An Adventure Across Worlds Within Worlds
Cocoon is a puzzle adventure game published by Annapurna Interactive. It is the debut title from Geometric Interactive, a studio founded by game director Carl Jeppsen (who was previously the lead designer of Limbo and INSIDE) and composer Jakob Schmid, both of whom were former members of Playdead. It was released on September 29, 2023 for the Nintendo Switch, Playstation 4, Playstation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, and Steam.
The game is centered on an insectoid protagonist who finds itself in a barren wasteland and comes across a mysterious orb. The protagonist comes across other orbs that it must use to visit the worlds inside and uncover the mysteries surrounding them.
Not to be confused with the 1985 sci-fi film of the same name.
Tropes in Cocoon:
- Ambiguous Ending: The game ends with the protagonist flying off into the sky, potentially escaping through all the worlds. However, it's then revealed that all these worlds are in fact different planets in the same solar system, which is contained within another realm being watched over by a monster. So the final fate of the protagonist is unknown.
- Anchored Teleportation: Used in several ways, mainly as a method for moving between worlds
- One of the player's major abilities, which allows them to summon a certain world orb to their position by pulling it out of any number of purple ball-shaped plants. This is quite convenient, as puzzles usually require you to figure out how to get the orb to the obstacle in the first place.
- There are actually three completely different ways to travel between worlds.
- Entering a world involves placing an orb on certain pedestals to open portals, and the player will arrive at the last exit teleporter used there.
- Exiting a world involves activating an exit teleporter, which will drop the player next to that world's orb wherever it is. It is possible (and necessary) to arrange worlds recursively, either exiting into themselves or moving through cycles.
- Finally, a few parts of the game allow the player to rip open large walkable portals between worlds. This is the only way to set up recursive worlds.
- Benevolent Boss: The last boss of the game will watch you from the background as you work on some puzzles, willingly gives you the orbs it's guarding (unlike the other bosses) in order to ensure you can complete puzzles, and sends you the energy balls that you reflect to destroy it. By the time it gives you the last orb, it can barely move and it finally self-destructs in a tragic manner.
- Big Creepy-Crawlies: All the bosses are various insects that are larger than the player and serve as significant obstacles that must be defeated.
- Boss Game: Downplayed since it's first and foremost a puzzle game, but there are no other enemies in the game apart from the bosses.
- Bullfight Boss: The fourth boss attacks the player with its legs and must be led to flashing yellow areas to immobilize it and destroy its legs to defeat it.
- Cosmic Horror Story: You play as a lone insectoid creature who discovered a mysterious orb which takes it outside it's own world, encountering a monster it must then defeat. As the game progresses you discover more orbs, containing other worlds, and monsters that you must defeat to progressfurther, relying on Recursive Reality to solve the puzzles. Then it turns out that larger world, which contained the first three worlds, is an orb itself and is far more alien than the previous one, with it also having a monster guardian you must defeat. And finally, the Ambiguous Ending implies all these worlds are in fact different planets inside the same solar system while the final world was in fact the sun, with these solar system being contained within another orb watched over by a giant monster.
- Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Getting hit during a boss fight just forces you out of the orb you're currently in, making you restart the boss fight from the beginning.
- Dishing Out Dirt: One of the player's major abilities, used to raise and lower pillars marked by vines and flowers. Inactive pillars phase into green mist.
- Used by the first boss to make damaging lines of crystals in its arena.
- Used by the second boss to divide the arena and constrain the player's movement, allowing it to deploy its Spin Attack to devastating effect.
- Energy Ball: One of the player's major abilities, allowing them to fire shots from certain platforms to activate switches. They move slowly, bounce off mirrors, and can be shot into other worlds. The world orb that grants this ability can also be placed into turrets to fire repeatedly and aid in solving puzzles.
- Eternal Engine: The primary world that the protagonist traverses for the first half of the game when not going inside orbs is a large industrial area that’s seemingly empty.
- Evolving Title Screen: The title screen is originally presented as an empty area with a few pedestals present. It gets filled with the bosses that have been defeated as the player progresses.
- Hard Light: One of the player's major abilities, used to create walkable bridges. Most of its puzzles revolve around rotating machinery that changes the paths created.
- High-Altitude Battle: The final boss must be fought three times in order to get the orbs back from it, all of them occurring in the air. The player has to fire at activation switches before firing a projectile at the boss. It will reflect the projectile in the second and third battles, requiring the player to react, otherwise the protagonist will fall down to the ground.
- Minimalism: Like Jeppsen’s previous titles, the game relies on a simple control scheme and forgoes dialogue and exposition in favor of emphasizing how mysterious and desolate the worlds are.
- Moth Menace: The first boss is a moth that can summon smaller yellow creatures from its wings to slow down the protagonist.
- Recursive Reality: The crux of the game revolves around placing orbs containing worlds in areas in order to enter them and the orbs can be placed inside another orb and can be entered from inside under the right circumstances. It gets much more intricate near the end of the game where the player has to place an orb in an area and then use an exit pad in order to solve a puzzle and emerge from that orb, which is treated as its own reality. The ending reveals that the world is set inside its own reality which is inside another world that’s being watched over by a large monster.
- Single-Biome Planet: Each world is pretty much one single biome. They do have some subterranean layers and sub-biomes, but they're still extremely homogeneous compared to Earth.
- Teleporter's Visualization Clause: The third boss requires the player to teleport around the arena to avoid coming into contact with it and to hit the projectiles that can damage it. There is a purple indicator during that battle that shows where the player can teleport and the teleportation is only in effect during that fight.
- Video Game Tools: The second-most-important mechanic of the game. And also subverted because you don't get to carry them in your inventory nor assign them to buttons. Instead they're tied to bulky orbs you have pick up, carry around one at a time, and place in certain locations to progress. The entire game only needs a single button to use all of them!
