COCOON
Developer Geometric Interactive Publisher Annapurna Interactive Format PC, Switch, Xbox Series Release 2023
Just as an insect exits its pupal state in a very different form to that when it enters, the opening text revealing we are about to see the new game from the lead gameplay designer of Inside and Limbo sets expectations that the subsequent 90 seconds delight in subverting. This is not, then, a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer set in a bleak hellscape; rather, the debut game from Jeppe Carlsen’s Geometric Interactive is a top-down adventure that casts you as a kind of humanoid butterfly, ferrying around orbs with the power to transform the world around them. One type activates bridges; another generates solid matter beneath your feet; a third brings a set of robotic limbs to life to open a gate, and that’s before we get to the surrogate jetpack. This can’t emerge from its development chrysalis soon enough.