Among the more memorable indie games over the years that managed to mix a creepy visual style with smart puzzles, there’s no question that Limbo is one of the most revered. With some imagery that could unnerve you in places, some terrible ways to die, and a mix of puzzle and platforming challenges, it managed to find a crucial balance in all aspects of its play and design, giving it an elevated stature with most people who played it. 

Rumbral clearly appears to be geared for that same sort of experience overall, and while it doesn’t manage the same degree of creepiness, it does have a hook of its own with a mix of platforming and dimension switching as you try to solve puzzles along the way. The game’s standout feature does tend to be those puzzles, making you work with a variety of pretty familiar elements like boxes you’ll need to push, switches, and buttons that need to be pressed. Thankfully, though many of the underlying puzzle designs are thus familiar, the game does at least generally do a decent job of making them feel sensible, and provide a decent challenge. The dark aesthetics also work pretty well, though the red hues of the alternative dimension you’ll move to are at least less bland.

There are some areas where the game runs into trouble though, especially when you contrast it with some of its peers. There’s just a sluggishness to the controls that never quite went away. They do at least feel responsive for the most part, but they can be a little slow, feeling like they sometimes force you to anticipate key moves to be sure they’re timed correctly. Another is that in spots the game can be a bit buggy, especially as you interact with things in the environment, with it being possible to get stuck periodically, needing to then be reset. The last, which may be the most crippling to some, is that the game is over with far too quickly, clocking in at a couple of hours at most. There are some good ideas here, it just feels like the game went to market a bit too quickly for its own good.