It’s extremely rare to come across a puzzle-based adventure game as elegant as ‘Cocoon’. We enter the game universe as a young fly, guided completely by visual cues. There are no tutorials, no guides, or dialogues - zero text on screen. Apart from the navigation icons for movement, we only ever use one other button. And despite appearing this simple, the brilliance of the game shines through its intricate puzzles that slowly evolve. 15 minutes into the game, and we might find ourselves immersed in the absurd puzzle-based logic that makes things work in this strange land.
The fly in the game doesn’t… well, fly. Instead, it uses its wings to shoulder these bright glowing orbs and hike around rugged lands, for no apparent reason. Like a tiny, quiet Sisyphus. That is, if Sisyphus carried a magical orb instead of a boulder and used their magic to fight with bio-mechanical monsters. In addition to having their special unique powers in the game, the orbs also transport you into differently coloured realms. The orange orb takes you to a very Mars-like region, with cliffs and rocks that hold puzzle elements within them. The green orb takes you to a watery marshland, and there’s also a purple and white realm that’s very different in aesthetic to the first two - you get the picture.
The goal, we soon uncover over the next five hours - is to find all these orbs, enter all their realms, use the powers of the orb, and liberate the lands of monstrous guardians. My simple interpretation of the story may be far from the truth though, considering that game renders no written text to confirm my assumptions. It’s very vibes-based that way. The lack of text-based confirmations and obvious milestones in the game also had me a little confused and surprised every time I picked it up after a short break. I found myself wondering how I had managed to unquestioningly absorb the ridiculous “logic” that the game uses to solve its puzzles. How did I instinctively know to carry the purple orb into the green realm to unlock a bridge?
Upon reaching the end credits, I had a humbling realization. It wasn’t my exceptional cleverness that solved the puzzles. Rather, the game cleverly structured its puzzle environments, creating a linear path while giving the illusion of player choice. It had me thinking that I was finding creative ways to jump into worlds within worlds using the orbs to slowly walk my way to the ending when it really was guiding me in a very subtle way. This awareness highlighted the game’s brilliance, making every puzzle, no matter how perplexing, an intricately designed piece of a larger, interconnected world.
The best part of this game is that it doesn’t need you to spend too long playing it, and I finished it within six hours. Developed by the same people who worked on ‘Limbo’ and ‘Inside’, the great puzzle games of the last decade, Cocoon released only two weeks back across consoles. Suitable for beginners to video games and enthusiasts alike, the game is currently free with the Xbox Game Pass to play on the PC and Xbox. Alternately, you can also purchase it for the PlayStation and Nintendo Switch.