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In this episode, James and Alec discuss their playthroughs of LIMBO (2010) on Steam and iOS Mobile. Recorded April of 2023
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Details
In this episode, James and Alec discuss their playthroughs of LIMBO (2010) on Steam and iOS Mobile. Recorded April of 2023
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In this episode, James and Alec discuss their playthroughs of LIMBO (2010) on Steam and iOS Mobile. Recorded April of 2023
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The conversation is about the game "Limbo" that was released in 2010 on Xbox Live Arcade. The game is a 2D side-scrolling platformer with puzzles and a dark atmosphere. It has been ported to various consoles since its release. The game includes elements like spiders and dead children, which may be disturbing to some players. The puzzles in the game require logical thinking and sometimes involve trial and error. The game progresses through different settings seamlessly without any loading screens. Wait, how's how's my audio to you like sound like height-wise? It is absolutely gorgeous It's good. Like it's just it's where we need it. It's like you're a new man Is it really though? Like can you like honestly if there is a difference from your headset? It's it like it like is it better? I think it's better. It's a hard day I'm very very new at audio quality and like trying to pay attention to it It's different and it didn't get different in a bad way It's not an improvement. It's different but not in a bad way What are we talking about today We're talking about limbo, right? Yeah So we're talking about limbo today came out in 2010 Xbox Live Arcade Which was kind of a time period where a lot of games were being released on Xbox Live Arcade It was kind of I associated with the big influx of indie games, you know There's braid there was Fez super meat boy. I said I watched it. Did you see the Netflix documentary about all that back in the day? Yeah, there was limbo wasn't included in it but yeah there was a Netflix documentary talking about all these indie game developers and all the stuff that they were going through to get their games to come out and Even though limbo wasn't part of that I kind of associate it with the same thing and I guess Xbox Live Arcade had played a really big role in the Upcoming for a lot of these games and since then it's been ported to every single console system Known to man since then you can literally play it probably on your LG refrigerator. It's on everything Yeah, I what did you you played it on? I put it on on steam on my PC So I I'm a scumbag I played it I had it on PC and I was at work one day and it was very slow and I just Looked on the app shop on my phone and it was like three or four dollars That's also I just thought well, I don't I don't have my steam deck at work or anything like that I think it'd be frowned upon to install steam on a work computer Yeah, they might have an issue with that Yeah, they probably would they probably would but yeah, I played it on mobile and I feel like it was it was fine It was it was it played. Well, the controls were fine. I don't know I feel like it's one of those games again where it just translates well to mobile because it's not a very difficult Platformer it's not Aladdin Yeah, it's not The the only intense part of it is the I say the graphics which by themselves are very tame, you know But it's up down left right and interact and that's it So you can you can do that easily on pretty much any platform you want? Yeah, and I feel like it it Super Meat Boy wouldn't translate well But this game did and speaking of graphics, I think that's one of the big pulls and the big charm of this game It just it was heavy on the like the setting of the game was really I loved it. I don't know. What did you think? yeah, the we both can see each other's notes and the first thing that comes to mind when I started playing this game was just Atmosphere it is. Yeah, very atmospheric if you have the ability to if you go and play this or if you didn't And you want to go back and play it this way Headphones get to get your headset on listen to it block everything else out and go through this game It makes it so much more elevated Instead of playing it in your living room where there's you know Everybody walking and talking Or if you have kids or something that are coming to interrupting you if you can if you can separate yourself out and really take in that audio It makes this game so much more Feel like you're attacking me right now not intentionally made I It's kind of funny that you mentioned the sound because I I I'm sorry I played it probably in the worst environment to even experience the sound. I Remember I had the volume up. I didn't want to put headphones in and play a game at work so I had the volume up a little bit, but there's other people at work, so I Yeah but I know there were some sound cues and stuff like that when things happened and you kind of get a little bit of a You know like the the last the very Last puzzle challenge to get kind of towards the you know two minutes from the credits is is all Sound there's no visual cue for what you're supposed to do and you have to listen to it right to the point where? Okay, you've got that There's a sound cue but it's also it changes pitch and you have to like time and Wait for the sound to get to a certain level before you interact with the puzzle in that way Yeah, I I mean I didn't play the game on mute But yeah, it definitely helps like I just I wasn't exactly in the game Atmospherically, I didn't play the VR version of it And that concludes our podcast guys. Thanks for listening So It's a dark game not just graphically, but it's it's got some themes in it that were pretty ridiculous Yes For those that haven't been able to play I'd say Biggest content warning would be arachnophobia. It's not a huge part of the game It's not for the entire game, but for the first 30 minutes 