Considering the success of Limbo and especially Inside, it is not surprising that the time is ripe for new projects from Playdead alumni to see the light of day. Last autumn it was Dino Patti’s Somerville, and now Jeppe Carlsen’s studio Geometric Interactive is ready with its first game, Cocoon. But while Somerville stuck relatively closely to the Playdead formula, Cocoon is much more its own distinctive creature. While the legacy of Playdead is present, and the influence of Portal and classic 2D Zelda titles is evident, it would be unfair to dwell too much on the sources of inspiration. Because with its consistent visual expression, deeply evocative sound design and not least exuberant original gaming experience, Cocoon is a very rare experience.
As mentioned, several leading people from Geometric Interactive have a past at Playdead. Director Jeppe Carlsen was, for example, lead gameplay designer on both Limbo and Inside, and almost from the first screenshot you realize that the gameplay is more central to the experience than in the two games. Actually, the premise of the game is simple, but once you dive into the possibilities it offers, it’s still breathtaking. In Cocoon, you guide your little insect-like explorer through an overworld and series of dungeons reminiscent of classic Zelda titles such as A Link to the Past. So far, so good. The twist is that all the dungeons are contained in a perfectly shaped orb that you can carry on your back and even take with you into other dungeons. And why would I do that, you might be thinking? Well, each orb has an ability that activates when you carry it on your back. For example, your first orb can form bridges in certain places, another gives you the ability to change the shape of a certain material so that it is either solid or liquid, while a third gives you the ability to fire shots that can activate otherwise unavailable switches and the like.
So it’s all about choosing the right orb/trait for the right situation, which is fairly easy when you only have one, but becomes downright heartbreaking towards the end of the game – especially since some of the more complicated puzzles require you to start an almost domino-like sequence through several worlds. It can e.g. be a shot that you have to shoot from one world to another to activate the ability that changes the shape of a material so that you can fall through it and reach the point where you have to form a bridge with the ability from the sphere on your back.
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It may sound overwhelming, but in practice I never felt overwhelmed, which is mainly due to three things. First, the introduction to the worlds-within-worlds concept happens at a leisurely pace, and every time you get a new ability, Geometric Interactive makes sure to give you time to get comfortable with it. In addition, the rules of what you can and cannot do in Cocoon are clearly defined, and finally the game delimits your playing space by closing doors behind you, so that you are never in doubt that the key to the solution lies in the remaining rooms.
This creates a perfect foundation for giving your all as the game progresses. Towards the end of the game, there were several times I was almost speechless at the thought-provoking, yet deeply logical puzzles. I almost always knew what I was supposed to, I just didn’t how. And when the eureka moments came, they almost always turned out to be right. An absolutely essential feature for a good puzzle game.
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But Cocoon is more than just the puzzles. Audio-visually, it is also in a class of its own. The graphic style is sharply drawn with its distinct worlds, each built around a clearly defined color palette. It’s a far cry from the orange stone landscape that opens the game to the cold, metallic overworld, but Geometric Interactive’s Erwin Kho still manages to tie it all together in a satisfying way. At the same time, the easily recognizable worlds serve the game’s gameplay, as they make it much easier to quickly navigate from world to world and remember which ability belongs to which world.
The real connective tissue, however, is the soundtrack, which with its ominous and triumphant synths and alienating sound effects creates an enormously evocative soundscape. The music is not recorded, but is generated in real time by programmed synthesizers, which means there is no repetition. It’s just an endless stream of evocative tones, which is a huge plus when you’re trying to solve the next puzzle. The sound effects, in turn, are created using synthesis, which means that every sound – whether it’s the hum of the marsh or the whistling of the wind from the mountain tops – has a sense of something alien, something not of this planet.
And the feeling of something completely foreign is a quality that Cocoon has in abundance. The enigmatic story takes your character on a cosmic journey. Exactly what happens is not easy to decipher, but still I felt drawn to solving the mystery. The places you visit, and the creatures you encounter, are also difficult to understand. They are caught at the intersection between the organic and the mechanical.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the bosses, which occasionally take the game in a more action-packed direction. The diverse and enormous insect-like creatures are clearly inspired by Zelda, and are an exercise in combining cleverness and precision. First you have to find the Achilles heel, and then it’s up to fine motor skills to secure victory. It’s a classic approach to boss fights, but in Cocoon many of the fights are actually challenging, even if you’ve found the boss’s weakness. This is not least due to the fact that at the slightest touch you are thrown out of the world by the boss himself. This may sound frustrating, but because the challenge is fair, the controls are crisp, and the ability to jump right back to the boss is available, it never gets frustrating. Instead, the bosses are natural crescendos that briefly get your pulse racing and sweating. Several of them introduce sparkling new mechanics that are unique to that particular match. This is impressive in itself, and even better is that they work flawlessly and feel satisfying. Especially in a late boss fight, the introduction, the battle arena, and the central premise come together into a higher unity and create one of the most memorable duels I’ve had the pleasure of emerging victorious from in recent years.
The bosses are also one of the reasons the game’s pacing works as well as it does. They usually come right after some of the game’s more challenging puzzles, and are replaced by more passive and completely linear sequences where the images are in focus and you get the opportunity to take a breather before the brain has to be seriously activated again. This creates a good rhythm, and overall Cocoon is just a really nice game to hold in your hands. As mentioned above, the controls are razor sharp, and the technical condition is so rock solid that it almost feels like you’re holding a physical object in your hands.
Yes, I am very excited about Geometric Interactive’s debut game. My only complaint is that there is occasionally a bit too much travel time when – especially in the last hours of the game – you try out solutions that fail, and therefore have to travel across worlds to rearrange the various orbs. It’s a problem many puzzle games suffer from to a greater or lesser degree, but here it’s mitigated by the fact that the solution often triggers a eureka moment, and then of course the completely seamless transport between worlds that allows you to travel back and forth with no delay other than a delightful animation accompanied by a hissing sound.
Few games have fascinated me like Cocoon with its meter-thick atmosphere and reality-warping challenges. It’s an alien among its earthly peers, and even when it pulls a twist on a classic series like The Legend of Zelda, it twists the concepts we know so well, such as having to travel between worlds in a fraction of a second . Some games captivate you with their breadth and their almost hubris-like level of ambition. Cocoon does this by executing its tight focus perfectly – just as the role model Portal did twice more than ten years ago.
2023-09-28 18:00:00
#Cocoon #Review
