Finding solitude in Limbo

Alright so before I get into anything, I'll admit that the game that i'm about to tie in isn't retro. It's not even in 8-bit, but I figured that the story and interpretations of the game would make up for it. So I had some independent reading for class and the book I picked was The Plot Against America, written by Philip Roth.

 It was about a Jewish family living in America when Lindbergh was president and how the community around them was basically anti-Jewish. That doesn't really matter right now, but what does matter is that the main character in the book, Philip Roth, starts off as a dependent child and later loses his childhood innocence(I interpreted his stamp collection to be his childhood innocence) as he matures into an independent man later in the book. Finding a book about this topic was extremely hard and I couldn't think of any other English assignment that I've done so far that could be related to games. I finally found one after basically years of thinking and the video game of this week's blog goes to Limbo, developed by Playdead and Double Eleven and is available on the PS3, Xbox 360, Windows, and iOS. 

Limbo is a a 2D puzzle game where the player controls a nameless boy that has recently woken up in a forest and tries to find his sister while avoiding traps. This sounds like the average cliché puzzle game, but what makes it stand out from the others is that it's in black and white and there's no dialogue or narration. The interpretation of the game is left to the players and what they want to believe in. Philip Roth from The Plot Against America and the character from Limbo are very similar in that my interpretation of Limbo and the mental journey Philip endures travel parallel. In the beginning of Limbo, the player wakes up in a forest and the trees surrounding him make him look like an ant in comparison. 

This setting represented insignificance which is what Philip felt like in the beginning of the book. Philip relied on everyone else's opinion in order to make his own decisions and judgments. The sister at the end of Limbo is what the player strives for which could represent Philip and his strive for independent thinking after being accustomed to his father's biased political views. The traps throughout the game may could also be interpreted as the obstacles Philip Roth faced during his journey through maturity such as the political views of his other siblings and relatives which attempted to sway him to one side or the other. There's also this giant spider in Limbo which is comparable to the Nazi visions that have been plaguing Philips mind at the beginning of the book. 

At the end of Limbo, the player finds his sister, but the scene cuts off there and the credits roll. I compared this to the event in The Plot Against America where Philip is kicked in the face by a horse during his running-away-from-home-attempt and loses his stamp collection. The player in Limbo finds his goal, his truth, his freedom while the Philip loses his childhood innocence and begins to mature and become independent. I'd recommend the game to anyone because the artwork is phenomenal and it provides a very unique type of gameplay. The game is like a mix of creepy and depressing artwork, but it's something most people wouldn't expect and that's what made this game stand out to me.