Arnt Jensen’s childhood was bittersweet.
His family lived at the edge of civilisation, on a farm surrounded by bleak, empty countryside.
When he had the chance, Arnt would disappear, off into the woods near his house, as he was
swallowed up by nature.
The young Arnt enjoyed the freedom of these woods, but they also terrified him.
There was something eerie and unsettling about the silence of these woods.
It reminded him of dark fairy tales; of the works of the Brothers Grimm, and the tales
of the Moomin, of which Arnt was very fond.
Good stories didn’t always leave you feeling safe and warm, just as good adventures in
the woods didn’t necessarily come without a sense of danger.
The terror of unseen things creeping and crawling around, of spiders or insects hidden in the
dark, both delighted and terrified the boy.
When he grew older, Arnt’s obsession with the bleak, empty darkness of these woods would
be shared with the world.
His childhood exploration would leave a lasting impression on the video game art medium.
This is the story of how Arnt Jensen’s fears became reality.
This is the story of Limbo.
Arnt Jensen is a shy man.
By his own admission, he thinks to much.
His answers in conversation are always slow, ponderous, and often, just a little melancholy.
Happiness does not come naturally to him.
Once upon a time, Arnt worked as a concept artist for the game studio IO Interactive,
best known for the Hitman series of games.
When he first started his job, it had seemed like a dream come true – he was able to
draw whatever he want, and get paid for doing so.
But as the years wore on, his enthusiasm waned.
Arnt became increasingly frustrated with the for-profit nature of game development within
a big studio.
The corporate focus of the company meant there was little room for experimentation and originality.
He felt like he was being
forced into a stifling, creative rut, as he was trapped churning out cookie-cutter concept
art that never strayed too far from an established pattern.
Caught up in his despair and frustration, Arnt picked up a black pen and started drawing.
Not for work, but for himself.
He needed to vent onto paper.
The picture that Arnt drew showed an empty, deserted beach.
Off to the side was a dark cave, which seemed to call out, enticingly.
Come and explore this monochrome world.
What secrets could lie inside?
Arnt was very pleased with this image.
He called it his “secret place”.
Immediately, he felt that this could be some kind of video game.
Perhaps not a big project; but rather, a point-and-click adventure.
Something small and manageable that Arnt could create by himself, to help shake away some
of the cobwebs that had formed while he had been stuck at his desk job.
In his spare time, Arnt began attempting to turn this single drawing into a worthwhile
game project.
He drew more and more art in this style, eventually adding a young boy to the pictures to serve
as the game’s protagonist.
He started trying to code something for the game, all by himself, so that the boy could
wander through the world of Limbo that he was creating.
But as years dragged on, Arnt began to realise that the kind of game he wanted to make was
simply outside of his capability.
He would need to cede control, by allowing someone else to join his efforts.
He needed a programmer.
Arnt pooled all the assets that he’d created over the past couple of years, and created
a trailer for the game.
His hope was that he’d be able to attract the attention of another likeminded game developer
who could help him turn his half-baked design ideas into something concrete.
To his surprise, the first trailer for Limbo spread far further than he’d anticipated.
All of a sudden, game publishers from around the world were trying to get hold of him.
Everyone wanted a piece of the pie, and wanted to make the game a reality – for the right
price.
Arnt was overwhelmed.
But, hidden amongst all the emails and offers that he received, Arnt came across a message
from a game developer named Dino Patti.
Dino had recently quit his own job within the game industry, and he could sympathise
with Arnt’s frustration.
Dino was sick of the constant crunch of the games industry, and of suffering under the
hand of foolish managers.
Limbo seemed like the perfect antidote to all his confusion.
It was a small project, with limited office politics.
He was eager to see where it would go.
When Dino first visited Arnt, meeting him in his apartment, he realised just how different
the two men were.
Where Arnt was awkward and quiet, a natural thinker who was paralysed by indecision, Dino
was a doer.
He was good at pushing forward, at getting things done, and he had plenty of charisma
and confidence for the both of them.
