The upcoming puzzle adventure game Cocoon throws players into its fantastical world with no dialogue or text to prepare for the mysteries ahead. In the preview build of Cocoon that Game ZXC was provided, this works well to create a sense of wonder and intrigue that words can sometimes ruin. Indeed, the game strives from the very beginning to create something exciting and new with no information on whom, what, why, or how, but might very well succeed in its endeavor because of these mysteries. It's a decidedly different direction than most games choose to take, but a lot of gamers will more than likely enjoy discovering the answers without any help.

Created from the mind of Jeppe Carlsen, the lead gameplay designer of Limbo and Shine, Cocoon drops players on an alien world right at the start. That isn’t a euphemism either, the player’s character is literally born and dropped onto the starting world with no warning. And much in the vein of the prior games that Carlsen has had a hand in, there isn’t much information given when starting out. Through trial and error, users will discover the only ability the player’s character has is to carry various colored orbs on their backs, a gameplay element that becomes the crux for progressing through the game. Only one at a time can be carried though, so users will need to focus on when and where to properly place them.

Character designs are a creative mix of simple and complex. Simple, in that people will associate the different creatures they come across with various real-world bugs, and complex in that most also contain biomechanical elements that give them an acute alien appearance. Even the player's character, who with two large wings, two legs, and a large circular head, uses this mixture to create something akin to a moth, but an almost humanoid one that might be found in any number of Science Fiction stories. Boss designs embrace this as well, though the few bosses shown during the preview seemed to lean more toward the organic side of the design spectrum. Taking them down required situational awareness and striking at the proper moments, so even they require a bit of puzzle-solving.

This mixture of complexity and simplicity drives the design of the various worlds found in the brief preview as well. Orange rocky mountains interspersed with alien technology and artificial stairways can give way to almost natural plateaus that hold the game's many puzzles. Just saying it has many puzzles doesn’t quite do Cocoon justice, though, as the majority of activities in the game currently revolve around figuring out how to progress to the next section of an alien landscape. In the preview, most were simply figuring out where to place orbs to move platforms or activate doors. Though others were more complex, forcing users to juggle multiple orbs in order to place them both in a specific order or place to continue on. Some even required users to activate platforms at specific times in order to sneak through quickly closing access points. A larger variety of these will hopefully be found in the full game upon its release, as there can be a bit of fatigue in the puzzle similarities found in each world.

The orbs are more than just sources of power; a second orb allows players to jump or warp into it and enter another enigma-filled world. This is an interesting mechanical choice, as some puzzles will have players jumping in and out of various worlds in order to move items through one and into another. This has the possibility to become quite complex as well, and though the preview build didn’t allow for very deep progress, what was there was still intriguing. Though most were not very convoluted, some did require some trial and error to complete, and Cocoon has the chance to create some profound and tortuous puzzles with the tools at its disposal.

The orbs can carry different properties as well - some were used to show hidden platforms, while others allowed the player’s character to almost warp vertically through dust clouds that solidified when reaching the top of them. Reversing the process drops the player back down to the base, allowing for a multitude of various puzzle types. Cocoon takes advantage of the changes in the area's elevation to add complexity to its puzzles, using the changes in terrain to give vertical challenges that mix well with the rest. They flow nicely from one to the next, though the simplicity of moving from puzzle to puzzle might seem almost too simple given what the game is going for.

The audio design deserves praise as well, with ethereal pipes and the floaty background music setting the scenes for much of the preview's levels. Some puzzles also have a bit of a musical element to them where activating various switches causes music notes to play a light melody. Some background music can seem rather intense though, occasionally feeling more in tune with something in the horror genre. Even so, the music that plays in the various worlds seems to add to the mystery of what Cocoon is and the mystery of where the player will go. A silent protagonist might irk some, but in such an alien world it doesn't really seem that out of place.

Though not planned to release until September of this year, Cocoon is already looking like a rather intriguing title. With its mix of organic and metallic creatures, puzzle designs that could be something spectacular, and a story that doesn’t give anything away at the start, there is a lot to be excited about. With veteran designer Carlsen at the helm, most players and fans of his previous games should keep an eye on Cocoon.

Cocoon will be released on September 29 on PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Game ZXC was provided a PC code for this preview.