Quite charming visually, and with a slow pace that can be very relaxing, Cocoon starts off simple but increases in complexity at the end. It provides almost no hard challenges, but is interesting enough to keep you hooked until the more complex puzzles appear.

Wikipedia summary:

Cocoon is a 2023 puzzle adventure game directed by the designer of Limbo and Inside. The player controls a beetle that can hop between worlds, solving puzzles to unravel the universe’s mysteries.

Review

Setup

  • Version: PC
  • Difficulty: -
  • Total playing time: 6 hours

Comments

Cocoon is a very quiet game. For most of it, its slow pace makes it very relaxing, and even mesmerizing. It has a very simple control scheme: directionals + a single action button, and that’s it.

The vast majority of the puzzles were not hard, but instead felt like it just required enough attention to make you focus and, together with the visual/audio environment, made the experience quite peaceful. Some gaming reviews said it felt like going through the actions to finish the puzzles took longer than mentally figuring them out, and that is a feeling I also had regularly during my play-through, specially in the first four hours (until we get most spheres). We also have to fight some bosses, one for each sphere. However, the boss fights themselves are not hard either, being mostly about timing actions correctly.

Not a lot of context is given to us before starting. We wake up in a desert landscape and face some puzzles, eventually finding an alien object that, upon use, brings us to another universe. In this new universe, lets call it the external one, we see a red sphere. Through the animation of travelling, we can see that we came out of this red sphere, indicating the sphere itself holds the desert universe which we woke up in. A boss creature wakes up in front of us, and enters the red sphere.

At this point, we are free to explore the external universe, and we find several alien artifacts that can only be used when powered by the energy of a sphere. We can take the red sphere with us and carry it to put them on these artifacts, powering them up or activating them directly (like bridges, stairs, or other things that allow us to progress further). We eventually arrive at a type of artifact that allows us to jump back into the red sphere. At this point, we have already found a little flying robot that is able to remove some walls blocking our path, and it follows us into the red sphere, deactivating walls and opening up paths that we have not explored yet. In this newly opened path, we can find the boss creature, and upon beating it, we go back to the external universe and find out the real power of the red sphere has been released, emanating a short reddish aura around it, capable of revealing previously invisible red crystal bridges. This allows us to further explore the external world while carrying the red sphere with us.

As the game progresses, we find up to four spheres total. We have to jump into and out of them, face each of their bosses to reveal their powers, thus enabling different paths to continue. The gameplay cycle becomes exploring each of them, sometimes bringing one or multiple spheres with you, so that you can power up what is necessary and/or use their special powers.

Difficulty

Basically no hints or directions are provided to us, aside from some audio cues when advancing with the right combinations between puzzles. I still could see someone getting lost if they are not focused, because there is a bit of back and forth moving with the spheres after you get enough of them. However, at the same time, until you unlock three or four of the spheres, it is kind of just a straight line.

The difficulty picks up a little after around four hours, when you have all spheres, because it becomes a mental exercise to keep track of all universes you can jump into, and in which order you entered them, as we can do it “inception style”, taking spheres into each other and travelling through “layers” of universes. Sometimes we are required to bring specific spheres inside others, in specific order, so that you can travel back at another location while having access to specific powers. So, basically, only when we have all spheres does the game actually become really engaging mentally.

Graphics

The game has a charming and also simple visual design, with not enough detail to distract the player. Each sphere has a unique “ambient” or “environment”, that use colors similar to that of the sphere itself. For example, the red sphere contains a reddish desert landscape, while the green sphere has a greenish, more watery one.

The game started having FPS issues on full screen overnight, so it was a bit annoying, but realized it was probably related to my monitor changing frequencies (somehow). There were still quite a few reports on Steam forums about similar issues, so maybe there was a combination happening there. Fortunately, I fixed them quite easily and had no other problem then.

Pros

  • Short game, simple and straightforward controls
  • Relaxing/mesmerizing audio and visuals
  • By the end, some interesting puzzles

Cons

  • Takes too long to pick up difficulty