five playthroughs to finally get it. It's not as hard as it seems, to be honest. Most of the deaths in Limbo the first time you play it come from ignorance of what's going to happen when you pull that lever, or whatever. Once you get over that, it's all down to mechanics, and the mechanics generally work with you rather than against you. The only time that's not true is the timing "puzzles". The first big hurdle I had to get over was the flashing neon HOTEL sign. Now I can make it through there without dying, but the first couple attempts, that section destroyed me.

I thought the Limbo part was pretty straightforward actually. I took it as you were some kid who recently died, woke up, and is stuck in the inbetween hell and heaven purgatory type thing. Stuff is a weird mishmash of things from the real world, much like Wristcutters, and some people have been there so long that they get feral and violent.

Really it seemed like the game was trying to be more vague about something that didn't have much below the surface.

At the end I imagine he meets a girl who is more fresh into the world and is his possible friend or will bring some kind of happiness in the dull and tragic life in limbo. Then you are back at the start because you are stuck there. Again, much like Wristcutters. I guess Limbo is just Wristcutters with more violence, giant spiders, and no comedy or Tom Waits.

I guess I was pretty disappointed in the ending, as it just said nothing. I was imaging there would have been someway to exit limbo, but I guess that would have been too "cliche" for the artsy designers. Either that or too much new art required that hypothetically wouldn't have been a bunch of black and white.

At least it's not as obnoxious as Braid I suppose. I could have done with more plot like Another World though.

To me, that just further emphasizes my point. You're expressing yet another interpretation of what the game could actually be trying to say. I've seen so many different interpretations the past couple days, many that I hadn't even considered, that I wonder if the creators even had anything to begin with.

I mean, that could be considered a point in the game's favor, that it's so open to interpretation. Unfortunately, like I said before, I just don't care for this kind of thing. U:

[ThunderPeel2001]

There's no points just for it being SO open to interpretation. That alone is pointless. A wibble. Banana. Hatstand.

(What does it mean??)

If it evoked a strong emotional response, and everyone saw something different, cool! But everyone just seems to express confusion and vague disappointment. And in some cases (mine) bewilderment and frustration to boot.

Just like the main character with no personality, the apparent inability to gauge what's socially acceptable, and predicatable "deep"/downer endings, pretentiousness is one of gaming's many negative cliches.

[syntheticgerbil]

Yeah, I certainly didn't feel anything for the world or characters within. Atmosphere was nice, especially on the rain part, but there's no way this would have worked out if this were an eight hour game.

This game seems to borrow heavily from Another World in gameplay, art and sparseness (at least to me), but Another World has you caring about what's going on and your alien friend, even though it's not a lot.

[vimes]

but there's no way this would have worked out if this were an eight hour game.

Isn't it to the credit of the developers to have created a world, picked atmosphere and scoped their game so that everything was just right? You can't blame the game for being as short as it needed to be.

[syntheticgerbil]

I suppose, but I guess when I was saying that, I felt like something more substantial could have been crammed in to make the 2-3 hour game more memorable. When people do all these vague notional type stories, they almost exclusively do it in short games.

A lot of the times, short films seem to suffer from this as well where the end abruptly or things don't make sense. So I guess I'm just saying I wish the creators of Limbo would have tried a little bit harder to put some kind of pull in the storyline or world.