History VideoGame / Limbo

* PlayerPunch: You WILL feel like a dick when you [[spoiler: kill the Spider, as well as when you lead three of the enemy children tribe deadly traps.]] Compounded by the fact that you're playing as a small boy.

* ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes: The protagonist's eyes are like this.

-->--'''[[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIOD-tWROwE&feature=g-all-u&context=G283b4b8FAAAAAAAACAA Gibbagobba]]''

* KidsAreCruel: The first third or so of the game is populated by what appears to be a ''LordOfTheFlies''-style tribe of evil children, who've set up traps ([[DeadGuyOnDisplay among other things]]) for the boy.

The game's story is simple. You control a [[NoNameGiven nameless]] young boy in Limbo, searching for his sister. There is no dialog or text of any kind. Just the boy and an incredibly [[EverythingTryingToKillYou oppressive]], [[SceneryGorn dark]], [[CrapsackWorld crapsack]]-[EldritchLocation eldritch]] environment. There are many deadly puzzles, challenges and traps that can get you killed. In many [[{{Gorn}} shockingly violent]] ways. A Gore Filter can make the deaths less grisly, but no less terrifying. When combined with the protagonist's limited moveset -- he's entirely unarmed and can only jump, push/pull objects (like boxes and levers), climb ledges, and swing on ropes -- ''Limbo'''s sense of helplessness and trepidation is ''intense.''

The game's story is simple. You control a [[NoNameGiven nameless]] young boy in Limbo, searching for his sister. There is no dialog or text of any kind. Just the boy and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou an]] [[SceneryGorn incredibly]] [[CrapsackWorld oppressive]] [[EldritchLocation environment.]] There are many deadly puzzles, challenges and traps that can get you killed. In many [[{{Gorn}} shockingly violent]] ways. A Gore Filter can make the deaths less grisly, but no less terrifying. When combined with the protagonist's limited moveset -- he's entirely unarmed and can only jump, push/pull objects (like boxes and levers), climb ledges, and swing on ropes -- ''Limbo'''s sense of helplessness and trepidation is ''intense.''

[[caption-width-right:350: [[LookBehindYou Look]] [[GiantSpider Behind]] [[NightmareFuel You]].]]

* ShadowDiscretionShot: You are always shown as a silhouette [[ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes with eyes]] . However, this does nothing to ease away the [[{{Squick}} squickiness]] and Nightmare Fuel of your many, many deaths.

[[caption-width-right:350: [[LookBehindYou Look]] [[GiantSpider Behind]] You.]]

->''"Here I go on my mysterious, [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel horrifying]] journey..."''

[[caption-width-right:350: [[LookBehindYou Look]] [[GiantSpider Behind]] [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel You]].]]

The game's story is simple. You control a [[NoNameGiven nameless]] young boy in Limbo, searching for his sister. There is no dialog or text of any kind. Just the boy and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou an]] [[SceneryGorn incredibly]] [[CrapsackWorld oppressive]] [[EldritchLocation environment.]] There are many deadly puzzles, challenges and traps that can get you killed. In many [[{{Gorn}} shockingly violent]] ways. A Gore Filter can make the deaths less grisly, but no less [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel terrifying]]. When combined with the protagonist's limited moveset -- he's entirely unarmed and can only jump, push/pull objects (like boxes and levers), climb ledges, and swing on ropes -- ''Limbo'''s sense of helplessness and trepidation is ''intense.''

** You can turn on a gore filter in the options that makes the screen cut to black the moment you die, but it doesn't remove the ''[[HighOctaneNightmareFuel sounds]]''.

* NoodleIncident: The kid and his sister are [[spoiler: dead. We find that out in the ending and [[DeadAllAlong title screen]]. But how did they both die and why is the rope ladder broken? [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel maybe it's best we don't know]]]].

* ShadowDiscretionShot: You are always shown as a silhouette [[ByTheLightsOfTheirEyes with eyes]] . However, this does nothing to ease away the [[{{Squick}} squickiness]] and [[NightmareFuelUnleaded Nightmare Fuel]] of your many, many deaths.