30 45 minutes a lot of a lot of spider Visuals one in particular I'm laughing because you like the Concept of it being arachnophobia being the the biggest like warning for fears or problems There's a lot of dead kids in this game Well, that's the reason I the reason I didn't put that one first is because I couldn't tell it Is a lot of it registered as children to me, right? Yeah, but it might have just been they're just small people not like a little everybody as kids But I did too. Yeah, there were there were I had about us I had to look at the head-to-body ratio and A lot of them did you like you're to the character you're going through? And side tangent for a brief second like the story wise none of the story to me that that the designers say the story was come across in the gameplay, but you're playing as a small boy and Anybody's got kids are seeing goofy kids falling over because they're very top-heavy at a certain age Big head small body, right? So a Lot a lot not all of them though. A lot of them had that same like ratio of noggin to the rest but there were a few that it seemed like they were just It was unclear Yeah We got to contact the creator of the game and get his thoughts on that because I interpreted like every child and ever see I just said it I Interpreted every one of them as some kind of kids that were like kind of lost in the in their setting Mm-hmm in in limbo I I don't know but I guess maybe it could just be a simple art style choice that they had but it's kids to me And I know it makes sense that it could be yeah Yeah, especially given just the fact that it's a little boy as The main character. They're all about the same size as you. You know automatically it could be a lot of Vertically challenged adults. I Have so many Look at my notes now. It's kind of funny. I have Body hanging from a With a bear trap get impaled on a tree in the background I've got a lot of notes that kind of just talk about that I thought it added a lot to the game, you know in a weird sense. I liked it just made it very much It's not a scary game. It's not a spooky game, but it made it much darker in general and I kind of liked that about it I Agree, I'm not a big horror person and this didn't take the horror box to me. It was definitely dark You're not no, there's no jump scares again The only thing that would go into like an abrupt kind of scare would be though I think the first moment you quote-unquote meet It's a big spider because I was not expecting those big old legs to come around from this tree And lo and behold they're there it is but past that there is not a traditional Horror like trying to scare you game definitely gives you the sense of like an eerie Creepy vibe, but I I think that's like not as not as I wouldn't stamp, you know Horror directly on it survival horror. This is the sequel to Resident Evil 4 that everyone's been waiting for. I Sent a picture in discord. It's it correlates with my notes. I when you're climbing these trees and It's obviously everything looks like it's going to kill you. But if you look in the background There's like it to me It looks like a kid that just fell on a tree stump and was impaled you can kind of see this the wood Sticking up through him. Yeah, I Mean I found myself I always try to look for little things like that in games because especially when games have time where you stop When you're kind of taking it in a little bit I always kind of scan the background because The creator of the game obviously put work into the even the backgrounds because it just pulls the atmosphere in So I liked I liked that. I don't know if I should say that but I to that to the comment about Everything's kind of there for a reason it very much is and this yeah aside from it being a 2d side-scrolling platform game. It has puzzles and Yeah a little bit of What's the style they put to it trial by death in some parts you you there? You are going to encounter puzzles that there is no No Obvious solution and you kind of have to go through it do it incorrectly Die a couple times and then and then move forward which is fine. A lot of a lot of games do that. I Like that. I don't know if you ever played Abe's Abe's the Odyssey the Oddworld games. They kind of had like a similar way more difficult feel to him I'm not like it was very reminiscent of that to me the levels themselves I Played through this not fully a second time But I did play a good portion of the game probably about half of it twice I played all the way through by myself and then I played again Trying to just refresh for some notes and things and going back the second time I noticed so much more in The setting and in the assets that they put on the levels That if you are going to go through this game don't just do a power run and try to get through it as quickly as Possible. You got to sit you got to go through and take a lot of the stuff in Stop and smell the dead bodies, so to speak right the for example the the dead children Not in this case For example on your notes you have the concept of those brain worms Yeah, there's little there's little like ceiling dangling worms that are Glowing real bright and all that and though if you get close to latch on to you And then they'll force you to walk in a certain direction and if you go into any sunlight it starts to Get hurt and turn you the other way and it's just like mindlessly making you go in a direction You can kind of slow your pace or walk, but you can't just straight turn around Fine like a mechanic yeah playing through playing through a second time About two or three minutes before you're going to encounter those as a game mechanic first You walk past a little body that has one still stuck in it But it's stuck in the light and the body is sensed withered away that the human Body has died, but the worm couldn't escape so it was kind of like frying in the Sun I Yeah, it was like kind of giving you that foreshadowing of like hey you're about to face this very specific thing and even gave you how to how to really go through