00:00.00 Dave Hello everybody. My name is Dave Jackson and you're listening to tales from the backlog. This is a video games deep dive review podcast where each week I'm joined by a guest to bring a game out of the backlog, play it and discuss. My guest today is a friend of the show, one part of Pass the Controller and he holds the entire world in his hands. Welcome Brenden Groom 00:23.20 Brenden Thank you for happening. This is like a dream come true. I'm happy to be on the show. I'm looking forward to this. I Love talking about indie games and I love talking to you know great like minded people out there. 00:34.70 Dave Well thank you man? Yeah um, I'm glad that we found a game that works for us and an indie game since you were um, doing the good work championing indie games whenever you get the chance. So today. We're going to talk about Cocoon which is a puzzle game developed by Geometric Interactive. And published by Annapurna Interactive, a lot of interactivity happening here for contemporary consoles and pc in 2023 and real quick before we get into the game itself I want to give a shout out this game is on the podcast because it was a winner of a poll over on Patreon. And it was submitted for that poll by the great Matt Aka stormageddon so thank you Matt for submitting this game. I'm glad that we got the chance to play this game and talk about it here on the show. That's fair. Yeah, they deserve it. Yeah, okay. 01:17.77 Brenden For the record I don't thank you Matt I'm just kidding I love you Matt. 01:27.53 Dave If this is your first time listening to the show today. First of all, thank you for stopping by this is how spoilers work on tales from the backlog. We are not going to spoil the story and I say that especially with this game here, it's kind of unspoilable in my opinion unless you just say what happens at the end. Um, the story's super abstracted. So the spoiler section in this episode is going to be pretty short. We just kind of talk about it like if we have any ideas about what's going on here. But as usual, we will not spoil that kind of stuff early in the podcast you can check down in the show notes for when spoilers begin. And if you want to jump out and play the game at that point that would be cool. It's not a very long game. So if you don't know what Cocoon is, we have some elevator pitches for everybody. What is Cocoon? I say it is a pure puzzle game set in a world within a world within a world within a world. And so on and so on and so on Brenden what would you say? 02:27.47 Brenden I would say that the worlds are stored in the balls. 02:35.82 Dave Ah, fantastic, put that on the back of the box. That's that much better than whatever they came up with. Yeah, I played this on pc. It took me 4 hours to play. I beat this in 2 play settings. I could not stop playing it. 02:39.50 Brenden Yeah, yes, please. 02:54.29 Dave Ah, but a pretty short game. How about you? Does that sound right? 02:57.39 Brenden Ah, it sounds about right for me. I played it on Xbox. I don't know if it's still on game pass but it was on game pass. Oh it is okay, yeah, well then you have no excuse if you have game pass. You should be checking this out but I'd say it probably took me about the same, probably around 4 hours or so. 02:59.70 Dave Um, it is yeah yeah. 03:10.27 Dave Yeah, at least at the time of recording it's on game pass who knows if you're listening in the future if it's still there. Hopefully it is. It's a good one to just pick up and jump into because it is not very long. Um, so we always start out the podcast by talking about our histories with the game today Cocoon. 03:27.11 Dave And this game has a certain pedigree also for the people who made it that I think appeals to a lot of people, so Brenden , when did you first play Cocoon? What originally brought you to it. 03:38.50 Brenden Um, this one that was probably on my radar for a little bit whenever it got announced. I'm trying to think if it was shown off like a Xbox like summer showcase or something first or or wherever it was first revealed, but knowing that it had come from some x play dead. 03:53.34 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 03:55.26 Brenden Ah, devs that were kind of like oh ok like it looked cool to begin with. But now I'm paying attention. I don't personally love ah, limbo's the first one. What's the second one called I forget inside I Don I don't love inside as much as I think most hoaxes do but I do love limbo so I was very excited to. 04:14.90 Brenden To check this out. Um, so I made sure that when it came out I got my little Grubby Mitts on it as soon as I could. 04:21.70 Dave Yeah, yeah, Ah, for me this one was not on my radar before it came out. I just don't know if they didn't market it or if I just missed it but I did not hear much about this before it came out. It was just when it was announced and when it was announced to be going on game pass and then. Like you said when I heard that it was ah minds from play dead because I'm a huge fan of inside and um I think I played limbo a little bit too late like I recognize its importance in the history of indie games and the cinematic platformers and stuff but I got to it a little bit late. 04:47.83 Brenden Um, yeah. 04:57.81 Dave Um, but I loved insight a lot. So like you said that Pedigree gave it a bump like this is something that you should pay attention to because some good game designers are behind this. Um, I Love puzzle games too. So I'm always up for a creative puzzle game and you know you. You watch the trailers and you see like you know going into worlds within Worlds and all of that stuff and you're like okay they're doing something here. Ah but because I'm a gamer and this is what gamers do I I was like that looks really fucking cool and I just didn't play it because there's just so many games to play. Yeah. 05:30.97 Brenden Yeah, of course. Yeah, well there's Pickros Ds to play. So. 05:35.39 Dave I'm on like hour 50 of picross 3d so yeah I got a lot of stuff I'm busy. So um, it was always in the backlog and it's on game pass oddly like having stuff on game pass may I don't know it. 05:38.24 Brenden Oh it's so good. 05:53.50 Dave It's a little easier for me to just sit and not play it if it's just like you could play at any time so you don't need to play it now you could play it later but it won that Patreon poll. So now we're here. Yeah there we go? Yeah yeah, so shout out to Matt um. 05:58.61 Brenden Yeah, all right? So you know what? Thank you Matt. Okay, you did it. 06:11.63 Dave Opening thoughts here for Cocoon at the very top. Um, first and foremost I think this is just as impeccably designed as a puzzle game I think as a puzzle game. It's pretty perfect. There's nothing about it that I had really any issues with. I had a great time playing this game and I like the aesthetics a lot too. Ah, there is a feeling that something's missing here. Ah for me personally like I will quote a friend of the show Flora Merigold in her epilogue gaming review of Cocoon. She said, Quote Cocoon is a well-made game but not a game that I think most people will remember end quote and I think I like the game a little bit more than flora did. But I do agree with that kind of thing that there is. I think it's just the complete lack of any story that I could really latch onto. Ah, that while I really really like this it is probably not one that I'm going to like you know, think about randomly when you know the way I would think about you know, portal or the talos principle or other like puzzle games that have that little extra something going on. 07:22.82 Brenden Um, yeah. 07:24.91 Dave Ah, but like I said at the beginning I played this in 2 play sessions because I couldn't put it down. It is a very very good puzzle game. 07:31.60 Brenden Yeah I think I'm kind of on that same page with you there that like it. It's a fantastic puzzle game. I think it nails vibes really well , just like it has great sound design like it just the visuals are fantastic I think. 07:41.24 Dave Yeah, yeah. 07:48.10 Brenden The thing that I will probably remember this game for when the rest of it is like you know it is not bad. It's fantastic and it's a good experience to have but I think the thing that I always do think about when I think about Cocoon and the thing that I do catch myself thinking about is that first time. That you like go through the orbs and back in and back up like the way that that looks visually is it was so striking to me and I'm like this like I will remember the first time I like hopped in a not of an orb just because I mean that's what this game is is is built around really um and and it's a. 08:19.13 Dave Yeah, yeah for sure. 08:23.80 Brenden Very and maybe if I'm jumping ahead tell me to stop. Ah I It is like an ah mechanic that I really appreciated that I think they do very well. 08:26.86 Dave That's you right. 