Limbo
Playdead’s break-out platformer Limbo was critically acclaimed for its story-telling and art-style but that very narrative contains nothing but sadness. The main character is dead, trapped in an eternal Limbo chasing after his sister (who’s also dead). Clues provided in the title screen indicate that the two died from falling out of a tree house.
There are many other ways to spin the overall tale though. For instance, the sister doesn’t know she’s dead and is just running away. Perhaps the boy is the real villain a la Tim from Braid.
In a way, the transition from the forest landscape to a harsher city-scape may also represent the boy moving to a place that he didn’t like in real life. Or maybe it’s a flashback to a harsher time and he moved to the countryside with his family, which eventually led to the accident that killed him and his sister.
However, as a whole, there’s evidence to support that the sister you’re chasing after is not real and that the boy is simply traversing Limbo for eternity, running from his worst fears and phobias manifesting in physical form. That’s the giant spider that’s chasing him, by the way.
