When I first heard about Cocoon, I was excited that someone had decided to make a game based on an obscure sci-fi dramedy from the 80s. Perhaps we’d even get the chance to play as Wilford Brimley, which would be the ultimate power fantasy. Unfortunately, this Cocoon does not feature elderly retirement home inhabitants and everyone’s favorite spokesperson for “diabetus” testing supplies, although it does feature aliens. So close enough I suppose.
If you’ve played titles like Limbo or Playdead’s Inside – part of the “child-in-peril" genre of games - then Cocoon has likely been on your radar as it was created by Geometric Interactive, a studio that features former Playdead members Jeppe Carlsen and Jakob Schmid. This new team has banded together to make this weird little alien puzzle platformer that even after playing through to completion I’m still confused about, which I guess is kind of the point of these things.
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As Cocoon begins, the little insect-person that you control awakens from a pod – a cocoon if you will – on a strange, desert planet. As you venture forward stepping on platforms and grabbing strange gooey balls to solve puzzles, you’ll discover Cocoon’s main gameplay hook: every level is contained within a small colored orb that can be used to solve even more puzzles. So in essence, the levels themselves are the objects you use to traverse the worlds. These orbs can be placed upon pedestals to power up machinery, or you can enter the orbs to explore the levels they contain and fight a boss at the very end. Upon defeating a level/orb’s boss, that orb gains a special power that can be used to further explore the other worlds. The orange orb reveals hidden pathways, the green orb allows you to travel vertically through translucent pillars, and so on.
Cocoon is similar to games like Limbo and Inside in that you travel around dangerous locales using objects around the environment to solve puzzles without really knowing why you’re solving those puzzles. Gameplay-wise, it isn’t too complex. You move, you interact with or pick up objects and orbs, and that’s about it. However, as you progress and acquire more orbs, you’ll need to find ways to use their powers within other levels. To do this, you bring orbs inside of other orbs meaning that other levels can be contained within other levels like some kind of interdimensional Russian nesting doll.
And that’s when the game starts to become more and more of a mind trip straight out of Inception. For example, a solution to a puzzle may require you to position a platform in one level, then warp out of that level into another level. Then in that level, you need to set up another object to fire projectiles into the orb that represents the level you just warped out of towards the platform you set up earlier. If that all seems confusing, that’s because it is. Even just trying to describe the gameplay of Cocoon is giving me a mild headache. That doesn’t mean it’s not fun though. The puzzles of Cocoon are challenging but offer up some unique situations that require you to think hard about how to use an orb’s power to manipulate the levels and their environments.
Of course, these puzzles wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if the levels they were found in weren’t visually appealing. Cocoon has an art style that is at times charming and colorful, while at other times looks like something H.R. Giger would have come up if he had decided to develop an indie game. Each level has a distinct flavor. The first world looks like an orange desert planet full of sand and craggy cliffs. The second world is swampy and green, the third resembles an abandoned purple insect hive, and later levels feature warped machinery and ethereal mountaintops. Paired with the ambient electronic music that drones on in the background during pivotal moments, it all creates a very eerie, alien atmosphere.
The only issue with this particular atmosphere is that it’s a little hard to relate to it on an emotional level. With games like Limbo and Inside, it was easy to become invested in or at least understand those worlds as they resembled our reality but with a macabre twist. Plus, in those titles, you spend the entire time attempting to prevent the gruesome death of a small child, which adds additional stakes and a layer of mystery as you’re constantly wondering what is pushing this kid forward into such deadly scenarios.
Cocoon is maybe a bit too mysterious. It lacks any sort of real narrative, and since everything is either mechanical, insect-like, or just plain weird, it’s difficult to have any reaction to what’s going on beyond “huh, that’s pretty neat.” With no plot, there’s nothing to keep you going other than wanting to see what otherworldly setting is coming up next. Thankfully, that’s enough of a draw as the game is nice to look at, but I wish I cared more about why my little bug-man was juggling orbs.
You also won’t be spending much time in those orbs as Cocoon isn’t a very long game. I managed to get through it in about 5 hours, and if you happen to be a rather adept puzzle solver you’ll likely be able to blast your way through it in even less time. There’s not much replayability here either. There are collectibles in the form of creatures called Moon Ancestors that can be found in each of the levels. I have a hard enough time finding my keys each time I leave the house, so I didn’t find every one. But I imagine that upon discovering them all it will unlock some kind of secret, so that may be enough reason to take at least one more journey through the levels. Other than that, Cocoon is similar to most other small indie puzzle platformers in that once you’ve completed it, there won’t be much of an incentive to play it again.
While Cocoon didn’t connect with me on the same level as other indie puzzlers, I had a great time venturing through orbs to solve mind-bending puzzles and explore alien worlds. The game also succeeds when it comes to giving you a great WTF ending, which is a requirement for this genre. It’s nice to see that even after leaving Playdead these developers are still able to deliver another fun albeit utterly baffling experience. All that’s keeping it from being a true masterpiece is a little more child danger and an appearance from theQuaker Oatsman himself.
Reviewed On PC
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