Due to the short duration of both games, I decided that I would try to play them each in one or two sittings. I also felt that this was best since I would be able to remember more details about my gameplay to record.
I already had Limbo in my PlayStation library for a few years now since I got it when it was one of the free PlayStation plus games of the month a long time ago. It had caught my eye because of the eerie theme that it had, but I never got a chance to play it and I forgot about it eventually. Therefore, I was excited to see that it was an option for one of the games for this assignment.
Upon starting the game, I got the feeling that this would be a creepy game. It certainly did not help that I was playing the game at night. The main menu was spooky enough!
First impressions: it is very spooky indeed. There was no music at all, and the only sound emanating from the tv was the sound effects of my character moving, and some environmental sounds. I’ll admit that I thought this was going to be an easy game, but I was very wrong. Not only did I die quite a bit, but I also got stumped here and there.
Upon starting the gameplay, I immediately turned left, just out of curiosity, and I found a secret white thing which gave me a PlayStation trophy. I was not really intending to find any more secrets, but I found another one a little bit after. After much jumping and moving objects, I got to what I think would qualify as the first boss: the spider. I’m sure that anyone with megalophobia or arachnophobia checked out as soon as they saw it.
It was interesting since I did not understand how to deal with the boss until after I died a few times. The game aesthetics played a part in this struggle since the black foreground made me think that the beartrap used to damage the spider was just for decoration. After running away from the spider and going through some more parkour and puzzles; I encountered the first other human. Embarrassingly enough, it took me a few more deaths to realize that if I held the x button a bit longer, then I could have a longer jump instead of spamming the button.
The more I played, the darker the tone got since I started finding dead bodies, what I presume were children. Coincidentally enough, I started getting cold in real life, and I grabbed a blanket. One of the first instances of music appeared when I found another person who was dying. I noticed a pattern that there was music whenever something startling came up, and it worked to convey a sense of anxiety since you could also not see their faces. Perhaps the most interesting aspect of this game are the few white glowing objects that must signify something that I have yet to figure out…
