Cocoon

Cocoon is a puzzle-adventure game where your character travels between entangled worlds, leveraging alien technology along the way. The worlds themselves come in the form of transportable orbs, which must be entered or exited in order to clear the challenges. With expansive art direction and a mostly seamless sense of progression, Cocoon focuses on delivering a spellbinding experience.

As a cosmic, moth-like creature, you make your way across scenic environments by harnessing the power of world-spheres. These mysterious artifacts enable you to carry entire areas of the game world on your back, which can be swapped around in order to untangle knotty paths. Each orb also grants a unique ability, like rebuilding collapsed bridges in a small circular zone around your character. Mixing up these abilities as you come in and out of the orbs is key to accessing new areas.

These recursive mechanics may be reminiscent of complex games like Patrick’s Parabox, or the aptly named Recursed, but Cocoon goes out of its way to remain approachable. The mind-warping aspect of parallel worlds is mitigated by a smooth progression curve, and the exploration is deftly guided by audio cues, color-coded environments, and one-way level transitions. In an effort to streamline interactivity, the studio made sure that different actions (such as opening a door, activating a lift, or plunging into an orb) would not conflict with each other, thus allowing the use of a single action key/button. Even in the late puzzles and their careful setups, the game does not stray from a serene linearity.

In that sense, Cocoon is very much in line with the previous games designed by Jeppe Carlsen, like Limbo or Inside. Again it features no dialogue, aiming for a sense of otherworldly mystery. Insect-drone companions and other biomechanical contraptions roam exotic, low-poly decors. Most creatures are non-threatening, except for a few unearthly bosses confined to short puzzle-action sequences. This ambitious art direction is capped off with pristine sound design, built around synthetic noises which blend both organic and industrial elements.

This description was written by Oriane Tury and edited by Oriane Tury.