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Over the past year I have been heavily immersed in a mobile game called Limbus Company. Limbus Company is a sequel game made by Project Moon, a small South Korean Game Studio. In total they have made three games that all have heavily influenced my writing, storytelling, and my general disposition on literature. All three of the games made by Project Moon actually take place in the same setting having each be a separate yet continuous story about The City and the inhabitants. The game takes on a tone of dark fantasy that doesn’t quite fully lean into fantastical elements, but at the same time also plays with the properties of fantasy in a rather gritty and brutal setting. Something interesting that all of the games do is have the monstrous characters in the game, otherwise known as abnormalities, take from different concepts such as fears and phobias, as well as tall tales and fairy tales. This idea of using these borrowed tales and concepts is interestingly utilized in Limbus Company as the majority of characters in the game are based off of different books and characters from fiction.

I absolutely love how they utilize this throughout the game especially since instead of the game simply retelling the story the game instead expands upon their stories as well as continuing them forward. The way the game goes about portraying these characters tends to be extremely interesting as it doesn’t just expand their character and continue their development, but also address very real topics that are addressed in the character’s respective groups. A great example of this is in the fourth chapter of the game, taking inspiration from the book Wings written by Yi Sang,where it discusses the malpractice of businesses and cut throat working conditions. Then there are other examples such as in chapter one which addresses the pain of post traumatic stress from wars and what it does to people’s mental health, as addressed in Metamorphosis. I feel as if a lot of content from these games has heavily inspired a majority of my writing and what I want from a lot of my characters. Before having played through the games  I always had an aversion to darker topics within my writing and how to go about addressing them in themes, but with Limbus’ writing I’ve definitely had my eyes opened in that aspect.

Another very interesting utilization of writing used in the game is the form of perspective throughout the game. Each chapter is dedicated to a character in which past traumas being explored is narrated beautifully. Each character being pulled into a realm of their own mental anguish where they relive their past mistakes and decisions. My favorite part about this is that the characters narrate their pasts from their own perspectives giving both their own insight as to what happened as well as an outside perspective that is narrated from the third person. Something else that I am a very big fan of is that in certain scenes the characters are referred to as children to the narrator who is portrayed as a great being. As a dungeon master a lot of narration is very dependent on different players points of views and so learning different ways to give perspective to certain non-player characters can go a long way in helping immerse players.

Speaking of immersion, one of my favorite parts about Limbus Company is its immersive, thorough, and complex setting filled with a plethora of different associations, companies, and monsters. Each character within these groups have their own complex backstories as well that intertwine with each other where characters will directly reference others that have both been in current and past games. On top of this the game makes use of multimedia as all of the cutscenes contain art as well as specific scene portraits that help immerse the player’s perspective of the story. To make things better the game is fully voice acted and narrated. This once again draws back to Dungeons and Dragons for me as despite the game not technically being animated in any way, a lot of effort is put into creating battle maps as well as commissioning artists for character reference art. I also think that utilizing images in work is able to engage viewers more as it gives them more visual appeal.

 I feel like a lot of my joy from Limbus Company really goes back to my first book The Hobbit which had immersed me in the world of fantasy. In reality I know they are nothing alike, however the cold cruelty of the world that The City exists in combination with once warm fantasy of my childhood draws me in and engages me with the world investing myself in the characters. The characters also all hold a special place in my heart because of how they are written and how the game realistically portrays their struggles. Furthermore the game treats the players rather harshly forcing for more emphasis on strategy and tactics which the game is actually able to explain for the existence of within the game’s lore. This makes the actual game elements that seem to be separate to the lore to be diegetic and fully interactive with the game making them work towards the image of immersion even more.

To get to the heart of what I’m really trying to say, I feel that a lot of my inspiration and motivation for writing originates from the diverse and beautifully written City  of Project Moon’s world. I am absolutely enamored with the characters and how the game uses multimedia in every aspect to fully immerse the players. Project Moon’s ability to use diegetic gameplay also further immerses the players leading to better writing and storytelling. This combined with the darker and more malevolent, fantastical setting leads to an extremely unique story that I greatly love and complements the prequel games. These games have taught me in writing how to structure proper dialogue and find diverse answers to story points.

Patrick Ellis