which is Utilize the sunlight yeah the sunlight. I know played a big factor in it, but I didn't notice that at all I do remember seeing the kid walking up with one, and he's like drowned in the water. I like I Like that was kind of shows you ahead of time what's gonna happen It's it's basically there to kill you as everything is in the game right that was the first instance And I forgot about that and then a second time right after that one You go like it down a little slope or something, and there's another one that is no longer moving So it was using kind of two instances to show you the two Mechanics of the game one it's going to walk you into anything That's a hazard and you can't stop it so the water and the second one was sunlight is how you deal with it Yeah, I kind of showed you how to win Without you getting there. Yeah, there's also the scene where there's the little things are eating it Do you see one of yeah consuming it and that kind of that shows you how to? Get it off your head or at least lets you know that this is a thing a mechanic That's going to come into play There was a lot of that in this game where they kind of show you a little bit ahead of time without I Love when a game teaches you how to play it or teaches you what a mechanic is without directly telling you Because that's that's how I don't know nobody in life told me like hey, this is what it's going to be This is how you need to do it This is it like you kind of just figure a lot of these things out as you go And that's what helps you be more immersed in a game and this game is all about immersion Aside from that the the puzzles throughout the game Some are you just have to die and figure it out and then do it again. They're not necessarily challenging past the Just dying to learn. Yeah But there were some that if there wasn't a direct dying component It's kind of going through and thinking about them logically Like our real-world logic it kind of to me Made sense if you kind of just say that you can kind of go at it slowly and just really break down What's happening and I was able to figure out some stuff The very first one is that I could think of is the your last interaction with the spider Through it through the first part of the game Each time the spider kind of tries to get to you you solve the puzzle to get past it and then the spider gets injured And loses a limb or sometimes a few limbs and by the end of it He's got he's got one left and he's slowly trying to get to you with this one leg And he gets he gets stuck. So he tries to spear you with it. He gets stuck He can't move it and then it's presumed he dies. So cool. You're done with that interaction and you try to go but you need something to Like jump up on onto a ledge, but you're not tall enough So you need to get the body of the spider, but okay, how do you move it? So you actually have to grab the leg because the leg is stuck in place kind of causing like a wedge Yeah, but if you were to move the leg, it's just not nothing is there's no tool tips and there's no UI saying hey Press this to do this, right? You kind of just have to figure it out and there were a couple of them He is the mother of invention We had just kind of going through slowly and thinking Logically You're able to find out the solution to some of these. Yeah, the the later on you encounter There's you see the spider with it's a fake spider That's made out of like knives or something and it you you get a little bit more forward and you see it's just a person Doing it. Mm-hmm It's weird. That was the first like what's going on here kind of thing, you know, or these like lost boys What what like what is what's the deal here? And at first when I saw the spider with the fake spider I thought it's just This nightmarish. I thought the spider was going to be a never-ending Monster and it's somehow found a way to adapt to you snapping its feet its legs off. Mm-hmm Yeah, I definitely thought it was another Instance of a living spider. I'm trying to get you and then you take a minute It doesn't progress and then you start noticing that its joints have hinges and it's moving in a very rhythmic way rather than a Living way, right? Yeah, the spider was very much Attempting to kill you whereas this thing was just kind of there But when you see it when you first initially see it, you kind of have this like, oh, it's a spider again You know, they can't it's right. It's a jump scare So That's about enough of with a spider, yep the spider dies It's a big it's a big part of the first game and a lot of people are going to play this game and maybe For me, especially. Yeah, I've started a lot of Games that have a puzzle component and if I can't get to it too far, I end up putting it down Right and and not going back so I could definitely see somebody getting frustrated with this and that's the that the big portion of The game that they get to encounter is this is the spider portion, which is a good Thing in total maybe an hour of interaction with this thing That's so I like I like the spider as in general enemy the little kid the other people that were kind of an enemy were To me a little creepier than a spider as a monster just because it's it's other people trying to kill you The spiders doing it just because it's trying to survive. That's what generally that's what a spider is doing But when you start being attacked by what I assume are other kids that is a lot creepier to me than adults trying to kill you and They're like all the stuff that they're trying to do to get you killed and they're all it seems like they're all trying to just survive or experience it I Feel like that added Continued kind of adding to the atmosphere atmosphere of it a lot and Then it kind of just moves on and all that goes away one one thing I did like They didn't linger too long on one level Biome, whatever you want to call it The whole game progressed pretty well and pretty seamlessly to different types of settings So what you are you start out in the woods you wake up? Hey, this is this big