In most video games place the player has two objectives:
Reach a goal, and avoid dying in the process. Usually, this goal will be laid
out and explained for the player, sometimes through in-game dialogue, other
times through objective markers. Death is an object to be avoided at all costs-
Grab cover to dodge enemy bullets, use your shield to stop their swords, grab
power-ups for invincibility. Death is an inhibitor, an event delaying the
player from reaching a goal.
In Limbo, death is
as important, if not more so, than reaching some ultimate goal. The absence of
a clear objective for the player, beyond traversing a dangerous and nightmarish
landscape, makes the initial object of the game the avoidance of death. Eventually,
this proves impossible, and the player accepts death as part of the game’s
mechanics. With death unavoidable and no goal in sight, the player is left,
quite literally, in limbo.
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