08:32.40 Dave Yeah, yeah, a hundred percent like I said, as a puzzle game designed around this one central kind of gameplay mechanic, hopping within worlds and then carrying those worlds on your back and taking those within other worlds like this is perfect I think like there's. Nothing you know, no notes. This is awesome to play as a puzzle game. Um, so let's ah, let's listen to a bit of the music from Cocoon and then when we come back, we will ah talk about how the game begins and the story set up. 09:09.29 Dave Cocoon begins as a light shoots down from the sky and it kind of hits down into the ground you see the light kind of filter down and it activates a Cocoon from which a little bug man Dude Character Emerges. Ah. I Got kind of like superhero vibes from this little. Ah, this little character I think it I think it he does or it does a ah like one of those superhero landing poses At some point I was like okay I got you right there that animation. Um. 09:35.40 Brenden Yeah, that's like the right way to come out of that initial like emergence too is like when that character comes out. It's like all right the name of the game is Cocoon. 09:43.60 Dave Um, yeah. 09:49.59 Brenden And like this guy has wings and like maybe bug features but maybe it's on a bug. Maybe it's an alien like what is it I don't know like that's like the right kind of like what's going on here. 09:54.94 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly um, got you know humanoid legs and arms and stuff like that. Just got some wings too. So. After running around for a little while and you do the game's tutorial. You learn how stuff works, how to interact with the world. You find a glowing orange orb. An evil looking butterfly thing turns to smoke and flies inside of that orange orb. Ah you pick it up and then you are off. It's not really a game where you have a lot of choices for what to do? So it's ah like you pick this orb up. You're like I don't know what I'm doing with this thing but I'm taking it with me now because that's what I have to do so we'll get into that puzzle design here in a bit but I do want to kind of talk about this game's approach to. Narrative because earlier I said that there was not anything that really hooked me or allowed me to latch onto any kind of story or anything like that. But that doesn't mean that there is no narrative happening here. There is a story. Ah but it's super super abstract. Um there's no words in the game outside of the menus. Everything is wordless tutorials, all of that stuff which is really good, really elegantly designed. Um, but that leaves all storytelling to be environmental or trying to guess like okay, there's this boss fight. What is it? 11:23.32 Dave Story relevance and then the ending and stuff like that. Um, so it's very clear that like there is a story that they have in mind but it's so abstracted and so told environmentally and like very sparsely too that. I came out of this game being like Wow, the ending was pretty cool I don't know what the fuck just happened here though. 11:45.54 Brenden Yeah I think it's some. It's an interesting thing to dissect. But I Also think it's maybe not as deep as other similar games or other games from some of these same developers where it seems like the experience is. Is way more heavily weighted towards like a good puzzling experience and less of like a we're gonna because I agree with you I think there is something going on I'm sure there is some you know a debate about the end of the game and what that may be but ah I think the the focus is on that. 12:07.97 Dave Yeah. 12:24.22 Dave Yeah, and that's you know going to be the way that I remember this game. I will remember the ending because it's really striking when it happens and you see the results of what you've been doing and what that actually meant from a story perspective. 12:24.84 Brenden Puzzle gameplay. 12:41.38 Dave That was really cool but when I look back on this game in six months or you know 2 years or whatever I will remember this as basically a pure gameplay experience. Um, but we did want to kind of not disregard the story altogether because it's clear that the developer. Put something in here as far as a story goes but you might be right like the focus of this game is puzzles and then there is a narrative we like woven into that. But again not at the same level that portal or inside. 13:14.96 Brenden Um, yeah. 13:15.19 Dave Or Ah, the Talis principle like other puzzle games other games by this developer. You know inside in limbo did the same thing where there's no words left for you to kind of infer from stuff going on in the environment or who's chasing you in particular in those games. Ah. But there was a more clear story to those older games. 13:36.70 Brenden Yeah I agree for sure I think this one is by design whether that you think it's good or bad I think it's by design to be a little more obtuse a little more kind of just it's there dig at it if you want to dig. 13:46.67 Dave Um, yeah, yeah, I'm sure there are people on Youtube um, really digging into this too. 13:55.59 Brenden Yeah, and there are probably people that maybe have some stuff figured out. We're sitting here like I don't know orbs. 14:03.75 Dave Yeah, exactly orbs baby. So um, since this is such a pure gameplay experience. Let's just dive into that literally dive into it. So um, you pick up that orange orb at the beginning. And you're kind of walking around with it and you're introduced to the basic way that you interact with the world in this game which is you find these colored orbs and you carry them from place to place and they have multiple purposes and I think that this is a really elegant design choice here. There is only 1 button you use to interact with anything in the world. It is either to pick something up, put something down or to use the orb that's on your back for something if that's you know its special ability the different orbs you pick up have different gameplay abilities like. Activating pillars or revealing walkways or something like that. Um, at certain places in the levels you can set the orbs down and then you can jump inside of them and there is an entire new level located inside of the orbs and once you pick up multiple orbs. That's when Cocoon really begins. 15:14.54 Brenden Yeah, a hundred percent like the central functioning mechanic of the orbs and swapping around like for 1 like you said just being this having it had each have their own sort of elements that make them unique. 15:30.50 Dave Man. 15:31.98 Brenden They're also their own biomes when you go inside that are just different parts of this universe because I think it's wrong to maybe say it's all one world. I Think maybe you're juggling a bunch of worlds. Um, so I think it is all. It's like. 15:39.94 Dave I Think so yeah. 15:47.16 Brenden To echo the things you're saying it's super elegant like I think that the way it's presented the way it functions is spot on I no notes it doesn't need a bunch of menus and text like 1 button you're doing thing that things the thing is doing what it wants to do and it's doing it very very very well. 16:04.89 Dave Yeah, So what it does is it sets up these puzzles where you might need an orb you might need to be carrying an orb to use its special ability inside of a level but ah, you might need to also be thinking About. What's going on in the level within the orb on your back. Let's try to figure out a clean way to say that um you need to be thinking about multiple things in multiple levels at the same time. A lot of times and often you need to think about it. Okay I have 3 orbs now. I can only carry one so I need to find a way to put the other 2 orbs inside of the one that I can carry because there's only designated places where you can set them down and then ah maybe I need to carry them. You know I need to put them in in an order that makes me. 17:01.14 Dave Able to retrieve them in a certain order. You need to be thinking about all of these really complex ah variables and thinking about multiple puzzles at the same time but to this game's credit. This felt like a perfect level of challenge to me like I never felt like I was stuck. I never felt like I didn't know how to do something. Um, it really was just kind of thinking on those multiple planes at the same time. It was really nice. 17:26.62 Brenden Yeah I think there was maybe 1 thing later in the game that was you had to maneuver a bunch of orbs in a specific order and I think I think I may have made it more difficult by myself by putting orbs in a different order first. And then I kind of got like now I have to reverse engineer this puzzle to get back to like the reset point so I can redo the puzzle appropriately. So I think I kind of messed myself up at 1 point late in the game but I think for the most part like it's. 18:03.60 Brenden Again I mean but puzzle difficulty is going to vary by person. But I think it's cleverly designed and laid out in a way where I think you can sort of mess around with what these things do and get yourself to the solution. I did it spoiler I I spent more than 4 hours at this game because I did. 18:04.84 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 18:22.39 Brenden 100% of the achievements. Ah so that's kind of where that's where I left myself with this game after it was like I enjoyed it enough where I'm going to now get the I forget what the things are called you like activate like they are like other creatures I think there were statues. Maybe. 