Right, elevator pitch: you’re a nice little bug-person who wordlessly solves environmental puzzles in a mournful, sci-fi atmosphere; there’s an earthy-pastel colour palette; there’s a soft and pleasingly tactile feel to the world; it’s got a nice font; it’s made by the lead gameplay designer of Limbo and Inside; and it’s published by Annapurna – who probably only got about two-thirds of the way through hearing that pitch before flinging open their wallet.
This sounds a little rote – maybe because the added sense of surprise that comes with these almost aggressively tasteful, prestige-indie darlings has faded a smidge in the face of familiarity, but also maybe because I’ve likely undersold it. Cocoon is brilliant.
Much of this comes down to atmosphere which, perhaps unsurprisingly given its pedigree, is magic. My demo – hosted at Play Days, Summer Game Fest’s small in-person portion for media – began on a rocky terracotta world, scattered with abstract shapes and curious obelisks. The music is synthy and minimalist and so you just pitter-patter around the place, nudging at it. Quickly Cocoon becomes a game about nudging, in fact. You’re nudged artfully onto the right path forwards in that very delicate hands-off way these games have now perfected. You nudge the edges of the world as you explore it – what’s walkable? What moves? What does this do? And then you start nudging stuff around.
Cocoon’s puzzles are tests of spatial reasoning, first, and then maybe short-term memory second. Much of them revolve around its seemingly central object, a magic orb, but after a simple start – pick orb up, put it in socket to activate thing, interact with some kind of obstacle (a platform, a wall, a kind of pinball funnel pipe, etc.), progress – Cocoon folds in on itself to find its big twist, and in doing so cascades outwards.