 Arnt Jensen's childhood was bittersweet. His family lived at the edge of civilization 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 soon 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 too 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 video 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 wanted 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 that 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. 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 crawl 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'd 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 wonder through the world of limbo that he was creating. But as the years dragged on, Arnt began to realise that the kind of game he wanted to make was simply outside his capability. He would need to seed 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 like-minded game developer who could help him turn his half-baked designs 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 Patty. 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. 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 and getting things done, and he had plenty of charisma and confidence for the both of them. Dino helped Arnt a lot. Boyed 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 Carlson, 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 designs and creating a compelling gameplay around them. Arnt had a very clear idea in mind about the narrative of the game, and Jeppe was in hand to weave puzzles throughout the 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's vision was absolute, and while he allowed Jeppe and the other developers 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 AAA 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 had become 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 players 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 imagination 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, but criticized the game for its bleak environment and ambiguous storytelling. These reviews made Arnt 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 results won't always be pleasant, but it will be beautiful in its own right. It's okay to be afraid of the dark.