spider you get through that and it slowly turns into Introducing other humanoid characters Trying to kill you with traps and darts and rocks Then you start going into more of a crumbling city Right with the hotel signs and with the hotel with the yet with with more of a industrial thing And then moving from the city you go into like the underbelly with a lot of big piping and construction areas and large industrial type Platforms. Yeah, and and all through that because we used where you start and where you end the game you very natural foresty outdoorsy and then you get into a complete 180 of like Industrial construction equipment concrete metal Plumbing big piping and stuff like that big gears that are moving through that become your platforms and As it did that the transition through the game was unbelievably seamless. It wasn't there were no loading screens You it was it was so seamless to where? The only quote-unquote loading that you did was if you died you went back a little bit and started over But as you went from your forest as you went from your forest to the Lost boys we can call them from the lost boys to the city. It was very incremental Right, and it did a really good job of making it not seem like you could seriously play this game from start to finish four or five hours and Unless you really think about it. You it's hard to notice that you like hard loaded into another Level type. Yeah, I didn't really think about that. But that is a pretty good point how the game really was just one Gigantic level and it'd be cool to see the whole game Expanded just zoom it out and see just the start but that would be interesting, you know Do you go up in some areas and then go down and others and then you kind of because I know there's a little bit Of vertical platforming, but that would be cool because I'm a big fan of Strategy guides and all that crazy cool stuff and I remember You know some of the guides would just show you the front to back left to right of platforming So you could kind of get a heads up of what was coming It was probably very limited use but it would just be cool to see I did like that There were big portions of the getting up big portions. There were portions of the game that if you weren't supposed to backtrack it would put a Barrier saying okay, basically the game's way of saying you cannot go back any further from this point It's not a checkpoint like a soft checkpoint But again, no loading screens all that is just saying hey, we've blocked you out from this section But you have an example of that Let's see here after the boys there was a There was like a mining cart that you had to get through the you use the mining cart to get past something. Yeah, and It kind of took you on this this I think though this specific example is kind of far in the game But you get on this mining cart and you start going down This track and once you get to the end of that you can't you know, you're you're going from top to bottom So the gravity is taking you down you there's no way you can get back. Yeah, right So there's no way to do that, but there were some earlier puzzles where you would have you would go forward get through a puzzle Encounter some hazard Say there were some lost boys that were chasing me. You'd have to backtrack a little bit using those traps that you bypassed Yeah, that was cool. You know, so it definitely It definitely didn't like Don't don't once you once you scroll past this one spot. You can't fully write that off as you'll never visit again I think the longest I backtracked I think I was what it was. It was one of the later Worms that got me and I think I walked forward for oh Maybe two or three minutes You know in game time That's a lot of a long time you're covering all the ground until you finally get to the spot where you can release yourself from this trap But it took you so far out of your way You have to backtrack all the way Which now you have to learn the remember the level kind of in reverse and reverse engineer some of these platforms, right? Take it back to where you were supposed to be To then do a different set of puzzles to progress on in the in the correct direction So you can't fully discount or assuming you can't fully write off What you've encountered until you get to one of those hard stops one thing that that prevents you from going backwards So yeah that I really liked I really liked how they progressed the game on in that that seamless manner I Liked you you did mention a little bit of just a minute ago about the the boys trying to kill you and you have to run back through the traps That's that's messed up Now you're killing humans, but I I really I like I know you died on that second trap Oh, yeah, if you didn't die on the first one if either way it gets you I love that because Just to kind of set it up here There's a platform you have to jump on to to survive and then the same trap is in front of you again But you have to avoid the same platform It looks almost identical and I feel like you like almost anybody playing this game probably died because they probably either avoided the platform or jumped on it either way you're going to die and I just I like that because the concept of you're in limbo it kind of reminds me of the Final destination movies and stuff where like you you're meant to die either way you don't really have a choice And it's everything is trying to kill you and it's just funny to me because it the game tricks you yeah I don't know. It was good. It was good writing without having a story in front of you. I like that Yeah, the average play time for this is that four to five hours, but I think it's because it's that Trial by death Mechanic yeah over a mechanic. I watched a piece of a playthrough where this Somebody on YouTube. I can't remember their name went through the whole video from start to finish Because I'm sure they've played a couple times was maybe an hour So if you if you know all the things yes, you can get through it pretty well But a lot of that That play time is from