18:23.99 Dave Um, okay, hell yeah so. 18:37.80 Dave Oh yeah, like ah yeah, Moon Guardians Yeah yeah, okay. 18:41.37 Brenden Moon guardians I think yeah so I think I think those were the things I was missing a few of those so I was like hunting for those and and some of those puzzles could be a little more challenging to kind of figure out what you need to do and and whatever. So if you're looking for a deeper challenge if the game isn't super challenging for you that might be the so like the thing. But if you if you want to spend more time with this game but I probably only spent like another hour maybe tw hour max like I wasn't wasn't in this game for 10 hours 19:08.83 Dave Right? Yeah, yeah, there are um those extra things that you can do if you explore a lot because those things are hidden. You have to find those in the first place to do those extra puzzles. Um, so. 19:23.23 Dave That's in there if you do want to explore if you do want more stuff. There is some optional content to do too. Um I Want to go back to something that you said earlier where you kind of found yourself in a difficult spot because of maybe like how you. Where you took certain orbs or like the order you thought you had to do things in. Did you ever get the feeling that you could soft lock yourself in this game? 19:40.92 Brenden Yeah. 19:46.40 Brenden I thought I did so I messed around with it for a while and I actually happened to be in a Discord call with some friends and I was like because I knew it I knew someone else in there had already beaten the game and I was like. I think I messed myself up and like I threw my game stream on so that they could watch and they could see the thing that I was like very much overlooking and they were like no you can figure this out right now like you were not locked out like you just whatever and when I like finally realized what it was it was like. 20:12.93 Dave Um, ah. 20:22.30 Brenden The most like I was so aggravated it myself that I did that I like didn't have it but it was also like oh man, that's a good aha moment of like okay I figured this out like we we can move on now and it was like it was I forget exactly which puzzle it was but it was so it was like it was right there in front of me and I couldn't. 20:23.54 Dave Oh yeah, yeah. 20:31.56 Dave Um, yeah. 20:36.97 Dave Yeah, that happens to me very often in puzzle games like Cocoon is the rare one where I didn't find myself in a situation like that . I had to look up solutions to puzzles in Portal You know it's just a thing with. 20:39.44 Brenden Ah, I couldn't see it. 20:46.36 Brenden A. 20:51.67 Brenden Sometimes you get to do it? yeah. 20:54.94 Dave Yeah, just a thing in puzzle games like everyone's going to I think get to that point sometimes where you're like what the fuck am I supposed to do and like literally anyone could walk in the room and be like a dude. It's right there and you're like yeah exactly. So yeah, everyone has that experience with puzzle games sometimes but I. 21:01.82 Brenden Um, yeah, yeah, it's in front of your face. 21:13.43 Dave This is another thing where I think this game is super tightly designed where I was very worried for the first couple hours of playing or was like if I set this orb down and then jump out of this world. What if I can't get back. You know what? if I fuck myself over. 21:29.93 Dave And then slowly the game kind of like earned my trust where it's like no, they're not going to let you do that and once I kind of figured that out I was very cool with like you can pretty much just leave anything anywhere if the game wants to like. 21:41.38 Brenden Yeah. 21:45.63 Dave Stop you from going back to a place. It will not let you go back there in any way. So like you can't really soft lock yourself I think it really felt like they thought of everything and they tested the hell out of this game. 21:52.13 Brenden Yeah. 21:57.90 Brenden And I think I mean maybe there is some configuration somewhere that you could do that. But what I do like about Cocoon One of the things it does is it has like a I think if you think it's just if you pause it I'm not sure if it's a separate menu in the pause screen. But it's like a wheel of progress. That shows you like the percentage of completion that you've done and you can actually go forward and back at Checkpoints. So you can like to go back if maybe you thought you were really Stuck. You could just kind of like go back a little bit to a previous checkpoint and you might have to redo certain parts but it's not like you're going back to like. 22:21.88 Dave Oh sick. 22:36.43 Brenden The beginning of the game or something. So. 22:38.10 Dave That's cool. Yeah, you can. Ah yeah, go back to that checkpoint, take on that puzzle from like the beginning of that puzzle you know with fresh eyes. 22:41.77 Brenden Exactly? Yeah, yeah, so you don't have to be like I think I mess myself up and you can just kind of reset that puzzle section. So. 22:50.77 Dave That's cool. You know how engrossed I was when playing this I didn't pause the game except for the 1 time I paused it to turn it off. 22:57.20 Brenden That's yeah, that's ah, that's I would say I'd argue. That's one of the best recommendations or like glowing things to say about it. Um I I I don't know how if I use that often I mean I definitely used it after the fact. 23:02.16 Dave Yeah, exactly yeah. 23:13.73 Brenden I finished the game because you can kind of skip around to go find the moon guards you're missing Um, but it's it's it was a good little I liked that that ability was there. It was I think probably a safe safeguard in case someone maybe soft locked themselves or thought they did. 23:15.79 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 23:31.65 Brenden To be able to kind of reset the puzzles. 23:31.73 Dave Right? Yeah, yeah, that's pretty good. Um, and I if they do all of this all of this you know, kind of giving me that trust that I can't soft lock myself I will be fine. No matter what happens if you know. Put the orb down and then I walk somewhere and suddenly I can't get back to where the orb is. It's fine. The game earned my trust in that way without really having any text or what I would call hand holding or anything like that like it is at the end of the day. It's 100 % on you to figure out. 24:09.39 Dave What to do but they designed it in a way that you can't, you know, screw yourself over. So it's It's really, really, really impressive. 24:14.58 Brenden Um, yeah, the first time that I don't remember what puzzle kind of pushes you in that direction. But the first time that I took an orb into another orb was like a. 24:28.37 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 24:31.39 Brenden I was like oh this game is cooking like this game does not know what it's trying to do and I'm all for it because that was like a I didn't expect that to be a thing and then it's like then you're just stacking that the rest of the game. 24:41.77 Dave Yeah, yeah, you played it on release. So I think that you could have gone into that fresh like I knew about that that was a thing that you do in this game before I played it. So um. 24:49.22 Brenden Okay, it could. It could have absolutely been like the marketing before and I was just not paying attention to that marketing I have no idea. 24:57.26 Dave Yeah, yeah, that's fair, Yeah, um, so there was that moment like you talked about where you dive into an orb and suddenly you're on another level but you know that earlier you were carrying this on your back. So like that oh this is how this game works. Ah, this type of realization I didn't get because I already knew what was going on but it is a really cool thing that we just ruined for everybody who's listening to the podcast and hasn't Played. No no, That's no, we're good. That's a joke on my part. Um, ah so yeah, it's just a you know. 25:21.64 Brenden Yeah, oh I'm sorry that was that part of this. Okay, okay. 25:33.68 Dave Really impressive from that perspective. There is another thing as far as gameplay goes. Um, when you find a new orb I talked about earlier, that shadowy butterfly at the very beginning flies into the orb in like smoke form and this happens several times and in each of these orbs when you first find them. Some evil looking thing will turn to smoke and fly inside. You have to jump into the orb and do some puzzles and then you have to fight that thing as a boss fight which I was not expecting in a puzzle game like this to have boss fights. What did you think? 26:06.75 Brenden Um, I thought they were great. I mean it definitely is. It's some of the few situations where that story kind of starts to peek its head out like hey we're we're doing something other than puzzles. Um, and we can maybe theorize on what that might be later in the episode. But 26:17.91 Dave Um, yeah. 26:25.68 Brenden I really liked that it was kind of like your once you start getting multiple orbs under your belt. You know you're getting to that point of like okay I'm going to face some other thing now This orb's going to give me some other ability that I previously didn't have and kind of that like. The anticipation of getting to the orb and then the anticipation of getting to that boss fight visually was always pretty impressive. I was a big fan of ah how a lot of that stuff was done um and those some of my favorite moments I think too just from us like this game's lack of but like cinematic moments where it's like you kind of have this. Little moment of reprieve of you know, not sure exactly what's going to happen next like a little bit of Wonder. Um I was a fan of how that stuff was done. 27:14.10 Dave The boss fights do mix it up because they're not puzzles I mean they're they're puzzling boss fights. You have to figure out how to damage them and things like that like you don't have a weapon in this game. There's no other combat whatsoever in the rest of this. 27:21.47 Brenden Yeah. 27:31.28 Dave It's all puzzles. So the boss fights are kind of mixups and I thought they're pretty well designed for a game that doesn't have combat other than these and these are not always you know combat in the way that you might think of them. You don't like to run over and punch the bosses or something like that, like you're doing environmental stuff. Yeah. 27:34.60 Brenden Um, yeah. 27:45.99 Brenden Yeah I got hit by him 3 times. 