Similarly to my playthrough of Scorn almost exactly a year ago, we return to the genre in Cocoon. Now, on the surface they look nothing alike as Cocoon avoids and spooky elements and gore, but at their core they are very similar games. Both take you through some strange world on this journey to a place that you’re still unsure of even after you arrive. The only story you pick up on is subtle and doused in puzzles. Unsurprisingly, I loved the ride that Cocoon led me through!
Story
There honestly isn’t much to talk about when it comes to story and I’m not even sure I could spoil it in a traditional sense. This adventure relies on deep atmospheric vibes that insight curiosity. This curiosity is honestly one of the best drivers in pushing you through the game itself. I’ve always found the games that keep me hooked the longest are the ones that are driven with at least some element of “I wonder what’s over there,” or “what the heck does that mean?” or even “where are my clothes and car keys?!?” All classics. Honestly, this being a big draw for myself and many others is a huge reason why I think horror just as a general idea is so big. Horror, or this idea of the unknown is a huge set piece used to create small indie games as well as giant blockbuster movies – all while being so insanely similar. Anyways….
Gameplay (ft. Spoilers)
The game itself plays very smoothly and very simply. There are literally only two controls: 8-way directional movement and a single action button. The simplicity here takes on a new form when it comes to the depth of puzzles you find yourself up against. You see, the entire game revolves around this idea of nested worlds. You find these orbs that allow you to leave your current world and go inside into another and the entire game plays out that way. You use these lateral world-jumps to traverse the different lands and of course puzzles in front of you. The trickiness of it all comes from the fact that the worlds are all existing simultaneously (which in all honesty is a very neat trick). The more difficult puzzles in the game use this idea to the fullest and have you having to nest one world inside another, which is then inside another and so forth, all while you’re racking your brain trying to figure out how to get the next point. It’s honestly very cool and very addicting and I loved every moment of it. I don’t binge a lot of games front to back as quickly as I did Cocoon, even with the short time to beat.
Audio/Visual
Sound is what drives a good atmosphere. I know you’ve all seen those videos of “does this love story still feel the same listening to eerie sounds?” and the answer is always no. Sound effects and music evoke all sorts of feelings that honestly I’m not even sure humans fully understand yet. This game doesn’t shy away from adding mystery and scale wherever it can. Even though you’re never entirely sure what’s going on and what sort of beings you’re interacting with you truly feel every the developers wanted you to. There’s classic larger-than-life Inception-like sounds when giant things are moving and small whimsical melodies you hear whenever you’ve accomplished a task. I haven’t run into a lot of games that have bad sound design when they forgo dialog, but I’ve played plenty of games that have dialog over top bad sound design. Cocoon is neither.
Achievements
You couldn’t ask for a better achievement list. In recent years I’m finding myself drawn more towards games that include lists that fall right in line with simply beating the game with a few extras. It feels like I’m getting back to my roots like when I first started gaming and I just wanted to play without the added stress of “oh should I even start this game because the list is too stupid?” This is exactly what I need to do that. Every story achievement comes naturally and there’s no stress of missables, because you can load up any portion at any time. I personally waited until the end to go back in, but that’s personal preference. I didn’t want achievements yucking up my experience. Pushing myself to play games more in this fashion is the most fun a guy can have with a controller in his hands. When I first started streaming story-driven games, my main goal was clean up my backlog, but getting to experience a blind playthrough and not care about achievements has really been an exciting time. For completionists like myself, I can’t stress to enough how stress-free playing games with good achievement design can be.
Pros
– Great atmosphere
– Simple controls/mechanics
– Puzzles aren’t too difficult
Cons
– I don’t know, you’re a bug?
