Primer

There's a point in this film where it loses all coherence. When the narrator takes hold of being the driving force in the telling of the narrative, it begins to become hard to follow. I also felt like the two men went about this technology they had developed in a totally unprofessional and foolish way. Why on earth would you intentionally deceive your partner in work when working with something as fragile and uncertain as time travel? The main characters brought upon themselves all the problems they encountered. Had they not decided to go and punch some guy in face, none of their problems would have happened and they would've been able to create real and important social change. They initially talked about mass transit and space travel and settled for conning the stock market and March Madness brackets.

The Rules of Limbo

As someone who has never been a hard-core gamer I was very lost and confused when the actual game part of Limbo began. I didn’t know which controls to use or how to do anything and I definitely spent a decent five minutes sitting in front of my computer waiting for some fairy or elf character to show up and tell me what to do and at least 3 of those 5 minutes were spent wincing at the prospect of something spooky leaping out from behind a tree with the immediate effect of scaring the living daylights out of me. However, after those first five minutes were over I started pressing random buttons on my computer and eventually realized that I could make the character move. As the first episode continued I figured out how to grab stuff and move things and I was very happy to discover that Limbo is actually a very enjoyable game. Two thumbs up.

But more then that Limbo’s lack of directions for the player kind of has the effect of making the player identify with the character that goes beyond the bond created by being put in charge of the characters actions. Without directions or help of any kind, I am not only in charge of the well being of the character but also have to really think and apply real world logic in the character’s virtual world to keep the character from dying. In the few video games I’ve played there are invisible barriers and rules within the game that prevent the player from making the character do certain things. For instance in a Harry Potter game you can’t run into a pit of fire and in any game it doesn’t matter how fast you jump off of a tall building, as long as you land on “solid” ground you get to live. However, in this game I ran off the log and hit the ground at a weird angle, fell over, and died. It was tragic. The most tragic thing about it was that in real life I would know better then to take a running leap from a high place when trying to land on an angled surface, obviously that would not work and I would fall and break my ankles, and it is this knowledge about the outcome of such an action in my real world that made me feel so awful when I made the character go through with the act anyway in the virtual world of Limbo. In Limbo the player knows the rules of the game in the sense that the natural laws of our own world exist within this virtual world, it just takes a few deaths to figure this out.

Also, does Limbo have to do with the Limbo in Dante’s Inferno? From what I remember Limbo in Dante’s Inferno is a forest and this game, or at least the first episode, seems to take place in a forest.

Limbo

When I first downloaded this game, I was at unease by the fact that there were no directions or story lines.  I was on edge of the thought that something scary might appear based on the creepy, quiet background noises.  I was frustrated in the beginning, but I began to press random keys to get the boy to start moving.  This game is unique in that there is no prior storyline when you first enter the game.  It forces you to think on your own, and even though the graphics are not realistic, it still gives you a scare because it keeps you on your toes.  The game process forces you to fear the unknown, because in most points, you really do not understand what is going on.  The colors are simply grey, yet it creates so much anxiety.  It's creative in that it does such little work in the game, but the outcome is enormous.

Limbo

The game Limbo was very confusing and frustrating.  There was nothing that told you  what controls to use, what the purpose of the game was or the background of the game.  The fact that the setting of the game is  very dark and ambiguous makes this game more confusing.  This confusing and frustrating aspect of the game, along with the blank setting goes with the concept of what limbo is, a place where the dead wonder aimlessly until some kind of criteria is met which allows, in a religious aspect the soul to either go to paradise or damnation.  This game seems to play with this concept because the player has to solve these puzzles in order to find what lies at the end.  Dying in this game has no consequence, expect to restart at certain areas which also plays with the repeating the same actions over and over again. 

Comforting Nature of Limbo

When I first began to play Limbo, I was a little nervous. The ambient noises of the game and the gothic surrounding slightly put me on edge and I was constantly thinking about what was going to happen next. But as I began to move the avatar forward, I felt a sense of calm and relaxation, as I quickly realized that we control the game, instead of the game does not predicting our fate. The fact that there were no limits on the amount of lives we were able to have in the game was also comforting. I realized that death in the game was common, and not necessarily punished. It encouraged me to continue playing to see what the whole game was about. Overall, I probably would have tried to continue on as far as I could in the game if it weren’t due to personal time constraints. The fact that I felt comfortable playing really encouraged me to want to play more. 

Death in Limbo

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.

In class Tuesday, we watched the film Primer. After leaving class, I felt confused and frustrated. The physics wasn't simplified and for a majority of the time, I didn't understand what was going on. The nesting doll was used to forshadow the time machine. I think having multiple doubles is addressing humanity and multi-dimensional aspect of identities. Throughout the time travel it seems as if the two are loosing parts of themselves and accumulating other parts that were there to begin with in the beginning.  The video game limbo was frustrating as well and slightly disturbing. However, with the lights and the character and I was able to identify with the character in the game and go through a trial and error process.