Cocoon Review (PS5) | Push Square
Geometric Interactive is led by alumni from Playdead, the studio behind Limbo and Inside, and you can really tell. Its debut game, Cocoon, shares a lead gameplay designer in Jeppe Carlsen, and his expertise shines through in one of this year's standout releases — indie or otherwise. With an ingenious concept fuelling its myriad puzzles, this is an incredibly lean and compelling game from start to finish.
Cocoon is a puzzle adventure in which you control a bug-like creature on a multi-world odyssey. Set in a series of environments from alien deserts to biomechanical caverns, the game has you hopping between them in order to solve puzzles. At set points in each level, you can leap out of one world and into the next, with the place you just left contained within an orb you can carry on your back. It's tricky to wrap your head around, but it makes a lot more sense in action.
To start with, you'll venture through one stage, solving environmental puzzles within it. These include moving platforms using switches, lowering barriers, that sort of thing. Eventually, you'll come to a checkpoint from which you can leap out of the world and into the next one up, so to speak. The level you were just inside is fully contained in a large marble, which you'll then need to carry around as you explore this new area. Later, again at set points, you can hop back into that original world after having solved more puzzles in the latter level. Eventually, you'll be dealing with multiple orbs, carrying one into another to complete previously impossible conundrums.
Not only do these orbs contain whole stages, they eventually gain abilities. The first, for example, gains the power to show invisible walkways, allowing you to reach new areas. Each of
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