we're having to redo it and learn those traps as you go. It's weird to me I guess I I don't know I think I felt like I only played it for a pretty short amount of time I thought it was like a little over an hour But I don't think there's a way to check like there is on Steam when I played it But it would be interesting to know because they it didn't feel like a long game to me some games at three hours still feel like a drag, but I think that speaks to how the game kind of just Seamlessly goes through and everything like that. It didn't really feel like a chore it might it might have been five hours on my four or five hours on my game play on my Initial playthrough because right there were a few spots that I really sat there for a while trying to figure stuff out And it was yeah It was a little frustrating is there anything is there a specific? Puzzle that happened that you feel like really hung you up for a long time because I know it did for me. There are two two specifically There's one where there's this giant. I think it was a mosquito. Oh, yeah You kind of you're you're going up and up and up and then you kind of fall into this little pit And there's a mosquito. That's like eating a body or something else. It's eating something and Hopefully a body. Yeah, basically you keep walking up to it And if you get too close how I perceived it if you get too close it gets spooked and then flies away Yeah, but what I didn't notice is if you move up slowly it Doesn't notice you while it's consuming whatever it's consuming, right? I think you have to move up quiet and yeah, you have to move up in tiny increments You can get very very close to this thing and then you can jump on him and he flies you to the next section Yeah, I thought they were gonna kill you for sure. I Actually kind of mess around like wanting to see if it could kill you Mm-hmm, but I couldn't get it to kill me same I thought oh if I can get it to kill me then I can maybe Get back to a previous spot and go at it fresh because I thought I missed something right falling into that section But no, it was just very subtle of it moving its head it letting its guard down and then yes It hears your sound it goes on alert and then you have to wait for it to relax again And it was very which makes sense if you had to kind of take that logic in You're what you have to come up and not speak spook the beast as it were, right? Well, what was the other puzzle? I feel I'm learning the same one. That's the other one was was me not Realizing that there was something you could interact with in the foreground. Okay. It was and I and I used foreground loosely It was like, you know, your your player is the most Forward asset and just behind that are things that you can kind of interact with most of the time. Yeah that worm that Gets you when you're I think on after the hotel, so it's kind of far And you you you walk down that, you know, two or three minutes and then have to backtrack there's this little elevator that takes you Like, you know five feet like just out of jumping distance Yeah, I didn't know that you could click the button to make the elevator rise up. That's all it was Okay, I'm going here looking for all these things looking for things to interact with couldn't find it I was one of the only things I had to look up I feel like I stood that I remember that part and I feel like he kind of stood out to me because it was it Was like slightly different looking it looked a little oddly and it made that yeah after after after seeing it I was I kind of like, you know Facepalm, like how did I not notice that? So I think that was me just maybe not paying attention or think trying to hyper focus on the wrong thing Right, but but I missed it and you know, it's what it is I got kind of hung up on there was a puzzle where you have to climb a rope and As you climb it there's gears below you And they spin or raise I interpreted as gears, but you have to like climb the rope and the rope keeps getting longer Yes and then you have to run really quickly go down the ladder and then run and grab the rope again and you have the bottom of it that got me bad because I Couldn't figure out really that that was how you had to do it. I thought you like I was just constantly I maybe slow Maybe maybe that was the one time where the controls on on mobile weren't really that great They weren't much better on the on the okay inversion I mean is that the thing that hit me in is if you ignore the ladder on the second But when if you ignore the ladder trying to jump down you have enough time, but if you use the ladder, you don't yeah And very very it was really close But and I can't rely on the ladders like a maniac too. I can still picture Just the way he does that and and right after that puzzles specifically After those two weights good after you get past it then those weights go down. That's one of those other soft Checkpoints where you can't backtrack anymore. So that was one of those barriers of hey The game is telling you you cannot go you cannot backtrack here anymore You have to go forward and forward only from this point There was also like I remember a big thing with water where you couldn't backtrack because you basically flooded everything behind you Yes, yeah, that was that was another one Yeah, that was that was kind of I guess a tougher segment to if you want to call it a challenge It definitely was that one had a lot of going back and forth going up the level going down the level Yeah, it was it was very He had to be very aware of other portions of the level that you've been Bypassing it was cool because there's one spot where you finish you basically you fill up the basin of water and you get to the top and You'd think in most circumstances you're like you're safe. You're free You've you completed that puzzle but then the next area in front of you starts filling up and you don't really get that time to stop and Think about what you're going to do next. You just have to start going. I like that. That was cool I did and kind of