Limbo

If you want to design a puzzle game / platform game, do play Limbo. It's a design course on making puzzles. The character does not have facial expressions, but the two bright eyes and the animation make it one of the most charming characters ever made. This game taught me a lesson. They made a game in which dying is expected. Stubborn players try again and again till they quit. Don't be stubborn. Take your time. Do something else. After a break try again. Patience is a virtue.

The puzzles are fairly easy until you reach one with two gates and a rope. From there on there are much harder puzzles. This game is genius. The character cannot run, fly, lift heavy objects and there are no weapons. The black and white presentation with darkness creates an atmosphere of mystery, some bits of terror and this minimalist art style also helps to make the player pay attention where it is required. There are no distractions.

Speaking of learning game design. If you look closely the puzzles are set up in a certain order to teach the player. The hardest puzzles are the ones that deal with timing your actions. There is a small margin for error and this is expected because you can't expect players to have accuracy in the range of milliseconds.

The dev called this game's concept "trial and death". Because you respawn in the same scene and puzzle you don't have issues with repetitive replay of the same areas. There is gore but as this game is devoid of colors, I've found the deaths to be cute. It's not an universal feeling and other players may feel quite differently. Displeased for instance.

The rotating world made me remember Sonic's special tracks. In the first Sonic for Sega Genesis there were those courses that you had to rotate and grab the emerald. The inverted gravity made me remember Castle of Illusion. In the Toy land there is this idea of flipping the world upside down.

One small nitpick at the very beginning of the game. Because everything is dark I couldn't notice the character there, sleeping on the ground. It took me a while to get up.

The ending was underwhelming because I was expecting the two to hug each other. They could have added colors in that very moment.

I was left breathless when I passed the final puzzle. I couldn't believe it! It was pure luck after many many attempts.