Cocoon is enrapturing. A couple of minutes into my demo, I had already managed to fully block out the noise of the bustling Summer time Sport Fest crowds round me – no small feat – and located myself fully absorbed within the mysterious desert landscapes of the alien planet I used to be exploring. Whereas ostensibly a sport about fixing puzzles, enjoying Cocoon felt much less like figuring out options to brainteasers, and extra like attempting to interpret and be taught the principles of the world round me. Or, worlds, to be extra exact. Whereas its developer, Geometric Interactive, isn’t revealing too lots of the sport’s secrets and techniques simply but, I’m captivated by what I’ve performed up to now, and may’t wait to untangle the online of its interconnected items.
Going into Cocoon, all I knew was that this was the subsequent mission from Jeppe Carlsen, the previous lead gameplay designer from studio Playdead who helped create the spooky side-scrollers Limbo and Inside. Cocoon feels very completely different from these video games aesthetically – its world is extra colourful, and the brand new top-down perspective allows you to see way more of it directly. However like his earlier works, Cocoon’s premise is deliberately imprecise and left unexplained firstly. The protagonist is sort of insect-like in look, donning a pair of what appear like mechanical wings; likewise, lots of the numerous creatures I glimpsed appeared nearly biomechanical in nature. The world is sparse apart from unusual industrial constructions and machines scattered throughout its cliffs and valleys, and big steel doorways that impede your progress.
However you carry a novel device – orbs resembling snowglobes, which every include whole worlds inside them. By carrying these orbs with you and putting them within the round receptacles that dot that world, you’ll be able to then enter the worlds contained inside them immediately. This appears to be a key ingredient of the development by way of Cocoon. In my demo, an orb I found introduced me right into a darkish, cavernous world the place, after shifting some shifting platforms round, I woke up a wierd drone-like creature that adopted me again by way of the portal, and opened up a pathway for me that was beforehand inaccessible. Different footage of the sport exhibits orbs being transported by way of portals, alluding to a layered system that may allow you to carry worlds by way of and between others.
If definitely a high-concept premise, however it was surprisingly fast to know whereas enjoying. And so far as I can inform not less than, there’s little to no fight in Cocoon – not less than, not within the chunk of the sport I sampled. The main target as an alternative appears to be on discovering methods to progress deeper into the unwelcoming surroundings, and discovering new areas to put orbs so you’ll be able to entry extra of the worlds they include. You’ll flip switches to unlock new bridges and paths, search for rune-like symbols to activate environmental triggers, and usually search for methods to move orbs between terrain by way of timing-based puzzles and such. I used to be shocked at how approachable every thing felt – I used to be by no means scratching my head for too lengthy, and infrequently, merely exploring introduced me with a path ahead, even when I needed to do some work to activate its elements.
And whereas there are some formidable foes you’ll encounter known as Guardians, the one I encountered introduced no direct approach for me to break it myself – relatively, I needed to interact with the surroundings round me to search for methods to take advantage of its vulnerabilities. For instance, as soon as I seen a creature tunneling round underground, I used to be in a position to pull it up and use some well-timed throws to deal injury. It was a tense sequence, thanks largely to the looming stature of the creature, its unnerving design and its erratic actions. Combating it felt like trial by fireplace, and it was a blast.
Cocoon’s visible magnificence is unassuming, however a lot of it’s within the particulars – the best way clouds of mud comply with in your wake as I pottered by way of the sand, for instance, or the best way the orbs’ glows mirror off swimming pools of water. What actually helped immerse me, although, was the outstandingly wealthy, layered sound design – the best way creatures sound each artificial and alive, and the best way constructions creak and groan as you interact with their mechanics. The sparse soundtrack is dense with alien synths and distortions, evoking feelings of each uncertainty and inquisitiveness in me as I explored.
The one time I felt upset with Cocoon was when my demo ended, and I couldn’t play any extra of it. I can’t bear in mind the final time a puzzle-driven journey engrossed me so rapidly and effortlessly, nor can I recall the final time I felt such an intrinsic curiosity to know a world so eager on withholding its solutions from me. It stays to be seen simply how deep the “worlds-within-worlds” mechanic will enterprise, and whether or not Cocoon has any specific narrative payoff tucked within the crevices of its opaque atmosphere. I can’t wait to search out out when Cocoon releases on Swap and different platforms later this yr.