Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

pulling this cord reconnects the pipe, restoring the flow of water

What is it?

LIMBO is a 2D sidescrolling puzzle platformer adventure game, developed by Playdead, for Xbox Live Arcade. Players take control of a young boy who enters limbo in order to rescue his sister. In addition to running around and jumping to avoid typical platforming hazards, there are strange and frightening creatures as well as other children out to kill you in disturbing and horrible ways. The game launched today at 1200 points.

How does it play?

LIMBO uses two buttons: a jump and an action. These are mapped multiple times on the controller, so you can play however you feel comfortable. The boy is reasonably athletic, and can grip ledges to pull himself up, climb up and down ropes, hoses and vines, and more. There are no attacks, except those that use environmental hazards against your enemies. Puzzles are solved through elaborate combinations of jumping, climbing, operating switches, and more.

Anything that hurts you in this game kills you in an instant, giving a serious weight to everything you do. However, you can’t run out of lives and there’s an autosave checkpoint after just about every task, even within puzzles. As a result, the only frustration comes from being at a dead standstill and having no idea how to proceed. You will rarely have to do anything of significance over again once you’ve accomplished it. If course, if you want all the achievements, you’ll have to do an exceptional job, beating the game in a single sitting without dying once or even doing certain unnecessary actions.

creatures will inject worms into your head, causing you to run constantly in one direction

How does it look and sound?

If LIMBO looks familiar, it may be because there’s a Wii game on its way called Lost in Shadow. Like that game, everything here is in various shades from white to black, mostly black. Parts of the game are so dark you can’t make out what’s going on, and it’s entirely on purpose. You’ll be able to see when there’s danger to warrant it. In addition to the dark environments, there is plenty of mist and fog, which really drags the atmosphere onto you nicely.

There is almost no ambient sound or music in LIMBO. It’s really a silent game of very minimal design, and somehow, it works perfectly. In particularly dramatic moments there will be something of a swell of sound, but aside from this, there is almost nothing of note to listen to. One notable exception is the remarkably terrifying buzzsaw.

the buzzsaw will cause a world of screaming hurt in a dimension of silent and graphic terror

How’s the replay value?

Replay value in this game is entirely based around grabbing all the achievements, such as the aforementioned one that requires no deaths, or the one that requires you not to touch a certain switch until the exact moment it’s needed. A single playthrough won’t take very long once you’ve learned how to solve all the puzzles. Even after beating it, I can see owners starting this game up as a really good example for their friends to see some very creative game design.

Is it worth it?

LIMBO is a very unusual game in the modern gaming market. I immediately was reminded of classics like Flashback and Out of This World, and perhaps even the original Prince of Persia, but there’s really not anything else like this today. It’s a game with plenty of scary and tense moments, without the non-stop frantic madness of so many other games these days. It’s brilliant. This would be perfect on a handheld console like the PSP.

LIMBO gets four and a half out of five.