When I watched Men in Black (1997) for the first time as a child, I was struck by the final punchline of the movie. We see the country, then the planet, then the galaxy, eventually revealing that our entire universe is inside a marble that some alien is playing games with. It’s an idea as simple as it is clever, and one that I kind of love. Many years later, the Rick and Morty (2013-) episode The Ricks Must Be Crazy (2015) releases and plays with a similar concept, although in reverse. In it, Rick reveals that inside the battery running his car is a whole universe of people creating energy for him. And the scientist of that universe then also created a battery with a whole universe inside of it. And so on.
I’m sure these are not the only times anyone has used this concept, but it’s the only times I can remember seeing it for myself. That is until Cocoon was revealed, a puzzle game developed by Geometric Interactive and published by Annapurna Interactive that plays around with this exact idea. You play a little bug… alien(?) that carries around marbles on its back, and as you can probably guess by now, within them are little worlds that you can jump in and out of, which is the primary mechanic of the game.
It’s also basically the only mechanic in Cocoon, or at least every other mechanic is in direct correlation to it. Buttons that can be activated by placing a marble on them, threats that need to be dodged by jumping in and out of a world at the right moment (which can only be done at dedicated stations that allow for it by the way) and, of course, a plethora of puzzles that force you to think about everything that’s available to you in the moment, not just in the world you’re in but any number of world you might have access to in that moment.
Things start to get interesting once you’re transporting multiple marbles with their own distinct inside of them, around with you, since the little bug fella can only carry one item at any time. Sometimes you can circumvent this in pretty straightforward ways, like simply storing one of your marbles within the world of another one. So when you carry it around, you’re essentially carrying both of them, as long as you have a spot to jump in and grab the marble again wherever you’re going. But more often than not, this isn’t an option, and you need to find ways to transport them one by one to the new location.
This is further complicated because every marble comes with its own special abilities that are unlocked once you defeat the boss within them. And yes, Cocoon has boss fights. You pick up a new marble with an intricate world inside of it, you go inside it to progress both in this new world as well as the outer world, you get to the boss, defeat it, and now can use a new power to further progress in the outer world, which probably gets you to unlock a new marble, and the cycle starts again. As such, the game becomes increasingly more complex, as you not only have more marbles to juggle, but also different marbles with different abilities. More often than not, these abilities allow you to travel across a new kind of pathway, like the first orange marble that creates crystaline bridges for you at the given locations.
But I feel I need to clarify that none of the puzzles are particularly difficult. Even at its most complex, Cocoon’s puzzles can be grasped rather quickly, and are more about you executing them than you sitting there staring at the screen figuring out the solution. And even if you are stuck for once, trial and error will get you pretty far. Sometimes the execution can be a bit annoying though, as it tends to involve a lot of running back and forth, grabbing one thing and taking it somewhere before you run back to grab another thing. After a while, it can get a bit tedious.
Until now, I haven’t even mentioned the real reason why people got excited about Cocoon, apart from it just looking good that is. Because Cocoon is the new game by Jeppe Carlsen, the lead designer of the incredible Limbo (2010) and Inside (2016). And while Cocoon might at first seem like a deviation from those games, with its isometric perspective, a bigger focus on puzzles, and as previously mentioned, proper boss fights, in a lot of ways it fights right in with his previous games. Because like those games, Cocoon puts a focus on atmosphere.
This world that’s so alien and yet still somewhat familiar, ever expanding as you explore it with whole new ecosystems revealing themselves as you explore it. They’re all beautiful to look at with their own quirks that make them unique beyond just being a forest area, or a lake area. The different worlds within the marbles are also colour-coordinated in a really nice way that further cements their identities. But even more than the visuals, it’s the sound design that completely pulls you in.
This was also one of Inside’s (2016) biggest strengths, in my opinion, and Cocoon delivers in the same way. The soundscape of every area is so full and rich that your first instinct can only be that this is all real. At the same time, it’s never overstuffed, with even the score being used in a very resourceful manner rarely ever taking over entirely. The sound only highlights your solitude. A little bug in this massive universe, carrying around literal worlds on its back in the pursuit of… what exactly?
In similar fashion to Jeppe Carlsen’s previous games, Cocoon doesn’t waste any words on explaining anything to you. What’s this world that you’re in? Who knows? Who or what are you? No idea. What’s the purpose of what you’re doing? Only one way to find out: keep playing and observe the world around you while doing so. I’ve always appreciated this approach, as I believe the best universe doesn’t require any of this. Throw me in there and let me feel it, no need to explain it.
Having said that, I can’t say I was satisfied with the ending. Cocoon feels like it’s building up to something grand and then never goes there, and left me feeling like I needed more. Not in a good way. But despite that, all the world building up to that point is incredible and filled me with so much curiosity. Jeppe Carlsen has proven that he can replicate the quality of Limbo (2010) and Inside (2016) without Playdead by his side, as Cocoon is another hit under this man’s belt.
Nairon played Cocoon on PC with a review key. Cocoon is also available on Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series.