Dino helped Arnt a lot.
Buoyed up by his new friend, Arnt was able to turn down all of the bad deals that publishers
had been offering him.
The pair decided to go it alone, for the moment, and were able to source funding to start work
in earnest at their newly formed Playdead studio.
Quickly, it became apparent that Limbo would take even more people, but Arnt and Dino wanted
to be careful not to add too many employees to the mix.
The size of the company shifted over time, but its core team was just eight people.
The only lasting hires were developers who could add something new to the mix.
One such person was Jeppe Carlsen, who was initially brought on to help code Limbo’s
game engine.
It quickly became apparent that his greater talent was puzzle design.
Jeppe had the difficult task of taking Arnt’s initial ideas, and creating a compelling gameplay
around them.
Arnt had a very clear idea in mind about the narrative of the game, and Jeppe was on hand
to weave puzzles through this story, challenging the player as things progressed.
With more people came a sense that the project was slipping away from Arnt.
Later sections of the game in particular bore Jeppe’s fingerprints more than his own.
But, this was to be expected, and Arnt simply had to let it be.
What he would not do, though, was compromise the story that he was trying to tell.
Some of the company’s investors clearly had very little idea about what the project
was really trying to achieve.
One investor, worried about the bleak tone of the game and the implications of its young,
frail protagonist, wondered if the player character could be aged up a little.
What if they tried giving him a moustache?
Playdead did not acquiesce.
Arnt vision was absolute, and while he allowed Jeppe and the other developers room to create
inventive materials for the game, if he wasn’t sold on something, it didn’t end up in the
finished game.
This meant dropping a lot of content.
Towards the end of development, Arnt went through the entire game, slicing out around
70% of the material that had been developed.
He didn’t want this to be a bloated affair, akin to the triple-A games he’d been stuck
making before.
Limbo was a personal story, and he wanted it to be as short and ambiguous as it could
be.
Arnt enjoyed stripping everything back and seeing just how minimalist the game could
become.
Was the game’s soundscape necessary?
Was the environment spookier and more unsettling with less noise?
Everything that went into the game had to earn its place, and if in doubt, the team
would drop something, rather than include a superfluous element.
On that note, the giant spiders which became the core of the game’s most iconic puzzles
were not deemed superfluous.
Arnt himself suffers from arachnophobia, and the spiders were included precisely because
he didn’t like them.
If the game wasn’t creepy and terrifying, then it wasn’t doing its job.
This was a game world that the player should both love and hate at the same time.
They should feel horribly uncomfortable, and yet feel compelled to want to explore more.
To delve deeper into forbidden spaces, and push further along haunted paths.
When after years and years of work, Limbo was finally released, rave reviews poured
in from all sides.
Arnt’s bleak and depressing vision had captured the imaginations of audiences around the globe.
Everyone loved this dark, gloomy game world, and its innovative puzzle design.
Well, almost everyone.
While the vast majority of players thoroughly enjoyed the experience, there was the occasional
review that missed the point.
That criticised the game for its bleak environment and ambiguous storytelling.
These reviews made Arnt Jensen smile.
Limbo wasn’t supposed to be a walk in the park, and if people were reacting negatively
to his creation, then it meant that his game was having a significant impact on them.
If Limbo was making players feel something unique, whatever that might be, then the game
was succeeding in its intended purpose.
The moral of the story is that wonderful things can come from the dark.
Life isn’t always happy.
Things don’t always go well, and there can be a lot of sadness and misery along the way.
We instinctively try to shy away from negative emotions.
We cling to the light, for fear that accepting our fears will only prove to be self-destructive.
Embrace your fears.
Accept that your life is made up of both good and bad experiences.
It’s okay to feel sad, and it’s okay to feel lonely and small and scared.
Use these emotions.
Take the negative moments of your life, and turn them into something special.
The result won’t always be pleasant, but it will be beautiful in its own right.
It’s okay to be afraid of the dark.