Professor Roger B. Dannenberg • Fall 2018 • Introduction to Computing for Creative Practice
Eliza Pratt – Looking Outwards 01
Limbo is a puzzle-based video game developed by a small, Denmark-based studio known as Playdead. Beginning in a dark forest without any introduction or tutorial, the game details the terrifying challenges of a young boy as he travels through “the edge of hell.” Though I rarely show interest in video games and get motion sickness from 3D animations, I fell in love with the minimalist nature of this game and its stunning 2-dimensional visuals. With eerie, film-noir style graphics and intuitive controls, Limbo has influenced both my own artistic style as well as my admiration for interactive media design.
A shot from one of the most nail-biting puzzles depicts the player attempting to survive a spider attack. The highly stylized design and lack of visible controls keeps the player fully immersed in the game.
Starting as a one-man project by concept artist Arnt Jensen in 2004, the game development expanded to a team of 16 by the time of its release in 2010. Much of the artistic direction and concepts for Limbo derived from Jensen’s admiration for the film noir genre and his desire for minimalistic controls. The absence of text, arrows, and buttons keep you fully immersed in the game and encourage the user to decipher the platform on their own. While the original designs were created using Visual Basic, the team moved to Visual Studio during the development process. After overwhelming success following the game’s release, Playdead expanded to a company of 35 programmers and designers and has released its second game, Inside, which has received even greater praise.
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