"An Intriguing Metamorphosis": Cocoon Review

screenrant.com:

It's really been an exciting era for puzzle games. Whether it's unraveling the mystery of the thematically challenging or the moving experience of, video game players have had plenty of opportunities for varied experiences that test their thinking. Enter , from Annapurna Interactive and Geometric Interactive, with another chance for gamers to expand their minds.

comes from Jeppe Carlsen, who was the lead gameplay designer of horror indie platformers and. Taking the form of a puzzle adventure game, the player travels around alien worlds, traversing between them by uncovering a selection of colored orbs. These orbs all contain a world within them, and the central mechanic of is hopping between these orbs, manipulating them to get around the many barriers in the way.

This core mechanic is wondrously implemented, with a well-designed learning curve that never leaves the player overly-frustrated or thinking that they're being treated with kid gloves. It certainly helps that maintains its internal logic very well, with puzzle after puzzle that matches the player's existing knowledge of the way the game world works. There are no jumps to conclusions, nor messing around until a solution just works — it's all about lateral thinking.

has a simple control scheme of movement and a single button push, which also helps avoid some of the other pitfalls that can make puzzle games convoluted. Instead, this allows its design elements to really focus on the puzzles themselves, and it shows. There's a clarity of purpose and a consistency of scale behind the puzzle complexity, as the player gains more and more orbs — therefore more and more worlds.

There's a surprising number of different mechanics at play through its puzzles, too. The