talking about us progressing, you know, the the challenges are getting harder One of the earlier comments we said the the atmosphere of this game is such a big part of your play experience The soundtrack as you go along It's getting more intense as well. So they're getting harder the soundtrack the music is is It'd be a speeding up pace. It's getting more dramatic And there were a couple times I you know, I would pause it for whatever reason and kind of like pull myself from that immersion and Realize that like my hands are very sweaty. Am I my chest is like Green the foams heating up. Oh man, that was it was getting slippery. I'll tell you that So, yeah when you're going through it and you kind of progressing through the game you kind of Everything I felt like everything gets bigger. There's the one spot where You see the hotel sign and the letters are like three times the size of you and then you come up to another hotel sign later if I remember and and the letters everything's even bigger and then eventually The puzzle is gears a big part of the puzzle is just these gigantic gears. It just feels like everything Gets Humongous and and the whole world just kind of gets bigger and like goes along with the intensity of it everything just gets more ridiculous and I feel like it's I Interpreted as the reality kind of being torn apart sort of thing. You know, it's just getting more Be just more ridiculous Some people might say it gets more ridiculous, you know, either the world's getting bigger or your players getting smaller Could be you know, there's a way out of the same coin that can't possibly be true well, if you think about it, maybe you were always small because I I'm seeing these tree stumps, but maybe they were sticks that spider. Maybe he was just a regular spider. It's your average or believer Maybe maybe it's just your average tropical or believer. I think that's a good segue into The story and for me I have to put story in like quotation marks that talk about it Yeah for me the story through the gameplay looking nothing up on like the wiki or Reading the steam description and all that past like oh you're playing out this little boy. We're on a search for his sister Yeah, the fate of his sister, right? You take that out when you start playing there. There's there's no dialogue There's no text across the screen, you know, you don't have the little The stupid thing from Zelda that's like Hey, listen, listen Every two seconds ripping your ear off the side of your head telling you how to play the game There's none of that right now now all this little bit. I I did not like Whatever you want to consider the quote-unquote story is for this game the game itself as a platformer I liked Yeah, but I like the game. It was an amazing game to play through Yeah, but I don't think there was a story they can You know reading the wikis and all that stuff. They say that there was this this year this boy This story is on the front of the if you go to the Apple Store Uncertain of his sister's fate a boy enters a limbo. What more do you need to know Alec? You're right and and that until about half the game this Sister figure never makes an appearance. You see her briefly and you see her briefly and then you're Yeah, you get pulled away from that But don't bite my but my main comment is playing through it. I didn't see a story Yeah, you know you're you're just you're in this place trying to survive and make it through to who-knows-what right now Not again. They the designers say that there there was a story you are this nameless boy in this Latin for lip you're in limbo On the edge of hell apparently, however, you want to take that? They came up with the name From the Latin word for edge, which is limbus is where they got that And I just want everybody to know you're learning a new language today. There you go. This is Latin 101 So you learn Latin? And and I See you you get about halfway through you get a brief glimpse of this female figure You know there's there's light dancing across and all this stuff and and you see her briefly and try to get close and Then like the floor falls out or something and you get pulled away Yeah, I'd have to make it through another couple puzzles and you get to where you would approximate You were when you saw her and the levels completely changed that they're no longer there And then you just continue that and that just took me a good Maybe hour hour and a half Probably closer than I want to have two hours to get to that point Yeah, and it was it was the briefest, you know, ten seconds of stuff So that was a little glimmer of hope before yeah ripped away from you So and then smash cut to the end you beat your final your final puzzle and You walk up again over like 10-15 seconds you walk up there's that figure again And credits roll and that that's the whole that's the whole thing So yeah, it was very loose in my eyes to have an actual story again The gameplay was amazing. The story to me was non-existent. Okay? Well, like the story is the adventure cat to me. I it's how I felt. It's the whole Everything you're doing. It's just the whole progression of it was the yeah, I don't know it to me I don't think you blatantly need like a big story in front of you when the game is all about the atmosphere and everything To me, but I I'm gonna disagree heavy with you Yeah, we're friends here you can be wrong it's fun I want to know what everybody else thinks so if anybody is listening to this and they want to write in and kind of comment About it. I am interested to see what everybody else thought about the ending of the game because that's kind of very much open for interpretation the creator of the game never even said what like what the story or that but you know any of that is so I Thought it had a decent ending Alec didn't think it had an ending at all It had an ending the credits rolled. Yeah, the game ended at some point. It was your favorite part, right? You know it just if you're gonna if you're gonna put in the In the store page and the