Weight of a world: Limbo

Late to the party as always, a surprise gift of Microsoft Points finally allowed me to jump in on the Limbo bandwagon as I was unwilling to pay $15 for a game this reputedly short (though  apparently satisfying).

 

Set in an dream-like world of foggy black and white, Limbo is a side-scrolling physics puzzle-platformer, but it is also so much more. The player controls a boy, silhouetted in pitch black along with the midground elements, with baroque and distorted foreground and background elements fading to grey smudges.

 

Borrowing heavily from German Expressionism for its visual style, Limbo also leans on elements from The Lord of the Flies and common phobias (spiders, parasites). All elements are well suited to the abstract world and are surrounded by ethereal music and sound design. The environment changes from an insect and arachnid infested forest to a dilapidated but trap laden urban environment, culminating in the dangerous gravity challenging bowels of factory.

 

What struck me immediately were the snappy yet whimsical animations that told both story and character, yet functionally obeyed the procedural rules of the engine. Physics dominates the gameplay, requiring an understanding motion and momentum as applied solutions to extremely clever puzzles. I often forgot that all things in the world have weight, and behave as such, leading to constant 'DOH' moments when a puzzle would finally work. Approaching play as a gamer hindered me, because I always looked first to the trite gameplay solution, rather than the real-world physics based solution.

 

My wife, a non-gamer, was entranced immediately by Limbo. The opaque visuals and the Grimm's Fairy Tales-esque graphic but not explicit violence drew her in, evoking empathy and wonder. Glimpses into the world and its inhabitants led to questions about the state of this reality, and if this dreamlike environment was in fact a dream.

 

Limbo is evocative without preening, and has no pretense. It is somber and the joy of each puzzle solved or trap evaded is muted by the constant danger of what is next in a world created to kill you.

 

Always leaving more questions than answers, Limbo is indeed insanely short, but satisfying.

Jump Around Get Up and Get Down

So, Kinect.

 

I swore a million times over I would not spend money on a glorified Wii until a killer app appeared, something appealed to me as a "core" gamer. Something that would make me give a damn and make the gameplay unique and compelling.

 

So, here we are, with a mechanized black eyeball tracking my movement across the room and (mostly) obeying my verbal commands. It is neat. It is slow and cumbersome to navigate a menu compared to the swish-clicks of buttons and thumbsticks.

 

What finally compelled me to bring this tiny Wall-E into my home was a change needed in my actual lifestyle, not the world(s) inside the game.

 

I am a big fatty fat fat. Weight has been a bouncing ball all of my life, tied entirely to my interest in activity. When given a social motivation to exercise I have and when left to my own devices I haven't, and I have been left to my own devices for the better part of seven years.

 

My real life is a litany of injury and pain, constant reminders that I am carrying the equivalent of an 8-yr old around all of time. Watching my body shift to compensate where my lower back arches more now, straining my stomach muscles to try and hold aloft a shelf of flesh that now migrates over and below my belt-line sickens and saddens me.

 

Depression and body image go way back with me.

 

So, after consulting with my wife, we plunged in and immediately bought a single game, Your Shape Fitness (we rented Dance Central to see if it would be fun or even possible given flinging nearly 300 lbs around to a beat is difficult at the best of times).

 

I figured, in my desperation and laziness, that if I tied exercising to my escapism of gaming (and fed my desire for achievements) I might break a sweat.

 

Your Shape has a clumsy finicky interface that is easily confused by dangling clothing or an errant cat that meanders through the frame. However it is a reasonably deep exercise class, marking you on body position and timing. It measures your BMI and adjusts the workout to something that hopefully won't kill you. The Tai Chi movements are a wonderful low impact way to warm up and down.

 

The only thing that will keep me from using this successfully is me. I literally have no excuses now, no reasons not to get off my fat ass and move.

 

It hurt my ass the day after my first 30 mins of huffing and puffing. I think that's a good thing.