27:51.18 Dave Ah, but you do have to figure out how to damage them. Ah the 1 thing that did kind of get old as you figured out how to damage the boss and then you know, maybe go through more tries trying to execute it. They are one hit fail. Basically ah you can't die in this game. But what can happen is if the boss touches you or hits you they will pick you up and throw you out of the world that they exist in which is very cool. Visually the first time that happened I was like whoa. Um, but what that means in gameplay is you have to run back to the boss arena. It's not that long. 28:19.10 Brenden Yeah I was in say yeah, it's really cool. 28:30.91 Dave But it is long enough where you might stew a little bit on like okay what am I supposed to do now. Um, and there were a couple bosses that took me you know, maybe 10 tries as I tried to do the boss fight perfectly over the course of you know, several minutes um these being one hit. Kind of sucked that they like I. Maybe if they hit you and you were dazed and then like they would like to walk over to you and then pick you up and toss you out, but it's an immediate ah throwing you out of the ring. 28:51.25 Brenden Um, yeah. 29:02.87 Brenden Yeah, there was 1 boss fight in particular I don't. It is probably maybe midway in the game I think it's like it's coming up and out of the ground right? and you're in like a circular arena um I feel like that was probably the boss that dumped me out of the world. The most. 29:10.46 Dave Yeah. 29:20.85 Brenden Um, because you're right that is sort of an aggravating part of this game where it's like it's not a combat focus game. There are other enemies at certain points that can halt your puzzle progress and like to do things to you but you're not like in the world you know, slashing at things and and and doing stuff like that. So. 29:31.62 Dave Right? right? right. 29:40.77 Brenden Um, for the game's levels designed to have enemies that are built around like resetting your puzzle or making you have to backtrack to go restart a beginning portion of this puzzle section. Um. 29:58.94 Brenden To have it finish with a boss fight that does that to you sort of immediately can be a little aggravating I think. 30:04.95 Dave It's yeah, you don't have to solve any puzzles to get back to the boss. Thankfully , like you get a checkpoint right in front of the boss Arena, but that would be brutal. Yeah I mean that that would be something that they wouldn't probably even try. They were just like no, that's dumb. 30:08.31 Brenden Yeah, yeah, that would make it maybe yeah. 30:20.31 Brenden Um, yeah. 30:21.83 Dave Ah, so they didn't do that but you do have to run back into the boss Arena and start the boss fight over from the beginning every time and there's a couple that are fairly long as you know again, non combat focused game and you have to play perfectly. 30:39.44 Dave Not a huge deal like at the end of the day they're not that difficult once you figure them out but they do have multiple phases. They have new attacks that get introduced so that will mean getting tossed out from time to time. Um, this is a smaller example of what I think is like the biggest gameplay critique. 30:59.50 Dave Which is just that especially later in the game as things get more Complex. You will spend quite a bit of time not liking salt, like okay let me rephrase this. You will spend a lot of time solving the puzzles and what that means for a lot of them is rearranging your orbs. And there's a lot of time that you spend not engaging directly with the puzzle. But it's like this orb needs to be here this orb needs to be inside of this orb and then I need to place that over here then I need to run back and get the first orb and then carry it back over jump into the other one put it down jump back out. There's a lot like that. Order of operations that you're doing later on did not, you know, piss me off to the point where I was like I don't want to play this anymore or anything but it did get a little bit tedious. Luckily not a super long game. So like you're not going to spend hours and hours and hours doing this kind of backtracking. But if I had to pinpoint. 31:50.88 Brenden Hey yeah. 31:58.30 Dave 1 thing about the game. The gameplay that I didn't love was those times when it was like I know where all these orbs need to be now I got to spend 3 minutes literally moving them from place to place you know. 32:09.46 Brenden Yeah, yeah, that can be a little like I don't want to say it feels like it's extra padding to make it a longer experience but sometimes I think when you're playing a thing. It does feel that way even though I don't think that's what. 32:18.95 Dave No, no, no. 32:27.68 Brenden Necessarily the intent was here. It's just kind of the unfortunate reality of how this game operates. Yeah. 32:35.33 Dave Yeah, it's not a huge deal just to reiterate that but it is like the puzzles get more complex. You don't run really fast and there's a bunch of um like I said. I need to move all these orbs to all these different places but I can only carry one at a time and so that means I just got to do a bunch of moving from place to place and then once all of those things are set up I can do the thing that solves the puzzle and then move on to the next one 33:07.32 Dave Ah, so I guess to wrap up talking about the gameplay here aside from that little you know annoyance from time to time about backtracking and organizing your orbs again I Just want to reiterate This was a like really. Wonderful experience as a puzzle game um felt like a really great difficulty balance. I felt challenged but I never felt you know stumped to the point where I had to check a guide or anything like that. Just really good from that perspective. 33:41.70 Brenden Yeah I think I have very minimal issues with this game Overall like I I think it is a pretty fantastic puzzle game like I would argue that it does. 33:46.20 Dave Yeah, yeah, yeah. 33:56.89 Brenden Some of the stuff we said earlier like I think it does fall into the category of like it might not be a super memorable game years from now. But I think if you stumble upon it if you're listening to this episode of the show or if you know it pops up on a sale somewhere or it's still on game pass or like I Definitely think it's something. Like to absolutely check out like I think there's so much good puzzle here like there's such a good puzzle game in this game that you know is it. 34:28.51 Brenden Is it going to change the way that puzzle games are made going forward? Is it going to become a meme out there and have a similar merch design around it? No, but I I think that I like what it does. It does very well and I think that if you are able to give this game a shot I don't think you'll be disappointed by it at all. 34:37.24 Dave Um, yeah. 34:44.71 Dave Right? And so like I think the thing that carries the game kind of elevates it to another level if it's not a story that you can really or me personally I don't want to say that nobody will be but like I was not. Hooked by a mystery in this story despite not knowing what was going on. So the thing that helped elevate it was all of those aesthetic things like visuals and music. So let's listen to a bit more of that music. When we come back, we will talk about those other qualities because they are good. Visually Cocoon I would say is number 1 alien looking um I'm not sure if I mentioned this in the story portion but this is very clearly not earth or something like that. This is an alien environment. Um so the visuals are suitably 35:42.39 Dave Alien the first planet that you're on is kind of like a desert type planet but it doesn't look like anything on earth and then the other areas that you go into there are kind of swampy. There is a ah very like metallic sci-fi space station or just. You know, maybe not space station maybe just like just fucking alien rocks and stuff like that look and level. Um, they're all really colorful and distinct from each other and um, very clean, visually as well, and looks good too. 36:08.50 Brenden Um, yeah. 36:15.78 Brenden Yeah, it looks fantastic and I think like the minimalist approach to just like the hood where there's like very little menus and text and dialogue. Anything like that I think it all plays very well into how well represented just like all of the different biomes are the characters. The bosses. 