Game of the Week: The impossible becomes the possible in Cocoon

The week's Game of the Week was not a tough pick. Cocoon is astonishing stuff, and happily the most thrilling game I have played this year - quite a thing to say when the year's been as rich as 2023.

I reviewed the game yesterday, but I was very taken with Polygon's piece, by Grayson Morley. Morley writes this: "A late-game puzzle involves the creation of an impossibility. Something that seems to break the game’s rules, and yet doesn’t, under the ever-thickening logic of Cocoon." Firstly, yes, "ever-thickening" is lovely, suggesting that logic is some kind of homeostatic process, something like myelin bunching in the nervous system. Secondly, though, I read that and realised: I know the exact moment being discussed. In fact I will never forget it.

I love games and art in general that go from the possible to the impossible and remain comfortable with what they have done. In literature, there's a brilliant term for this, which I probably misunderstand and misuse, but anyway, here goes: it's called negative capability. As it was once explained to me, negative capability is an author or artist's ability to pursue truth and beauty past the point which they are logical. It's a pursuit of beauty into a realm that cannot fully be understood, but which must instead be appreciated on an emotional level. To put it another way, it's about how good you are at using words when you're in pursuit of the wordless.