description of the game That there is a plot. I mean you you could you know, there are games you can just say there's no plot But if you're gonna if you're gonna put it towards it, I guess put a little more in something It is and and and I'd say that's if say if you beat that last Puzzle you walk up and I don't know just for the briefest moment right before credits roll. Maybe the the figure turns and says, thank you or You know just just give it just a little bit more subject maybe just like Thank you, and then it saves to black or just whatever it is, right? You're dead The whole time. What is it? What was your interpretation of the ending? So we got to talk about that because that's what this is. I don't have your own own interpretation I guess I don't really have one. I I okay. I just think about it Yeah, I I don't know. I mean, I and I'm only coming to these story conclusions after playing I went and kind of did a little research on the game and This was a big source of Polarization on some critics that that had started my phone is going crazy This is a big source of polarization with critics that reviewed this game If some thought it was fantastic some said there was no point There's no you can't say there's a story because there wasn't one and it was it was it was a big division on on the groups that were Reviewing this game back in 2010. So I'm not alone Yeah, no. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I do agree with I get what you're saying. I agree I have in my notes that it's kind of implied that the boys looking for his sister So when I read, you know He's uncertain of a sister's fate a boy enters limbo and I thought that means sister might be dead and the boy is kind of Going into the unknown Abyss whatever to try to find her and bring her back But I guess that maybe is not the way that the game is really going. It's it seems like Every like they're both dead. So and I'll give you a little that I did read some of the theory things on it and and Yeah, those interpretations. It definitely seems like Yeah, there was an intention to have Yeah that underlying Story in there. I just I don't think it was Portrayed in the gameplay, but that's no yeah No But that's like it that's we'll see if we ever play in any other games by this company or anything I feel like they're all going to kind of have that mysterious storyline, but right that's kind of I think what they were intending is that it's if they wanted it to be very open and You know kind of would be up to the interpretation of the player and I think that that if you think about it if you Really want to be introspective that might kind of look at your own outlook a little bit on things and and then you can kind Of determine I I sent in discord. There's two pictures. They are This is the last screenshot of the game. It's the boy looking at his sister, right? Mm-hmm, and then the title screen after you beat the game is the same area It's just zoomed out a little bit more. I don't know if you and if you notice that I did not notice that So yeah, it looks like so this is I'll give a little bit of I did read Somebody said that it's kind of implied that The boy and the girl fell out of a tree house that they were playing in and if you look at a zoomed out thing That it looks like there could be easily be a tree house up there. Oh, yeah Yeah, and then it doesn't pick up in this picture at all But right where the boy and the girl are standing on the title screen There's flies buzzing in the area where the boy is and where the girl is on the title screen So now I guess the interpretation of that would be that they both fell. They both definitely died And he maybe died slower or was trying to figure it out and then You know, there's no way to escape death probably and the two kids died there And this is way later on at the title screen. Everything's still affidavit and they were never found or anything like that Right, that's and there are other things in the game that would kind of lead you to think that they did die And that's what the flies represent. I know there's like flies Associated with some of the dead bodies There's a fun spot to use. Yeah view the flies to denote death Yeah, and in many and everybody does I think you know flies are buzzing around something stinky III Yeah, that makes you does that change how you feel about the ending at all like does that kind of does that make you um Does it make you sad? Absolutely anything, you know in the more we talk about this and and and what a early disclaimer on you know content warnings for an arachnophobia and possibly children and there definitely is It definitely pulls in my heartstrings a little bit when when kids are involved in and that is a big a big part of it And as we've been talking about it, I am seeing Kind of some of that. I just I still think maybe it was a little less subtle or a little more subtle than Then it for me to notice I guess right, you know, but it It was a little a little little less than than perfect as far as Portraying the story in the gameplay the creator that who directed and conceptualized limbo Was a little bit disappointed That it wasn't that people were able to become or were he was a little disappointed I guess that people were able to interpret what he meant by the game better than he expected He like felt like he should have left less clues Really? Yeah, so he definitely wanted it to be kind of up to interpretation But I guess I'm guessing something like the flies being on the ground. Maybe he wishes he didn't include that right? Well, I mean You don't like that guy do you hey, no and again the game was great I would play it again maybe if I played again with with that, you know after this discussion, it will change it a little bit because I Said earlier I played a second time Yeah through some of it and I was noticing things that I'd missed before so maybe that maybe this is a multi a multiple playthrough kind of game Yeah, I it's a short enough game I think if you played through it quickly again and you