I’m currently hooked on an Xbox Live Arcade game called Limbo. When I saw a teaser trailer for this game, my first thought was “I must buy this.” Developed by Playdead Studios in Copenhagen, Denmark, and released exclusively for the Xbox 360, Limbo has garnered almost universal praise for its striking design aesthetic and unusual approach to gameplay. No other game looks like this. It bears a strong resemblance to silent cinema of the early 20th century, especially the German expressionist style, with its shadowy forbidding landscapes and eerily luminous skies. Picture the films of F.W. Murnau — Nosferatu, Faust, The Haunted Castle — and you’re in the right neighborhood. Limbo takes place in a flickering, grainy, black-and-white world. It’s a world that I’ve been drawn into, again and again, for the past several weeks.

The game is deceptively simple — at first. You awaken in a forest. The character you control is a little boy, depicted in silhouette, with a pair of glowing white eyes. None of the familiar tokens of video games are visible: no health bar, no weapons or ammo, no onscreen text to tell you what to do. Using three basic controls — the thumbstick to move, a button for jump and climb, and a button for grabbing and interacting with objects — you’re left to explore the environment, which will quickly prove to be just as weird and threatening as it looks.

Your objective is to move forward, avoiding or removing obstacles that lie in your path. Doing so requires manipulating the environment and the objects in it. Some obstacles are simple and easy to overcome; others are complex and call for experimentation, creativity, and lateral thinking. Limbo is, at its foundation, a platform/puzzle game, but its approach to the genre is unconventional. There is nothing cute here. There is nothing sexy here. One of the first things you’ll encounter is a corpse, swarmed by flies. And soon after that, you’ll encounter your death. Yes, the little boy will die, over and over, and in the most gruesome ways imaginable. He — which is to say, you — will be decapitated, drowned, crushed, torn to pieces, and run through with spikes. In fact, there are many puzzles that will be practically impossible to solve without trial and error, which in Limboland means “doing something crazy, just to see what will happen.” Most times, what will happen is that you’ll plunge headlong into the arms of the Grim Reaper. But unlike most games, you won’t be punished for doing so. There’s no “game over” screen. You’re not sent back to the beginning of the level or some distant save point. Death is but a learning experience here. In the blink of an eye, you’ll be reincarnated at the same puzzle where you met a grisly fate, so you can give it another go. If a puzzle proves to be particularly difficult, it helps to take a moment to remind yourself that all of the tools to allow you to progress are present in the environment. You just have to figure out how to use them.

I won’t mention anything more about the encounters you’ll have and the obstacles you’ll face. That would spoil the sense of discovery that is one of the rewards of the game. I’ll just conclude by saying that Limbo is one of the best games I’ve ever played. It haunts my thoughts. Check out the game trailer and see if it doesn’t hook you in, too:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y4HSyVXKYz8&feature=related

At the recent Magic Collectors’ Association conference here in Chicago, I was chatting with a friend when suddenly I saw, over his shoulder and about fifteen feet away, the first magic set I ever owned — the set that I received as a gift when I was seven years old, the set that began my interest in magic. I immediately interrupted the conversation by pointing and saying “Holy crap, that’s my first magic set!” — not exactly the best conversational gambit, but fortunately my buddy happens to be a magician so he understood completely. What are the odds of running across the very item that placed you on one of the most formative paths in your life?

As it turned out, the item was for sale. “Can I look at it?” I asked. “Sure, I’ll open it up” said the man with the magic set. After removing the cardboard sleeve, he opened the vinyl-covered case. Another moment of astonishment: the set was complete and in pristine condition, exactly as I remembered it from decades ago. It looked if it had been magically transported from then to now.

My first magic set, the twin of the one I was looking at, is long gone. The box fell apart from use; the props inside wore out, broke, were lost or discarded. I have only one piece from that original set: a small vinyl rabbit that was meant to be produced out of a plastic top hat. I don’t know why I kept the little white rabbit, but now it serves as a fine reminder of how something small and seemingly insignificant can change a person’s life. The objects in that box led to two published books, a show currently running in a theater, and a position as an editor at a magazine. Magic introduced me to most of my friends, people who have had a profound influence on my life.

It’s fascinating and a bit eerie to consider this question: What would have happened if I had not received that magic set at age seven? Would I have found my way to magic by a different route? Or would I be in a very different place today, surrounded by different people? Would I be a different person?

I bought the magic set at that conference. Given the questions mentioned above, the chances of my standing in that spot in that room with that magic set seemed so unlikely that I had to think I was meant to find it. If that’s magical thinking, so be it. Thinking magically has gotten me this far, hasn’t it?

* * *

We offer the following exhibit as a glimpse into the strange psyche of the entity known as David Parr. Enter at your own risk.

Behold, the Mattel’s Magic Showstoppers Showcase, circa 1969:

Très Peter Max, no? The case folds out to form a table for performance, providing a work surface and keeping props out of view of the audience until needed:

Prepare yourself, for you are about to gaze upon the mysteries within:

A closer look, perhaps? If you dare:

Instruction booklet, magic wand, and my old friend the white rabbit. The two black parts in the upper left assemble to form the plastic top hat from which the rabbit makes his surprising appearance. The blue object in the lower left is for performing a classic magic effect in which two paper clips link in midair. The shiny black object in the lower right is a box in which a torn playing card may be restored, among other mysterious goings on. And the triangular object in the upper right is my favorite, a maze with a tiny metal ball inside. For mere mortals, guiding the ball to the center of the maze requires a full minute of effort, but the mage can complete the task in a few seconds — and with the maze held behind his back!

And here’s a closeup of my old pal:

I’m told that the rabbit is a modification of the Mattel’s Storybook Kiddles White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland (Alice in Wonderliddle, as Mattel called it). The sculpt around the neck and the paintjob were changed on the magic rabbit, but he is in the same pose as the Storybook rabbit, hand raised to display his pocket watch or to greet a seven-year-old magician (or to ward off attackers). A clue to his ancestry is in the instruction booklet for the magic set. Illustrations for the effect titled “The Hare in the Hat” depict the rabbit wearing a little waistcoat with a high collar, exactly like Alice’s White Rabbit.

Thus we conclude our tour. We hope it was illuminating. This way to the egress.