Inside is one of the two best horror games of the past decade (the other is SOMA) and Cocoon is a new game by the same designer. It’s not a horror game, though it does occasionally have a slightly unsettling atmosphere that I appreciate.
The world you explore reminds me of R-Type in its biomechanical design, and it feels both alien and videogamey. Puzzles are somewhat traditional in places but often feel unique and clever.
The orbs that you find in the game are both tools with unique properties and little worlds that you can jump in and out of, like a simpler version of Patrick’s Parabox. There are also occasional boss fights that are action puzzles somewhat along the lines of SNES Zelda.
I bought and completed this game on release day. Like Inside, it’s not particularly long but I think it’s just the right length for what it is and it’s definitely worth your attention.
If, like me, you reach the end and have missed a few of the hidden bonus puzzles and would like a more specific idea of where they are than the game provides but not a blatant spoiler, here is a list for you:
"Moon ancestor" locations
01 Off the Beaten Path - 14%
02 Mariner’s Breach - 24%
03 Mesh Network - 27%
04 End of the Line - 32%
05 Skin Deep - 46%
06 Different Destinations - 52%
07 Conduit - 63%
08 Cryptographer - 81%
09 The Space Between the Stars - 84%
10 A Perspective on Things - 86%
11 Loophole Maneuvers - 97%
i’d been interested in this, so turned on my xbox to add to wishlist and it’s on gamepass. i usually keep up on the new releases there, but that was a real nice surprise.
first 30 mins or so have been alright, i was hoping for a bit more non-linearity in regards to worlds/orbs but i’ll see where it goes.
The game is pretty linear. In fact, one thing it does is cut off areas and devices that are no longer relevant to you, so you won’t waste your time backtracking unnecessarily.
I also noticed that there are sometimes musical cues when you’re on the right track to solve a puzzle.
yeah, super linear, which is not the game i would have designed with these mechanics! even if i had felt pressure as the designer to make the game super accessible, i’d have least included some complicated post-story puzzles. but i guess that game has already been made, and it’s called Recursed.
it’s hard to criticize too much though because aesthetically it’s so nice!! even just moving around feels smooth and good. the little pitter patter of the protagonist’s feet is adorable. reminds me of knytt a bit; just good vibes.
I played through this over the past few days and after Inside convinced me that the Limbo folks might have started to figured things out and make some progress in their design Cocoon has me thinking that Inside may have simply stumbled upon its better path by mere happenstance (I know it’s not the same exact team). Very neat art style in service of just sort of going along with the flow of not having any idea why you are doing anything for its entire runtime. Having finished it within the past 90 or so minutes I legit could not tell you what it was even close to about. I think it is impressive in a way to take mechanics this complicated and make nothing but fairly straightforward puzzles out of them.
IDK it’d be a lie to say it is bad, it’s basically adds up to being just for the aesthetics and they are very nice, but I don’t think anything else really stands out in any way. It’s ultimately very 7 out of 10.
it KILLS me that in design talks he’s saying he threw away tons of puzzles because they were too hard. i would have loved a puzzle that was too hard. the puzzles left in the game are almost painfully simple, to the point where many of them are lacking non-trivial branches entirely and there’s only really one or two things to even try if you don’t see the solution immediately.
the game feels like a theme park ride. it didn’t leave a sour taste in my mouth, but i almost immediately forgot it after playing it. now i couldn’t even tell you what the mechanics were, past carrying and jumping into orbs. i kept waiting for some recursed-esque mind-bending puzzles and they just never came. surely he could have at least taken a few of those cut puzzles and used them as post-credits challenges. i really wanted there to be something to hold onto in this game past the aesthetics but there was nothing.
Pretty much only two or three puzzles made me feel clever for doing them, the rest felt very Gaming 101. I’d probably pay a few bucks for a Hard Puzzles DLC or something
Really I can live with the puzzles being sorta rote as I wasn’t expecting more than that (I was actually shocked that the main mechanic was as theoretically complex as it was) but the lack of any sort of real narrative or even theme to grab onto is what gave me the most pause. The aesthetic is great but in Inside and even Limbo I could at least have some idea about what it was all about/working towards even if it stumbled a bit, I’m sure there is something written on a design document somewhere but I couldn’t even pretend to guess at what it would be.
Yeah as the linked post goes on to say (I guess I should have put it in here instead of the generic GYPT in the first place eh) I had basically the same problem, although it was less that it was completely mysterious and more that I believe the game was about naked cosmic awe divorced from anything recognizable as human stakes. Like you’re not missing anything, it really was about evoking that feeling and not much else specific.
There is a super secret metapuzzle that gives you an extra ending cutscene that maybe you missed, but it’s no more illustrative than the rest of the game, just a cute cap off that reminded me of the very end of Men in Black more than anything…
