Limbo (Xbox360 Arcade)

[wautd]

Anyone got the full game of this puzzle platformer? I just finished the demo and I was really impressed by it. Unique visuals, brilliant atmosphere and very, very disturbing. Appearantly I heared it's also short and I'm not sure about the replay value, but then again it's not that expensive as well.

[Losonti Tokash]

It is very short. Replay value for me has mostly come from watching other people go through it for the first time. The presentation is excellent, but the game itself is just so small I think that if I had the choice again I'd just wait for it to go on sale.

[Covenant]

Played the demo, unimpressed, and fairly angry that it's being so heavily pushed. Bargain-basement platformer mechanics that, if stripped of the graphics, wouldn't appear interesting to anyone. I don't get the whole concept of it being disturbing. In my tenure as a hero I've battled way worse things than one slow-moving giant spider. Simply making my character childlike does not breed a feeling of terror, and they didn't really offer me anything else. I may be bitter from my game not selling as well as it should despite it having actual mechanics and difficult-to-make artwork, but that aside I still think this is a game that is succeeding despite the fact that it is simply not that good.

I'm frankly baffled people are willing to pay 20 bucks for 2 hours of "cannot lose" gameplay that isn't even creative. 20 bucks for a platformer just because it's in black and white? Worst aspect has to be the random deaths. For me, it utterly and entirely destroyed any capacity for me to feel horror, terror, or fear.

Instead of making me paranoid, the "bang, you're dead" style violence just served to make me not even bother with keeping my puppet hero alive. Death was entirely painless, like a Bioshock Vita-Chamber respawn. Since there was no penalty for dying, the ultimate 'punishment' boiled down to nothing more than going back 5 seconds earlier. Furthermore, the kid just felt like a shadow, not a real kid, so I never felt remorse in letting him die. I really like scary games, and I'll admit that some games can really get under my skin, but this is just not one of them. I never felt a feeling of wrongness or horror.

Shorn of the element of dread, I can't see anything that this game brings to the table (within the Demo's span) besides pretentious self-importance with regard to post-process fuzzy effect filters and run-and-grab game mechanics basically unchanged since Super Mario Brothers 2.

I really don't get it. Anyone who likes Limbo, please, go look up Psychonauts. It has a lot of the themes you probably enjoy, it's incredibly well made and innovative, and it didn't get half the love this over-hyped crud-nugget is getting. And buy my game too.

[Stark]

Most of the Braid-tryhards they push on XBLA suck.

And your game rules, Cov. I liked it.

[Norade]

Covenant, what game did you make? My X-box was stolen but when I get a new one I might grab a few arcade games.

[Stark]

It's the turn/tile-based dwarf mining game. I've only played it on PC. I might buy it on xbox too.

[Covenant]

And just to be fair, Limbo isn't a terrible game, it's just confusing why people are so crazy about it right now. I'm sure it's just flavor-of-the-month, but I think people will be disappointed when they realize the demo is actually a fairly significant portion of the total game size, since you can basically see all there is to see in about two hours.

Re: My Game: It was a victim of a clusterfuck first-time design by committee in many ways, as well as people not listening to me, but for a first-ever game I think it turned out pretty alright. There's a link at the bottom which'll take you to the more graphics-heavy page with trailer, screenshots, and so forth. It was going to be just a tile-placement game, but I convinced them to add in an action/RPG element with more direct control instead of strictly boardgamey elements. It dragged out the production but probably saved it from abject obscurity. I feel a bit worn down from constantly arguing against designs that I think are really bad. But regardless of the conflicting design goals, so far excellent reviews nearly everywhere (though some personal annoyance at calling the art 'pixelated' when it's done in labor-intensive 16 bit pixel art style on purpose), but the sales are basically nonexistent I was mostly mentioning it because I wanted it as a disclaimer, same as if I was an embittered recent divorcée posting in an ARSE thread.

It'll be out for the 360 as soon as we finish some small things. I just finished making an instruction booklet for it because Steam wanted to pick us up. We haven't announced that yet, but that's what's been eating my time recently. Just finished making the PDF instruction manual (not out for other PC users yet, we'll have to host a download from our site) and I've got to make all the achievement icons.

[Stark]

I think I can see the parts you tried to argue against. It's a really fun game, but flow-wise it's not great. Worth 800msp anyway.

[Norade]

I knew what the game was about from your art thread, I just didn't know the title to search for it. When I get a few more bucks I'll likely grab a copy, for five bucks I could have an hour of non-boredom with it and feel happy and I'm willing to bet that I would get more than that from it.