So far it's pretty much the opposite of fun

[Superabbit]

I'm trying to play using a keyboard. The control settings say that left, right, up, down, and ctrl are the movement and action keys. I can make the character walk left with the left key, right with the right key and jump with the up key. So far I can make him get up, walk to the right, walk up a log, slide down a hill, then no single or combination of keys, ctrl, up, right, left, down result in anything other than the character walking (one time the down key got him to climb down) into a pit and getting impaled on a spike. At the edge of the ditch either the right key or the up key will move the character, not both. If it's the right key, he gets spiked, if it's the up key he jumps straight up and straight back down.

The first 6 or 7 times this was slightly amusing in a gory, Charles Addams black humor sort of way, then over the next several it just became boring, then annoying.

In the hope of wringing a little bit of amusement out of it, I tried walking left and got a Steam achievement, but then couldn't walk any further after stepping on the egg and then it was back to the walking-right-and-getting-impaled routine.

This game won some awards, so I suspect there's more to it than a cartoon kid getting impaled over and over. Or maybe it's for people who found The Stanley Parable too story-driven and trite?

I don't think I'm demanding too much from something that refers to itself as a "game;" I recently completed Dear Esther and was satisfied enough at its conclusion. This feels like if Dear Esther took only 45 seconds to complete and had more depressing scenery and left even more of the narrative to the player's imagination. Or Eastshade if at the beginning you just drowned on the boat, The End. Or maybe The Talos Principle if all that happened was that you pick up the first jammer and it explodes, killing your character. Or MYST, if there were that graphic of The Stranger falling into the chasm followed by a black screen and then the credits roll.

[MASTAN]

You can't simultaneously walk left/right and jump? Sounds like input device problem on your PC. Unplug all other controllers if anything else is connected. Or use gamepad to play this game, all Xinput devices should be supported.

[Sparky Bonehead]

I've used the keyboard on my laptop and it works fine....just takes some getting used to. However, do yerself a favor and get a $40 dollar controller. Dear Ester was much easier with my controller as are the Limbo/Inside games. I mean... i tried playing GTA games with the laptop keyboard and it's frustratingly difficult. But after i got an inexpensive controller, many of my games are much more fun. Remember, Limbo is a 2D game so you'll have to figure out how to address the situation and will killed a bunch of times anyway. THAT's why it's called a game. A Turtle Beach 'React-R' controller is just 40 bucks from Amazon, Even Sable was more fun after i got the controller. Just a suggestion....

[Superabbit]

Originally posted by Sparky Bonehead:

I've used the keyboard on my laptop and it works fine....just takes some getting used to. However, do yerself a favor and get a $40 dollar controller.

I finally got it to work by plugging in a different keyboard. Apparently my Redragon, which is sold as a "gaming" keyboard (I guess because it lights up), can't properly scan arrow keys being held at the same time. Makes me wonder what else it's screwing up.

Since Limbo requires holding arrow keys simultaneously for walk/jump, I could either walk or jump, but never at the same time. Hence the start/die loop.

And I do have a nice controller, a DS4, but it's down for maintenance right now. I need to install some replacement parts (wish me luck that they work!).

I find with some games, I prefer the keyboard, with others, I like the controller. Journey is definitely better with the DS4. Outer Wilds was better with the keyboard (despite having a splash screen telling the player otherwise). I figured for a scrolling 2-D platformer like this that the keyboard would be best.

I'm kind of an older dude so keyboard/mouse still feels more "natural" to me than a controller, but I'm forcing myself to get cozy with the DS4.

[N*rd]

keyboard controls are awful in that game.
I don't know how someone would say "Jea sure lets use arrowkeys and LCtrl . WASD & Space is silly anyways..."

[MASTAN]

Originally posted by N*rd:

keyboard controls are awful in that game.
I don't know how someone would say "Jea sure lets use arrowkeys and LCtrl . WASD & Space is silly anyways..."

Remap in settings.txt. For WASD simply uncomment several lines there.

[MarioFanaticXV]

Originally posted by N*rd:

keyboard controls are awful in that game.
I don't know how someone would say "Jea sure lets use arrowkeys and LCtrl . WASD & Space is silly anyways..."

The designers were probably PC gamers in the 80s or early 90s. Using arrow keys, ctrl, shift, and space as the primary buttons used to almost universal.