Limbo Demo

We don’t usually get to play a 2D platformer that is not separated into levels; it has no boss fight, no scores, and nothing to tie it to the past. Limbo is some kind of an oddball in the gaming world because it managed to be amazing without following any recipe.

The game is black and white, and this is the point of the story. Everything in life is balck and white, evil or good. Some things help you move forward; some things will try to kill. In the end, you can only move forward, and that’s the only option.

The main character of the game is a boy looking for this system. He goes into Limbo, and he has to face all kind of dangers. We don’t know anything about him or the world he inhabits. We only know that he’s always trying to go forward and that everything wants him dead.

This is probably the main reason this game is disturbing. You play as a little boy and his killed in all sort of ways. He’s eaten by a giant spider, impaled on spikes, drowned, crushed, and so on. 

Even of there are no levels and the player simply progresses through the story, you’ll soon find out that no two places are alike in Limbo and that you can recognize traps before they are put into motion. If you don’t, you die and repeat. It’s that simple.

As I mentioned before, the game is in black and white, which means that most of the time there are dark things lurking in the shadows. The animations are spot on, and no one is saying anything, and yet the footsteps give you chills.

It’s hard to describe just how creepy this game is, but at the same time it's difficult to put down. It’s by far one of the best 2D platformers released in the past decade, and the demo is really worth a look.