Immersed into “Limbo”.

After Wednesday’s lecture on Immersion, my friends and I decided that we are going to play this game called Limbo.  I asked my friend how the game was like and he told me it’s a casual game and it’s easy to control with by pressing up and down, left and right buttons. Sounds pretty sweet

This game has got me so fascinated so I did a little bit of research for it.

According to one of the Limbo games reviews, it has mentioned, “The description of Limbo in the Xbox Marketplace reads, “Uncertain of his Sister’s Fate, a Boy enters LIMBO.”  That sentence is about as much storytelling as you will get through the entire game.  Limbo’s storytelling is all done through its visuals and ambient audio track.  The manner in which the player is thrust right into the game is certainly unconventional. 
    
  

Limbo is a haunting place. The game opens in a dark forest with a little boy waking up on the ground. As the game is designed with black and white visuals also with the animation blinking every two seconds it creates a sense of darkness, scary, creepy hunted environment. The game from starts and the whole way through was only with the black and white animations of the little boy and obstacles. There is no information such as how many lives does this little boy has, or a map of what’s ahead of him whatsoever. Therefore the lack of information leaves the player to project his or her own interpretations into the game.

Limbo’s game-play is nothing new and rather traditional.  The player moves the boy with the left analogue stick, jumps with the A button, and B is the action button.  The game’s controls are tight and the puzzles are really well designed. Therefore it is pretty easy to control the game.

One thing that was good about the game was that as you progress through Limbo, the environment evolves from a haunting forest into a sterile industrial district.  There’s no repetition and new mechanics are introduced as you progress in the game.  Discovering the solutions to these puzzles is fun on your first play through, but there’s really no re-playability other than to experience the game again or go after achievements.  The variety of puzzles, challenge of the game, and it’s unique and ever changing environments make Limbo a joy to play from beginning to end. Therefore, you don’t know what to expect what will happen next; you will just have to keep going and find out.  

      

  

Limbo is an ominous and malevolent place with giant insects, traps, murderous children, and other dangers.  It is a grey and foreboding shade of the real world.  As I was playing the game, I started to become more immersed with the game.  I start to realise that I have been emotionally reacting with the game as I played along. I was constantly saying things like “omg”, “look! There are children’s dead bodies laying around!” etc.  Reason for me to react in such ways, first it is because, as I played along, I have discovered that there are many obstacles you must avoid to prevent yourself getting killed, and at one stage I did not pay attention to the ground that I was walking towards and didn’t realised that there were this sets of sharp thorns hidden underneath the grass. The minute I fall into that trap, I can hear this flesh of blood sound effect popped out as I stabbed myself with these thorns. This sound effect has made me reacted in a sense of pain, as it was happening in reality.

Secondly, because of the main character of this game is a little boy, more like a innocent little boy (because he’s body is in all black but his eye balls are in white colours, in a way it could be quite creepy but it also creates a sense of innocents) I wouldn’t be expecting there will more violent event that is targeted him further on the game. 

Another aspects of this was that, as the game doesn’t leaves you with any information whatsoever, you would need to play this game based on your knowledge, to elaborate on this I meant you would need to look out for stuff that you think it might help you to move one, or you might need to go back and forth to grab stuff, or even you must to kill somebody to be able to move on with the game otherwise they will kill you! As I have mentioned above that there are dead bodies of young kids, this has made me felt a bit more uncomfortable because what it seems it might be innocent are actually quite evil.
                                            

                                            
This immersion has bought me to the idea of diegetic-immersion. Which was defined by Laurie N. Taylor. Immersion, as defined by Taylor:” immersion is often taken to be a singular event where the player becomes engrossed in a video game just as a reader would become engrossed in a novel, or a viewer in a film”.

Taylor has categorised immersion into two different forms.


First is diegetic-immersion. Taylor define it as “diegetic-immersion, where the player is immersed in the act of playing the video game”.  This immersion is diegetic immersion whereas the reader, watcher, player becomes lost in the text and becomes unaware of the creation and relation of the elements within the text. 

Second is intra-diegetic or situated immersion, where the player is immersed in playing the game and in the experience of the game space as a spatial and narrated space. Video games allow intra-diegetic immersion, which allows the player to become deeply involved in the game as an experiential space.  Therefore, to be diegetic-immersed, the player must become absorbed into the experience of playing the game”. Which in this case with Limbo would be the prefect game for diegetic-immersion whereas the game has no information surrounded, where it is just you become absorbed into the experience of playing the game.

And Yes, I do get immersed into games very easily!