36:21.63 Dave Yeah. 36:34.32 Brenden Like I think everything in this game works together to make something great Very very well. 36:44.39 Dave Yeah, all of the environments. Um I think the key thing is they are distinct from each other so you're going into worlds within worlds and stuff like that. But you're never confused about where you are and. 36:50.82 Brenden Yeah. 37:01.50 Dave When you carry an orb on your back if that orb has another orb inside of it. You get a visual indicator of all of that so you never lose track of where things are um, that stuff is really really well done and you're right like that minimalist design. Ah. Gives you that kind of flavor of the places that you're in but will never confuse you about what you should be doing in the levels like all your puzzle stuff is very clearly defined from the rest of those levels that you're in. 37:30.88 Brenden Yeah, and I don't want to. It's it's I plan to play this in since it came out but I'm pretty sure that all of the different worlds and all the different orbs that you go into are all like very distinct color palettes too. So like yeah so you it would be hard to like It's very so. 37:44.90 Dave Yeah, they are yep. 37:50.90 Brenden You know where you are just based off of like the colors and stuff which I think is just another smart like we're not holding your hand but we're being very like clear with what is what you're doing and it's like removing layers of I Want to say confusion but like ah making it easier to digest something like this. Right? away like while you're getting just immediate like hey you're in the you're in the Swampland So. It's like green and blue and and like you know where you are um I think those I think those things are extremely helpful and probably I mean I don't know I'm ah like a puzzle scientist. But maybe those types of things like removing additional things to have to like. 38:10.61 Dave Um, yeah. 38:15.41 Dave Yeah. 38:29.28 Brenden Think about even in the background. Maybe that makes puzzle solving just like a better experience because you're not like trying to digest so many different little things at once. It's just like here I am. 38:36.49 Dave Yeah, yeah, like you're exactly right like when I think about some of those other puzzle games that I mentioned like portal and the Talos Principle. There's more environmental detail and there's more things that you think you might be able to interact with in those games. So part of those. The Puzzle is figuring out where I need to go What do I need to interact with whereas in Cocoon. You go into a new room and you're like oh these are the exact things I need to do. I Just need to figure out how to do them if there is something that looks like you can interact with it. 39:08.94 Brenden Um, yeah. 39:15.57 Dave In Cocoon you can and you should and that's a clear visual choice that they made. 39:22.10 Brenden Yeah, there were um I know we're on to like visuals and music. But I don't think we talked about them. There were different puzzles that utilized sort of like background elements. Those were yeah like I kind of forgot all about that until we just started talking about this. 39:34.59 Dave Um, oh yeah, thanks for bringing these up. Yeah. 39:39.84 Brenden But I liked a lot of those puzzles just because they were not like they were not spread. They were spread throughout the game. There weren't a bunch of them. There were like some of them where some of them may have even been optional. They might have been for like Moon Guardian stuff but there were definitely at least a few that were part of the main path that you needed to. 39:52.90 Dave Man. Yeah, yeah. 39:59.82 Brenden To travel and like they were just nice little mix ups that work really well and it kind of plays into that like in a highly detailed like game. Some of that stuff might have been harder to work with but because of the way this game is presented I think it I Guess yeah it ties back into visuals. 40:12.49 Dave Yeah. 40:18.12 Dave Yeah, for sure. 40:19.40 Brenden And music I like. I think it works really well because it's like it's not like they're just big. You know icons and designs on the screen that you can immediately see. But if you're spending time in this area because you're trying to figure out that there's clearly a puzzle here. You might notice that there's a reflection in the water or whatever it may be. 40:36.87 Dave Yeah. 40:38.96 Brenden That is going to kind of give you the breadcrumb to continue to like noodle around in that section and I appreciated those puzzles. I thought they were like a nice little mix up from a lot of what the other orb jumping stuff was. 40:50.17 Dave Yeah, the main bread and butter puzzles of Cocoon are interacting with the environment and then doing those you know world within a world type of puzzles. These ones you're talking about are environmental like noticing things in the environment. So. 41:07.25 Dave That clean design. Other than that makes those really easy like once you figure it out. Oh It's one of these I got to look around to see what kind of stands out in the environment. You already know that there's no detail that's going to be super distracting. That's not relevant to what you're trying to do so once you figure those out. Um, you might have to take a minute looking around being okay where it is. But once you find it, you'll be like Okay, there's one and there's another and there's another one and then you're off. Yeah good stuff. Um, yeah, ah sound and music is also really, really great. 41:34.82 Brenden Um, yeah, yeah, those were good Good puzzles. 41:44.31 Dave So ah, composing credits for this game go to Jacob Schmid ah this is ah more of a soundscape type of game than a you know soundtrack like in an rpg or something like that. But you're in this alien type of world and you have a very alien sounding sound scape. Ah, that I thought was ah, really nice. 42:04.26 Brenden Yeah, I think the package of Cocoon is all like every aspect of it kind of excels really well on what they're doing: fantastic puzzles, Fantastic visuals and the sound design and music right up there with that like it sets the tone it sets. 42:24.14 Brenden Kind of the mood for everything and I feel like it always kind of kept me up, especially in a game where it's like there's not a lot of story. There's no dialogue. No text you are invested in these other elements and I think the music is just as strong as the other elements in this game. 42:40.11 Dave Yeah, for sure. Did you play thumper by any chance? Okay, yeah. 42:46.31 Brenden I am embarrassed to say I haven't I am familiar with it. I'm pretty sure I haven't downloaded at least 1 thing. Um and I love rhythm games. I like there's no reason why I shouldn't have played thumper at this point. So. 42:56.57 Dave Okay, gotcha. Um for I guess for you but for everybody listening who has played thumper the sound scape for a lot of it. Ah reminded me of Thumper which has this very loud industrial rhythm. Ah. The soundtrack to it is almost horror like it's scary. Industrial music like Silent Hill music or something like that. Um, this is not to that extreme, but it does have that kind of very Alien semi-industrial sounding. 43:33.62 Dave Ah, soundscape to it like this kind of abrasive metallic type of sound happening in the background while you're doing puzzles. This game's a lot more melodic than thumper's soundtrack. But when I was thinking of other games that have a very Alien sound. Um. You know Soundscapes thumper jump to mind. Ah so I recommend playing that It's really fucking difficult. But if you like Rhythm games. It's quite good. Yeah, so that was something that jumped Out. There's a lot of melody to it, like I said, kind of soundscape rather than um, you know. 43:56.15 Brenden Yeah I love Rhythm games. Yeah. 44:10.83 Dave A really memorable melody or something like that. But there's a lot of pretty music happening in the background too that again sets that tone for what you're doing. Are you solving a puzzle? Are you fighting a boss? One thing I thought was really good is. 44:23.43 Brenden Um, yeah. 44:29.80 Dave When you make puzzle progress you get a really clean and identifiable musical cue that lets you know you're on the right track which is like I feel like that maybe like in play testing people are like I don't know if I'm doing this right and they were like let's put in a little thing that lets you know you're doing good and it's it's great. 44:45.83 Brenden Yeah, yeah, I like when any game does that to be honest, like I like to be told to give me my flowers. I Want to know that I did the right thing. Please let me know. 44:47.59 Dave When that comes up. Yeah, yeah, exactly this and like the return of the Obra Dinn has that you know a very very satisfying Pat on the back when you're doing things right? So this game has that too. 45:05.52 Brenden Yeah, especially I'll say it's probably important to include an element like that in this game because again, we've kind of talked about a lot at this point like it is such a design wise like minimal minimalist so having like that musical cue. 45:07.16 Dave Good stuff. 