Compared to Limbo the game has a greater sense of realism, at least in terms of social realism: There are no monster spiders here and the immediate feeling of the game is that it reflects some of the realities for refugees in Europe today. You run through the forest, followed by flashlights, dogs and people pursuing you in a car. Kristine: You cannot really understand the game without understanding the aesthetics of it. And it could definitively have pushed against my boundaries a lot more. It could, however, be communicated a lot clearer. I was more intrigued by the game and the concepts it was trying to communicate. Was it? Gross… no, not unless you consider body horror gross. Gross? I thought to myself, I like gross! So, I downloaded it the moment I got home. It wasn’t until a recent Facebook thread reminded me of it, where none other than Tim Schafer was referring to it as gross. Kristian: I knew the game was coming, and had really enjoyed Limbo. So is Inside uncomfortable, profound? It appears that we are mixed in our opinions about the game. My anticipation that this would actually be an uncomfortable or profound game was however raised when I encountered this screen when looking it up on Steam: What I expected was an indie game, probably in the same mood as Limbo, which it in many ways is. I knew Playdead had released a new game called Inside, but that was about it. Kristine: I actually didn’t know much about the game before I started to play. Researchers in the Games and Transgressive Aesthetic have played the game, and we present here our impressions of the game – as a dialogue between project leader Kristine Jørgensen and PhD student Kristian A. Its world, ambiance, visual style, score, and resume of puzzles thus far are more than enough to ensure I check out the full game when it is released on Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Switch, and PC sometime this year.This summer, Playdead – developer of the critically acclaimed Limbo – released their much anticipated second game, Inside. Tapping A over this dirt causes a purple and black bomb to appear, and I can smash this bomb into the ground to damage the boss.ĭefeating the boss paves the way for me to reach a new swamp area, but my demo ends shortly after my exploration here began.Ĭocoon is strange and mysterious, and I have no clue what’s going on narratively in its fiction. Every so often, I see the dirt below me shake, almost as if something is crawling underground. It also shoots a stream of metallic bugs at me, which I quickly shake off by pressing A. The moth creature flies back and forth across the arena, releasing a deadly stream of pinkish-orange crystal below that I have to dodge. After solving a few puzzles, a giant alien moth creature appears out of the ground.īecause Cocoon doesn't have traditional combat, or at least this demo didn’t, my goal is to survive during the boss fight. After diving into the orb I’ve been transporting on my back, I reach a new area (and I dive into other orbs, too, to reach new areas elsewhere in the demo). The climax of the demo came in the form of a boss fight. Other times, I complete a puzzle and receive a honeybee-like drone that follows me and shoots down barriers in front of me, another method to reach previously restricted areas. Sometimes, the orb on my beetle’s back reveals pinkish-orange crystalline walkways previously hidden from sight, allowing me to reach new areas. Walkways open up, horizontal platforms move left and right, and elevators activate. Sci-fi womps, siren-like pops, and drawn-out notes create a score that feels less like a melody and more like aliens speaking through music.įor most of my 30 minutes, I was transporting large, ethereal orbs from one place to another, and each time I placed this orb on the designated spot, something new happened, allowing me to advance in my exploration. As peaceful and chill as Cocoon is, it’s also mysterious and somewhat spooky, thanks in part to its excellent sound design. I wouldn't call these puzzles challenging, but their serene and simple nature fits nicely with the chill ambiance in the rest of Cocoon. In another, I look out to the horizon to discover which shapes, in which order, I need to interact with. On this spire are shapes, and I have to memorize the order in which these shapes appear and then walk through symbols planted into the ground nearby based on those shapes in that exact order. In my favorite puzzle, I pull a geometric, prismatic sphere across a half-circle line and doing so rotates a spire nearby. Quickly, though, I encounter puzzles built into the surrounding alien environment.
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