When video games become art (part1?): Limbo.

Hey there Charlie.


So I know that you got tired of my previous series, so now I'm going to talk about something slightly different: video games. Yes, I know that very few people in the section are into video games, but I think a majority of people have to many clichés on this medium. And to destory those cliché, why not showing to you some games that I like to call masterpiece, almost real art work. And everytime I'll try to explain a little concept that makes the game special.

So here goes my first choice, a puzzle game set in a (very) dark universe: Limbo.

So Limbo is a game developed by the (now famous) studio Playdead, a Danish studio (which is rare enough). The principe of the game is simple: you are a little black kid (litterally black) which has to go though lots of puzzles. Now I will be straight forward: this game is a true work of art.

First of all the atmosphere is... special. It is a mix of scary and dark atmosphere but which doesn't scare the player. The point here is not create jumpscares, it is to set an environement that the player is going to feel hostile. And just like in drama, there are multiple tools that are used here: the graphics (all in black and white with different shades of grey), the sounds (most of the time minimalist but also arsh and rough), but most importantly: the gameplay.

Lots of people claiming that video games are art (I do) will say that interactivity is the core of the game, not only mechanics, but the whole influence that the game has on the player. Here Limbo manages that through the puzzles it proposes the player but also the logic that the player has to get to go through the different puzzles. And this is where psychology kicks in, more particularly: cognitive psychology.

For the ones who don't know, cognitive psychology is the branch of psychology linked to learning new things. And, to put in a nutshell (because there is truly more to say about it), Limbo is creating a dissonance between our ability to learn and our ethic. To spoil one of the puzzle: you'll be facing a situation where you'll have to cross a lake, right behind you: wood logs; right in front of you: children corpses. Your ethic easily tell you to use the wood logs to cross the river, but you'll find out that you cannot use them: you'll have to use the dead bodies to create a sort of bridge to go further. And this questioning on whether you should do that or not depending on your ethic (keep in mind that you play a child) is what makes up a big part of the atmosphere of the game.

Even though all this might seem quite dark, the game does have a certain poetry, a very dark poetry but still. And I will conclude on this: Limbo is a masterpiece. A sort of alien in the world of puzzle game, but which is quite open to pretty much everyone who has never played video games and who want to live a unique experience. And trust me, you can go for it, the game is available on Steam for 10€ (or 2€ during the holy steam sales).

To conclude this article, here are some screen shots of the game. See you soon Charlie, and tell me if you like this kind of article.

Bye!