45:20.28 Dave Um, yeah. 45:22.76 Brenden To let you know let the player know that like hey you are. There's not going to be a little pop up. There's no little character that's like hey you did a great. It's nope here that we got it. It's this thing. 45:29.62 Dave Um, yeah, yep, exactly? So um, all told I think kind of like you said the puzzles are really really enjoyable from um that you know Gameplay perspective. But If. If. You're not jumping on with a story then you can at least have the experience be elevated by the vibes which I think you talked about in our kind of opening thoughts and the visuals and the music go a long way to kind of creating that atmosphere. Again, if you're not going to be super super curious about the story that is going to do a lot of work for you too. So It's all good Stuff. So Let's go into our. 46:14.29 Brenden Yeah, for sure. 46:21.27 Dave Wrap up thoughts here, do a little bit of housekeeping and then you know talk about what happens with those late game puzzles and stuff. So ah in this section we always just answer the question. Um, who would you recommend play Cocoon if you could tell from the last 45 minutes 46:34.22 Brenden Nobody plays with this knowledge. Um, exactly. Um I I think that this is definitely like if you are a fan of puzzle games like I think absolutely this is something that you should have on your radar at some point I think what this game. To its credit is that it doesn't overstay. It's welcome if this was like a 10 hour game and it was a lot of this. I could see the puzzle structure and see some of the stuff that you're doing may get stale and I think that it. Maybe there's more depth that they could have gone to. I'm not saying they couldn't have done that, I'm just saying for what this game was. I think much like the bosses it throws you out at the right time. Both the maybe not the bosses but it likes it it ejects you when it it like it is it is doing its thing and I think that it works to that. So. 47:26.15 Dave Ah. 47:29.50 Brenden It's a super short experience. So if you like you know, noodling around short games. This is an absolute winner for you if you like puzzle games I think that's right there as well and if it's still on game pass I think this is like an incredible value if you're a game pass subscriber and this is still there like download it check it out I think you a. Have a good time b if you don't I don't care and c um I think it's again like it's a short experience. So I don't think that if anything that we've talked about today is of interest to you I think that you would enjoy your time with this game like I don't think it would overstay its welcome. It's not going to be this. 30 hour thing you go to slog through and feel like you've dumped a bunch of time into and now I got to finish it because I've been here. It's like nope it is what it is it kind of wears it on its sleeve and I think it does for all the right reasons. So ah long answer if you like puzzle games go for it. 48:23.26 Dave Yeah, well said Yeah 100% Um I agree with you that this game is kind of the perfect length. I think that like puzzle games and horror games should be pretty short before they have a chance to wear out their welcome or let you get you know in the case of puzzle games. Let me know. Too confused by increasing complexity or something like that and this one you know, kind of like you said it. Ah it gets out when it feels like it's run through the good ideas that it had and there really didn't feel like there were any filler puzzles in there or. 48:55.10 Brenden Um, yeah. 48:59.92 Dave Things where they're like let's try something weird and it doesn't really work like it just you know, get in get out. Um, so if you like puzzle games. This is one of the easiest recommendations. It's a fantastic puzzle game. Um, if you kind of like puzzle games and you need a story or something then. 49:03.82 Brenden Um, yeah. 49:17.72 Dave Your mileage may vary here. It depends on how much you want to kind of stop and look around and really think again about like okay I'm fighting this boss. What are they? Why am I fighting them? The game is not going to tell you so it's kind of up to you to theorize about stuff like that. But 49:35.37 Dave It is a fairly easy recommendation because it is such a good puzzle game despite you know I feel like when I said at the top of the show that this game will not leave a great impact I I don't mean that to say that this is any less in quality or anything like that. It's just. 49:37.85 Brenden Um, yeah. 49:54.86 Dave You know some other puzzle games because they had that extra element to it do leave more of an impact whereas you know if this game is just one of the best puzzle games I've ever played. That's pretty fucking good. So like you can't complain that much. So um. 50:07.28 Brenden Yeah, exactly. 50:12.62 Dave Maybe that sounded harsher than I actually meant it at the beginning of the show but this is a very good game. So easy. Recommend especially again if you have game pass. You can go play that quote for free. So let's do a little bit of housekeeping before our probably short spoiler section here. Always start housekeeping by having the guest talk about the things that they do so Brenden tell people about Pass the Controller and anything else you want people to know about of course. Yeah. 50:39.89 Brenden Ah, Sure. So First of all, thank you so much for having me on this is fantastic. Time. Hopefully not the last. Um I am the host editor over at Pass the Controller um, the main thing we do is a weekly podcast where we kind of just talk about the latest. And video games and nerd culture and how they relate to us and whatever else is going on and sometimes we don't talk about any of that. Sometimes we go off on tangents about anime or music or whatever it may be and we kind of just know what it is where a couple of friends who've known each other for well over a Decade. So. 51:10.42 Dave Yeah. 51:12.46 Brenden It's very easy for us to kind of get caught up in literally any other conversation. Um, so if that sounds like your jam. It's over wherever you want to listen to podcasts Um, the other thing that I've been doing a lot more of lately that I'll that I'll plug and then that that can be it for my plugs. Um. 51:27.17 Dave Yeah. 51:29.96 Brenden I have been doing a lot more cocktail game pairings. So if that sounds like something of interest to you? Um I make little short videos making the recipes I put the written recipes up on the website as well. So if you know you don't care about the video but want the recipe and want to check out some fun drinks. 51:32.16 Dave Um, yeah, yeah. 51:48.85 Brenden Ah, definitely go check those out. I don't know if I'm going to do them more frequently. I've already been doing them a little bit more frequently. But I'm going to continue down that path of just kind of pairing some delicious ah cocktails with some delicious games. 52:04.72 Dave Yeah, it's a really creative thing that I don't really see anyone else doing out there at the time of recording the most recent one that I saw was a cocktail for another crab's treasure that you know as we're recording this just recently came out. Ah. 52:12.96 Brenden Yes. 52:18.81 Dave For everyone listening Brenden also did a super interesting panel at Pax East which you can go watch on Youtube where he took ideas from the other people on the panel games that mean a lot to them and created a cocktail of super high creativity behind them cocktails to match up with those games. And don't want to put you on the spot here. But what would your approach be if someone asked you to make a cocktail to pair with Cocoon ah got to go with colors right? Interesting colors. 52:46.50 Brenden Oh no, um yeah so I mean off the bat and this is all I'll be careful what I say because there I'm Goingnna steal an idea from another drink that I'm probably going to make that I'll just. 53:00.20 Dave Um, okay. 53:03.74 Brenden Maybe I won't even double down. So like, to make drinks. I approach it in a few different ways like going up against a game like Cocoon I feel like you can or any game you can like try to do something on like a. Overall scale or like get granular and like to focus on a specific thing and go after that. So for this I would probably play around with a lot of different shaped ice Cubes. So I have a big sphere. So I feel like that's got to be in this drink So I probably. 