[[caption-width-right:350:LookBehindYou.]]

* [[FixedScrollingLevel Fixed Scrolling Section]]: When a brain slug drops on you, you are forced to run in one direction and you can't stop. If you run into a patch of sunlight, you switch direction.

* HumansAreBastards: The humans you meet are all wanting to kill you for no apparent reason. The rest of the humans are already dead, presumably because of the living ones.
* InfantImmortality: Averted ´´TheManyDeathsOfYou constantly and brutally]].

* LeParkour: While the boy doesn't do any of the fancy wall-runs or fence-hops, he does a fair amount of leaping over pits and ledge-climbing.

* AdvancingWallOfDoom: Sawblades appear in this capacity later in the game, but early on -- and more memorably -- you're forced to run from a GiantSpider.
* AllJustADream: During the final puzzle, [[spoiler:the boy crashes into a magical wall and lays down unconscious in a forest. When you get up and can move again, you can move left only to find more forest where the hazardous industrial world once was. To your right, his sister awaits, playing in the grass, as if your whole adventure was just a dream, OrWasItADream]]
* AllWebbedUp: Happens to the protagonist in the early parts of the game.
* BadassAdorable: You, [[ActionSurvivor of course.]]

* CrapsackWorld: It's Limbo. Yes, THAT Limbo. The outskirts of hell. [[spoiler:[[DeadLittleSister Do]] [[DeadAllAlong the]] [[ItWasHisSled math.]]]]
* CrateExpectations: Puzzle elements.
** To the point where if you see a crate or box, you'll know it'll be necessary for the next puzzle.

* [[spoiler: DeadAllAlong]]
* [[spoiler: DeadLittleSister]]
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: The only time you see some color is when X is online or when you unlock an achievement.
** On Steam the Achievement pop-up is also black and white.

* EternalEngine: Large portion of the game.
* EverythingTryingToKillYou: And how! The local ecology is doing its hardest to murder you, and boy will it succeed. There are parasitic brain slugs that will more than often cause a player to panic and then subsequently perish. There's a giant spider out to turn you into a shish kebab, spikes growing out of the ground. The only time the local plant-life isn't out to get you is when the other humans are.
** Particularly notable in that instead of having sentient inanimate objects in the usual style of the trope, you quite often end up killed by reactions to the way you change the environment. Break a load-bearing branch? The tree's coming down on you. Don't move out of the way of a platform when gravity is shifting it in your direction? Squish. Press a switch to release a box while you're standing under it? Hope you like that broken neck. Nearly all of the deaths in the last third of the game are impersonal in this sense, projecting a unique aura of helplessness to the proceedings.
** Perhaps more of an example of Everything Trying to Kill Everything, as you have to make use of the violence around you as well, using dead children as platforms and ripping legs off of insects to proceed. [[CrapsackWorld It's just not a very nice place, is what we're saying.]]

* GuideDangIt: A couple puzzles may have you reaching for the internet.

* HumansAreBastards: The humans you meet are all wanting to kill you with their traps for no apparent reason. The rest of the humans are already dead, presumably because of the humans with the traps.
* InterfaceScrew: When a brain slug drops on you, you are forced to run in one direction and you can't stop. If you run into a patch of sunlight, you switch direction.
* InfantImmortality: Averted constantly and brutally.
* KickTheDog: Done by you to various creatures in order to progress through puzzles. Examples include trapping a wombat-type creature inside a wheel in order to power a machine, and hitching a ride on a giant insect in order to fly onto the top of a cliff, but removing one of the insect's legs while trying to get off.

* OffscreenStartBonus

* SceneryGorn: When you are not admiring the scenery, you will be trying to avoid a grisly death.

