What is Cocoon?
Cocoon is an indie puzzle game developed by Geometric Interactive and published by Annapurna Interactive. It was released on September 29, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch, PS4&5, Xbox Series S&X, and Microsoft Windows. It costs $25 and took me 3.5 hours to complete the main story campaign. In Cocoon you play as a beetle that uses orbs containing worlds to solve puzzles.
Game Review:
Cocoon at first glance looks like a pretty simplistic puzzle game with a great art design and atmospheric environments. And it is; Cocoon only requires a single button in addition to the joystick to control. Every action you can do utilizes that one button. So in some ways it is very simple, but in puzzle and level design it is very complex.
As I mentioned, the beetle that you play uses orbs that contain worlds that you can enter to solve puzzles. Some orbs also give the beetle different ways to navigate terrain. The developers created a very intricate system where you need to bring different orbs with you while you enter the world of a different orb and utilize a specific orb's ability to solve the puzzle within another orb. And you can layer these orbs deep within each other, going four levels deep at some points in the game. This layering of worlds reminds me of the movie Inception where the characters go multiple dream layers deep into a person's subconscious. It’s a really creative concept for a game and can mess with your mind a little bit. There was even one section where I thought I had broken the game because I had layered an orb within itself somehow. I won’t spoil how that happened but the game seemed to show that I had an orb layered within the world that was in the orb.
The orbs in Cocoon have different powers that are utilized throughout the levels in unique ways. For instance, one of the orbs when it’s carried can be used to illuminate and create walkways where paths did not exist before and another orb can be used to fire these little light balls that can interact with certain objects to make things move in the world. The developers do a good job of sprinkling in puzzles that involve all of these different orbs throughout the game. In one of the early portions of the game I saw something that I knew I needed to interact with but had no way of doing it at that point in the game. Later the game introduced a new orb and then I remembered it and was able to go back and do that part of the level.
Cocoon is a masterclass in how to make a game that shows and doesn’t tell. There is no dialogue, instructions, or any words at all in this game. The game simply drops you in this world and trusts you to figure out what to do. It does a good job at giving environmental cues and using the game’s systems and features to communicate, but nothing is explicit. In education we would call this a Constructivist approach, meaning that the teacher poses a problem or situation to a student and lets them come to their own conclusion. This approach gives trust to a student's abilities and also works to help them understand better. Being told something and discovering something have very different learning outcomes. Cocoon uses this model and I think it works brilliantly. I was never told anything as a player but I learned everything I needed to complete the game simply by trying and testing my own hypotheses rather than being given a marker telling me where I needed to go. It’s a brilliant work of game design that helps the player feel more empowered and capable. They also use this technique in their storytelling. There isn’t anything explicit about what happens but they trust the player to come to their own conclusions and decide what the events mean to them.
There are boss fights in a cocoon, a monster at the center of each orb’s world. But there isn’t combat in the traditional sense. Bosses are more like puzzles where you use an orb’s power or other tool you found in that world to beat the boss. And there’s no dying in boss fights either, if they land a hit on you it sends you back up one level outside of the orb. It’s an interesting take that doesn’t punish a player for trying things and makes it very family friendly.
Cocoon is carefully crafted to feel great. The music is very peacefully ominous, building tension but never overwhelming the player. The art design is beautiful, combining insectoid features with futuristic mechanisms. And the animations are stellar, especially the animation of entering or exiting an orb and moving between the layers. It’s so smooth and flows so well into gameplay. They definitely nailed the vibes they were going for.
Family Friendliness:
Cocoon is a family friendly game. There is not really any violence outside of the necessary hits to defeat a boss. There are no deaths as bosses disappear in ashes and you just get sent up a level when you lose to a boss. There is no language or dialogue at all. The atmosphere is a little spooky at times but I don’t think it really gets scary at any point.
Features for Parents:
Cocoon is a very short game where it’s very easy to pick up and put down. I don’t love the save system as it is checkpoint based and it doesn’t really tell you when it’s saving and there’s no way to manually save your game. There are no instructions but I feel like the game itself is masterfully crafted to teach you how to play without having to tell you anything. There is an accessibility mode but all that does is let you choose which button to use for the game’s single function button.
Final Verdict:
Cocoon is a clinic on how to design a puzzle game that doesn’t hold the players hand but shows them exactly what they need to know, all while not saying a word. It showcases the creativity that developers can reach when they embrace the idea of a short and simple game. There’s no filler, just great design. Short indie games like this are the reason I think videogames are so special. This is a must-play game that won’t get the attention it deserves in 2023.