My first taste of Öoo came in a short Steam Next Fest demo, where in a handful of simple but clever platforming puzzles in a walled-in maze, it convinced me that it could be worth checking out the full version. So imagine my surprise when I started the full game by waking up in a treehouse with photos of my blobby little family on the wall and stepping outside only to be eaten by a bird that the entire game (and that demo) takes place in. And imagine my surprise growing minute by minute as that simple-seeming platformer quickly and repeatedly revealed itself as not just clever, but as a brilliant puzzle game that’s one of the best things I’ve played all year.
That’s not to say that Öoo isn’t actually simple. In fact, that’s one of its greatest strengths. You start the game as nothing more than a cute, round head that somehow walks on its own, but soon you’ll find a bomb that constantly trails behind you, making you something like a short, explosive caterpillar. You can press one button to drop the bomb and another to detonate it, and that’s it for controls. A little later on, you find a second bomb (turning you into the exact shape of the word Öoo), and that’s as complicated as it gets. From that point on, Öoo is just about the joy of learning increasingly complex ways of using your limited options to perform platforming feats you never would have thought possible until you tried them.
At first, it’s all intuitive. Detonate a bomb to blow up a clearly marked destructible wall (made of blocks with little emoticon faces). Stand on top of or next to the bomb when you hit the trigger and it’ll propel you away from the explosion. You’ll use those rules to jump over gaps and avoid spike pits, and once you get your second bomb, you can use them to push each other around, letting you reach more out-of-the-way places.
Öoo is a masterclass in teaching its rules by example. Early on, you reach a dead end with no other paths. You’ll probably be tempted to put a bomb there, which teaches you that sometimes, destructible walls are hidden. Similar small revelations happen constantly. These yellow frogs will get out of the way if I find a fly and lead it to them, but those flies are eaten by checkpoints I pass, and they disappear if I use a warp point to fast travel. Since Öoo teaches all of this without a single word, it reinforces the idea that you need to experiment on your own. What happens if I stack these two bombs slightly askew? How long do these bombs stay put if I drop one and walk away? These ideas become the tools you use to solve future puzzles and unlock new areas, rather than the power-ups and abilities you’d find in most games.
Since it’s built on experimentation, each new discovery in Öoo imparts a mix of joy and paranoia as you realize you have a new way to solve puzzles now and wonder how many secrets you might have missed by not learning the trick earlier. Each area of the game brings with it slightly different mechanics entirely through level design. A platform that drops bombs placed on it teaches you that you can hold them on your head, but you could have been using that ability all along if you were in the right spot to make it work. Rather than introducing new techniques and ditching them for something new once you’ve mastered them, Öoo is all about slowly building up your puzzle-solving repertoire by showing you a skill you’ve already had and letting you work out how to combine it with everything else you’ve learned so far. With just two buttons and not a single word, Öoo manages to produce an endless stream of astonishment entirely through the brilliant way it nudges you toward learning new ways to play.
Öoo’s genius puzzle design is the star of the show, but it helps that it also looks and sounds lovely. Its pixel art is cheerful and clean, which helps take at least some of the edge off when you’re struggling through the game’s toughest puzzles. Its soundtrack is especially deserving of praise, with each of the game’s areas scored by a variation of the same theme, making the music as iterative as the puzzles themselves.
Simply put, Öoo is brilliant. At around two hours (with some optional endgame secrets to find after that), Öoo is concentrated puzzle platforming joy without a single dull moment. I don’t know how much clearer I can make this — if you have even a passing interest in puzzle games, there’s no better way to spend your next free evening than playing Öoo.