* [[spoiler:SchrodingersButterfly]]

* SpikesOfDoom: In some sections. You're not the only one vulnerable to them.
* SuperDrowningSkills: In a large body of water, you drown almost immediately and sink like a stone. Makes sense, since the little boy is so young he probably never learned to swim.
** [[FridgeLogic Though he is apparently old enough to know how to climb ropes...]]
*** Some people never learn how to swim, in which case [[FridgeBrilliance any body of water deep enough to submerge a person would be cause for concern.]]
* SuperPersistentPredator[=/=]{{Determinator}}: The spider. It never gives up hunting the kid for as long as it lives, despite [[spoiler:having ''only one remaining leg'' in its final appearance.]]
** It's Limbo. 'Lives' is probably not the word to use.
* [[spoiler: TogetherInDeath: The boy and his sister are reunited at the place where they likely died.]]
* TreehouseOfFun: Many of them can be seen.
** Though "fun" [[DwarfFortress takes a whole different meaning.]]
* TrialAndErrorGameplay: In fact, the developer described it as "trial-and-[[TheManyDeathsOfYou death]]" gameplay. Chances are, on your first playthrough, that you'll die quite often trying to figure out a couple puzzles.
** The best example of this is the pair of mechanical crushers early on. [[spoiler: To avoid causing the first one to fall on you, you must step on the elevated square underneath it. For the second one, you have to avoid an identical square. There's no indication of the solution, other than dying and trying again.]]
** So easy it is to die in this game that one of the Xbox achievements for the game is a no-death run...in which you're allowed to die up to five times and still get the achievement.

* WeatherControlMachine
* WhoForgotTheLights: Some parts of the game are not recommended during daytime playing.
* WhenItRainsItPours: When you turn on a weather machine, it starts raining so hard that the next portion of gameplay is devoted to avoiding drowning to the ever-rising tides.
* YourPrincessIsInAnotherCastle: A fair bit of the way into the industrial portion of the game, you may emerge into a small forested area, with the treehouse and the girl you were looking for--then a BrainSlug plops onto your head and forces you to run the other way. When you get back, there is no forest and no treehouse...

* FridgeHorror: In the ending [[spoiler: the boy approaches his sister, who is picking flowers by a rope ladder to some treehouse. The title screen is that same area, only the rope ladder is broken and flies are hovering over what appears to be dead bodies. Theirs.]]
** If Limbo, the outer most edge of Hell is this threatening and scary...then what's the rest of hell like?

Players draw many comparisons to ''{{Braid}}'', another Xbox Live puzzle platformer that cost 1200 points at release, lasts about four to five hours on a first playthrough, has a unique art style, and says some interesting things about videogame storytelling.

*** Though some people never learn how to swim, in which case [[FridgeBrilliance any body of water deep enough to submerge a person would be cause for concern.]]

* HundredPercentCompletion: If you finish the main game path without exploring too much you'll only receive a 75% or so complete rating. Finding the bonuses fills in the rest of the percentage.

[[caption-width-right:350:LookBehindYou]]

''Limbo'' is an XboxLiveArcade, PlaystationNetwork and {{Steam}} 2-D puzzle platforming horror game by Playdead, an independent game studio based in Copenhagen, Denmark. This is their first game.

You can only move, jump and interact with switches, buttons and things that can be pushed/pulled, grabbed onto or climbed. There are many deadly puzzles, challenges and traps that can get you killed. In many [[{{Gorn}} shockingly violent]] ways. A Gore Filter can make the deaths less grisly, but no less [[HighOctaneNightmareFuel terrifying]].

The game barely has a story. You control a [[NoNameGiven nameless]] young boy in Limbo, searching for his sister. There is no dialog or text of any kind. Just the boy and [[EverythingTryingToKillYou an]] [[SceneryGorn incredibly]] [[CrapsackWorld oppressive]] [[EldritchLocation environment.]]

''Limbo'' was ported to PSN on July 19th with an extra area and is also now available via Steam for PC.

* SchmuckBait: Everywhere, but in particular, the first third of the game. Some players argue that the deaths that occur during this part of the game are cheap shots to scare the player; others argue that, as traps of this nature are nearly gone for the remaining two thirds of the game, the sense of horror and dread is gone. YourMileageMayVary.