53:32.72 Dave Um, oh yeah, hundred percent 53:38.43 Brenden Do that and then I would maybe play around with coloring that cube so it looks more like 1 of the orbs like maybe but pick a specific one. Um I mean I definitely just like it just if I had to say words that came to mind when I look at Cocoon. It's like an insect in alien ah, um, like. 53:58.44 Brenden Earthy like grounded. So I feel like I would probably choose gin as my base spirit because I just get some floral notes. Get some earthy notes. Um and I feel like this drink would have to be like something I don't know. 54:04.71 Dave Yeah, yeah. 54:17.58 Brenden The little Cocoon guys get like the green wings. I feel like I might want to make this like a green, a greenish drink. So um, yeah, yeah that that'll be and. 54:21.78 Dave Yeah, and there's also a greenish world in Cocoon too. So if you want to go with that world inside a world. Got the colored ball of ice inside of a different color. Yeah yeah. 54:35.60 Brenden An interesting one. 54:37.21 Dave We did not discuss this before the podcast. I meant to ask ah to warn you ahead of time and then we got to talking and I forgot but this is the type of creativity that you can find over in those cocktail videos on pass a controller and then also at the time of recording on the podcast. Um. 54:42.64 Brenden No, it's fine. Yeah. 54:53.32 Dave Reviews for things like a unicorn overlord and another crab's treasure. Ah the fallout Tv show so all kinds of stuff like that quality content. So if you like that kind of stuff I try to do what I can because it is good I mean I invited you on the show for a reason. So. 55:04.52 Brenden You're plugging my stuff better than me. Ah. 55:12.62 Brenden Yeah I'm happy to be here. 55:12.66 Dave Happy to be happy to have you here and happy to direct people to all the stuff that you're making over there. So everyone can look down in the show notes they can find links to pass the controller where you can find all of those things podcast ah videos all of that down in the show notes you don't have to worry about spelling anything. Or typing your search bar just go down there while I'm talking about myself for the next minute just go ah go find some cool stuff. So for this podcast the same ways to support as always. You can leave a rating and review if you've enjoyed this episode. Doing so on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and podcast addicts other places that accept reviews that I don't know about doing those things will help people find the show will help people find this episode if they search for Cocoon. Um, that's what we want so that's much appreciated. You can join the discord server for the podcast and come in and talk about Cocoon this week and talk about everything else. You're playing and talking about how you know your pets show us cool things that you're eating or doing. We have a really awesome welcoming community in the Discord server and we'd love to have you. I do another podcast. It's called a top 3 podcast if you like top 3 lists and you like Draft Topics and stuff like that we do that over there. It's a comedy show I think it's a good time last but not least you can support this show monetarily over at patreon.com/realDaveJackson and 56:40.50 Dave This game was the winner of a poll over on Patreon so everybody who subscribes on Patreon can vote in those polls for as little as $2 per month and that's a fun thing. We do every single month we do those polls and there's a lot of other cool stuff over there. So go check it out. So. We are going to take a break and when we come back, we're going to um, try to figure out what the hell's going on in the story of Cocoon in the spoiler section. 59:09.18 Dave All right Brenden and and all right Brenden and I are back and we are talking full spoilers for Cocoon we are going to do our best to kind of just bounce some ideas around and try and figure out what the hell's going on in the story. Ah, but. 59:27.90 Dave Brenden also did some optional content like he said in the non spoiler part of the episode so we can also talk about what happens if you do find all of those moon guardians and stuff like that. So um I guess the first question would be like. 59:44.39 Dave Was there a story that you kind of piece together as you're going through like was there anything that jumped out to you as being important from a narrative perspective here aside from the ending because that's very clear like you know, something's happening there. 59:59.43 Brenden Yeah, um, but in regards to things like the moon, ancestors are just in general. 01:00:02.79 Dave Yeah I mean if they play into your idea because I found them I knew that they were there I think I found 2 of them. So I knew they were a thing but I didn't have any way of connecting it into anything else. 01:00:09.30 Brenden Um, yeah. 01:00:16.48 Brenden Yeah I mean I would say at the time of playing I don't know if I ever thought much about the moon ancestors and what they might be up to um I it was definitely something after the fact in preparation for today where I was kind of like. Are they something so I did 2 things? I went and looked at them because they're all ah tied to achievements so I went and looked at the names of the achievements to see if there was maybe any hint towards something like a relevancy or story thing and I I still don't know if they are. 01:00:43.20 Dave Oh right, right. 01:00:51.48 Brenden Um, because like the first one is called off the beaten path when you get it which I feel like at least one of these is probably I feel like the game kind of guides you towards maybe finding one a little easier probably to just be like hey there are these things. Maybe you can find him if you explore a little bit more um but the rest of them. 01:01:05.50 Dave Um, yeah, it makes sense. 01:01:10.60 Brenden Ah, maybe maybe 1 at some of these names will spark something for you. 1 of them is called the space between the stars. Ah 1 is called a perspective on things. Another one is called end of the line. Ah, the next one. 01:01:14.26 Dave Okay. 01:01:27.36 Brenden Who knows conduit Mariners Branch Mesh Network Cryptographer loophole maneuvers 01:01:31.55 Dave Okay. 01:01:37.17 Dave Okay, you know as you were reading those off after about 2 of them I was like okay I knew you get a little something going on and as you kept going I was like no it doesn't make any sense to me. No. 01:01:45.20 Brenden Yeah, no, no, so there I won't read the rest of them. But there is one more that maybe is like tongue in cheek or maybe pointed at us right now specifically for trying to dissect the story of this game. It's just called skin deep. So like maybe it just isn't. 01:01:59.67 Dave Um, yeah, okay, maybe yeah, the the 1 thing that jumped out to me as something that could kind of unite. 01:02:04.21 Brenden Maybe there is nothing deeper here or maybe there is and they're just you know, poking fun. But 01:02:17.38 Dave Different things throughout the game is that there is no way to die in this game Even the bosses don't try to kill you. They just try to throw you out of their world like if you want to ascribe any kind of intelligence to them. They know that you can come back. They're just throwing you out. 01:02:37.19 Brenden Um, yeah. 01:02:37.40 Dave Ah, you have to come back in and try again. Um, especially with that big one later on where it switches to like that side on like shoot him up type of view and you shoot the laser at it and it bounces back and you have to do the zelda thing and bounce the laser back at it a bunch of times. 01:02:55.99 Brenden Yep. 01:02:56.94 Dave Even that one's not trying to kill you. Ah so if there is something that I think would unite all of these things for me. It's the fact that nothing in this game is actually trying to kill you and everyone seems everything seems fine with you coming back for more at any point. You know, um, and then I guess you can talk about like the regular ending where ah your character goes through all of these things by defeating that big monster. And doing the final puzzle your character gets these much bigger wings and rises up out of the orb and you kind of see the birth of a solar system happen. The orbs you were carrying are now planets and your character is like. Massive like looming over them like if these are planets then your character is like the God of this solar system or something like that. So I heard a theory that this is like a test or a trial of some kind which would make sense. 01:03:55.12 Brenden Um, yeah. 01:04:05.70 Dave Being that nothing in the game is actually trying to kill you. They're just trying to test you in a way and I think if anything makes sense to me. It's that. 01:04:11.40 Brenden Yeah I Actually like that a lot and I'm like I'm now watching some of the like sections where you interact with the Moon ancestors and revisiting this now. Visually I'm seeing that they're like maybe. Maybe the Moon ancestors are like guardians of these orbs because they all have orbs when you release them and they leave and I wonder if like these these are the previous your character like. 01:04:48.59 Brenden Whatever, whatever it is that your character is trying to do like prove themself for I Wonder if it's like in order to become a moon ancestor at some point. 01:04:52.15 Dave Yeah. 01:04:57.62 Dave Yeah, it could be like this game clearly set up this like world within a world within a world and there's always something bigger. So even at the end when you see your character you are there for the creation of a solar system. It actually does at the end it zooms out 1 more time and it shows all of that your character looming over these planets inside of a bigger sphere and so there doesn't seem to be an upper limit to how far this can go. So then that would make sense like if. 01:05:33.80 Dave Your character is there for the creation of a solar system and then rules over it and then stands as a Guardian and if there is a bigger scale version of this later. That's kind of what this whole game is about like there's always something at the higher scope you know? yeah. 01:05:47.82 Brenden Yeah, trying to die saying that this moon answers ancestor things was a mistake because now I'm thinking about this too much and like now I'm wondering like they all have to seem to have orbs when you wake them up. What Worlds are they hiding? 