know What is there? I wonder if there's a challenge run or something or maybe you get more of the story if you don't die I don't know. I'm not gonna look it up because I don't want to you know, I'm gonna get that But I wonder if you don't die in the game or anything like that if there's more Information at the end of it. So that's the story of it pretty much, right? Yeah, I mean we got from the beginning to the end and then all the way back to the beginning I don't know how much more I can say about the story of a game that doesn't have a story So did you what did you like the game? Do you think it was worth playing? Do you are you would you recommend it to other people? Oh, absolutely Yeah, this game is fantastic. I mean take the story to you if you take it for just what the game is It's a good side-scrolling puzzle right platforming game. It is phenomenal Yeah, you know tosses headphones on tell your kids to go play in the room for a bit it is It is such a fun game to play. I always try to look at any purchase for a game or entertainment in general at like I Always take movie theaters into consideration the cost of a movie ticket. No snacks involved just movie ticket Is it are you gonna get your money's worth for playing this game if you bought it full price and it's always very cheap It on steam. It's a dollar right now on steam. Oh, well four dollars full price on It's ten bucks. Normally it was four dollars full price on mobile So I think yeah for you get a couple hours out of it It's gonna beat the movie theater test for me and you can you don't have to pay as much for snacks if you're playing You could probably yeah, I think it was good. One thing I want to do. Would you have any complaints about it? I know you you kind of Spoke on the story element a lot as we've been talking about the story the one or for me lack thereof What this is as we've been talking about it with what's been reminding me of is this short animated film that I had found Scouring through YouTube late one night for you know, God knows what reason and there's this it's called imaginary friend a short animated film and It's it's about five minutes about this little boy, who gets an imaginary friend and As you go through you start questioning whether or not this imaginary friend is real or not And then it's how it goes into they end up it ended up being like the spirit of a I think a little girl that had passed away and all that. So I Recommend going and finding that it's on YouTube Five minutes, but as we've been talking about it, it's just in in kind of like essence or a spirit rather It's been it's been reminding me of that short film. Okay So it's not not gonna line up perfectly Of course But it just kind of gives me that same feeling as we've been kind of talking about it And then you asked if I had any complaints. Yeah, I think for me You know that the the story was In in how it was presented in the game Was a little lacking for me the game itself. The gameplay was phenomenal. The puzzles were challenging but satisfying right gameplay length was really good and as an overall really atmospheric Experience if you if you get the chance, you got to play it with the headphones Dedicate some time to it. It was a real good time. Okay, I liked the game a lot, too I'm glad I I'm I'm glad I played it. I'm glad it was taken off of the backlog I will say if I can really I liked the lack of story or the story element of it that you didn't have you know You weren't a big fan of but I will say I feel like when your game is closing out Like you're getting to the end of it. I think the game lost like 90% of its charm It lost 90% of its atmosphere all the puzzles where there's like the Antigravity and it just becomes giant gears and you're getting shocked and killed and stuff I just think that the game it had no atmosphere at that point I don't know if that was supposed to be part of the story and the Interpretation how it seemed like everything got larger or the scale of things got bigger But it's just to me it would have been cool to Somehow tie it in a little bit more with the story because it really felt like generic Yeah, it seemed like it went from a creepy survival game To a just strictly puzzles to like a heightened panic Yeah and some bits and in panic from the idea of like trying to time stuff and Make sure that you hit that key at the right time and and time this jump with that that puzzle and all that So it definitely went more You as you progressed it was harder To focus on the background and the things happening in the game that you might miss So I will get that a bit. So I still I still think overall was good Yeah, there was like nothing I could be wrong, but there was nothing in the background Not really at that point. Yeah. I Yeah, I feel like it was just an empty background for most of it probably but that's my that's me That's what I thought of it, but it was a great game It was I really I would recommend it if if you want to play a game on mobile that's actually a game I think it's it translated really well I think it's a good game for that if you're into it if you want your thumbs to bleed So yeah, that's gonna wrap it up for us today guys next week. We're going to be talking about stray. So tune in for that Thanks guys. Take care guys. Thanks for listening Thanks so much for listening that wraps up our discussion for limbo if you enjoyed this episode Please let us know with a thumbs up a comment or sharing with your friends and family If you're able to do so play along with us for the next game, which will be stray We'll post upcoming games to our social media and what games we're gonna play at the end of each episode This has been three to one backlog by Alec L and James T Our show music is liftoff by Amy Waters. You can find this song and more of their work at amywaters.bandcamp.com You can connect with us on any of our social media pages or by sending us an email at three to one backlog at gmail.com until next time You
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