01:06:06.15 Dave Um, yeah. 01:06:07.31 Brenden Why are they hiding these worlds? Why are they hidden? What? what? what? what are in those worlds like what is the so there is clearly something like story wise like it's very clearly like not the I don't want to say not the focus. It's just I think they wanted to make this puzzle game that was its thing. 01:06:16.52 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:06:26.58 Brenden And if you really want to like sit here and read achievement descriptions and and like look for these things. Maybe you can piece some stuff together but I actually really like the trial ah like that that your character is trying to prove themself. 01:06:29.76 Dave Yeah, yeah. 01:06:41.89 Dave Right? Yeah, it makes sense. Um and it would also make sense that there are many others like your character that have succeeded and now maybe they're the Moon guardians and if you can always go bigger in scope. 01:06:59.10 Dave Universes within universes within universes then you can go smaller too So that you know if the moon guardians are holding an orb. There could be an entire universe inside of there too. It could be. 01:07:01.87 Brenden Um, yeah. 01:07:07.70 Brenden Um I I wonder if they're failed like that's why they're like statues. That's why they're there. They were not able to pass the trial and you and you are like releasing them from that. 01:07:17.57 Dave Um, that's also true. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely possible like if 1 succeeds then everybody is freed. 01:07:32.65 Brenden Um, yeah. 01:07:33.56 Dave Or then everybody succeeds. Basically this is a successful world and everyone can move on whatever the fuck that means in this game. Um, but I do kind of agree with you that I think it's pretty clear when designing this. The story was not the main focus. The main focus was puzzles. And then they created this really cryptic story that fits in with the way the puzzles work. The puzzles are all built around this world within a world type of thing. So then they created this you know obfuscated story that fits with that and. Taking it out to like this huge cosmic scope um really fits in with that as well. So I think that's pretty cool. Um, this is just what I saw though there is an extra ending if you do all the moon guardian stuff and i. Either forgot to watch it on Youtube or I watched it and then forgot to write notes about it and we're recording so that means I do not remember it. So do you remember anything about the secret ending. 01:08:40.28 Brenden Um, no I mean I definitely got it because I did all of the Moon ancestors. Um. 01:08:45.10 Dave Yeah, all right? Well, let's watch it real quick. Let's just ah see what happens it's 30 seconds long so I will ah go ahead and watch this and we'll we'll maybe cut this out. So. Ah. 01:09:11.47 Dave All right? This is not helpful. It shows a bunch of ah creatures seemingly with their own solar systems in their own orbs flying through space. 01:09:22.58 Brenden Yeah I do. 01:09:23.42 Dave And then they hyper drive warp out into the distance. 01:09:31.86 Brenden Um, it looks like they're going towards another like I don't know maybe your character is trying to revive this galaxy. 01:09:47.55 Dave Really could be. 01:09:50.30 Brenden And in order to do that. They need to awaken all of these moon ancestors to then go take their orbs to other galaxies to wake those galaxies up. Yeah because the Moon ancestor. Ah. 01:09:57.55 Dave Okay, were those things flying with those orbs the Moon ancestors like colorized and stuff. 01:10:05.97 Brenden I'm just assuming they are so when you interact with the moon ancestors they like they wake up and like they look similar like bug type creatures to you but they all look different. They don't look like you. Um, they just fly away with their orb. Yeah, so they all have orbs with them. 01:10:14.78 Dave Yeah, and then they just fly away like instantly right? Yeah yeah, Okay, okay, so this then this ending would be the Moon ancestors are flying out through space The orbs they're carrying on their back have. 01:10:24.80 Brenden When you wake them up. 01:10:33.81 Dave Planets and solar systems inside of them. So You know this is a it seems like this is just how space in the universe is constructed in the world and story of Cocoon. So you freeing them is allowing them to go out and. Do their thing. Whatever this is I don't know like I don't know what the purpose of this is other than to like build the universe I guess but ah, you know, just ah, just pretty fun taking it again higher and higher and higher scale and that thing at like the last frame of the secret ending. 01:10:56.50 Brenden Um, yeah, yeah. 01:11:10.77 Dave Ah, does it look like your character is in there. So I don't know, maybe they're coming to help out who knows. 01:11:14.87 Brenden Oh okay, maybe yeah I wonder yeah I don't know I mean if they want to make more Cocoon games they got them right here. There's plenty of galaxies to do puzzles in. 01:11:25.54 Dave Oh yeah, oh yeah, exactly yeah I think I would be surprised actually I don't know I maybe I wouldn't be surprised I was going to say like I wouldn't be surprised if they made a sequel but ah, this. You know they didn't do limbo 2 or inside 2 or anything like that. So who knows. 01:11:42.65 Brenden Um, they could always like to make something in this universe. There's clearly plenty of like you know quote unquote universes in there to mess around and. 01:11:53.12 Dave Yeah, yeah for sure. Um I would take another Cocoon game just with different puzzles like different worlds and ability gimmicks like this game has the one where you can like. Jump up through pillars. It has the one that makes platforms appear so you can walk on them. Um, you know make 5 new of those and make a new Cocoon game with the same jumping around in and out of orbs and stuff like that I'd be there for that. 01:12:11.54 Brenden Are. 01:12:22.39 Brenden Yeah I'd be down with that I I feel like there's definitely a ah ah wealth of things to build around that like keep the keep the core orb mechanic as like this is what it's kind of built around and then here are these all these new orbs from these moon ancestors that have different abilities attached to them and. 01:12:39.30 Dave Um, yeah, yeah there we go yep and I don't have anything else about ah the story of Cocoon I think that there's just very few things. Um, that. 01:12:41.42 Brenden In turn different biomes and there you go you got yourself a whole new game. 01:12:57.31 Dave We wanted to try and piece together some kind of a conclusion here but I always kind of say on episodes like this that the goal of this podcast is not to speak with Authority about every single story. It's just to talk about our experiences and sometimes that means. Really digging into the story and speaking with as much authority as we can like I did in the Zeno gears episode that came out today. We spent a ton of time on the story in that game. But for Cocoon I feel like a lot of people are going to play this if the experience is going to wash over them. And then they're going to watch the end day and be like Wow that was really cool and then that's it So That's fine with me too. 01:13:36.60 Brenden Yeah, yeah I think that is perfectly fine like not every I don't think every game has to be that like I think if it was not a good puzzle game. Maybe we're having a different conversation but it's a good puzzle game. 01:13:47.89 Dave oh yeah, oh yeah hundred percent yeah, yeah and if you want to dig in and you want to hear people speaking with as much authority as they can. You can go on Youtube and search like the Cocoon story explained and I'm sure you'll find a bunch of people doing the work. 01:14:03.41 Brenden I might do that tonight. I might just look to see if there's someone that really figured it out, what it is, if there's something to figure out because again there just might not be. 01:14:11.95 Dave Yeah, I'm sure that there is something but I think the developers clearly made this as vague as they did so that people could take their own interpretations and piece things together that fit in a way that they like. And I would be surprised if you ask the developers they would be like this is 100% the story and we're surprised that you didn't get it like I would be surprised if that was the takeaway. So. 01:14:39.13 Brenden Um, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is a great time. I'm happy to be here. I'm happy, happy to ah, chat about this game with you. It was a good time. 01:14:43.00 Dave Yeah, this has been fun man. Thank you so much for coming on and talking about Cocoon. 01:14:51.96 Dave Awesome! Yeah, and like you said earlier, we would love to have you back sometime. This has been good. Um, another indie game probably in the future wants to make sure that we get the indie games there shine on the podcast. So yeah. Everybody listening can again, check down in the show notes for everything past the controller you can check out what Brenden is doing and as always tune in next week for the next game to come out of the backlog.