THE MANY PIECES OF Mr. COO

Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a very special production. Being a product of the imagination of only one person, creator Nacho Rodriguez, it is a purely artistic creation that will probably manage to go down in history thanks to its excellent animation and the uniquely surreal world it adopts. However, when such creations try to enter the gaming industry, which (for better or worse) has some basic rules that are rarely broken, this in itself is a risky step that can hardly have positive results.

In essence, Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a point 'n' click adventure, but not exactly in the traditional sense of the term. There is no inventory, no trace of dialogue or text, just visual stimuli that interact with mouse clicks and through them, we have to help the expressive, yellowing, Mr. Coo reach his ultimate goal. Who is that? Why, to eat an apple. Don't be surprised, as such a small and simple wish can create terrifying trouble, so big that he himself becomes a victim of being chopped into three pieces (hence the title of the game). But how is it all connected? The truth is that the situation is impossible to describe in words without ridiculing and, more importantly, without underplaying the essence of the game. Many Pieces of Mr. Coo has to become an experience for the player, "stimulating" his eyes and ears with the events on the screen, which are completely out of touch with the mundane reality.

I wouldn't be surprised if instead of a game, Mr. Coo was just a remarkable short animation on youtube. After all, its length (around forty to fifty minutes - I'm not kidding at all) lends itself to that, however, since Nacho Rodriguez chose to release it as a game, it will be judged accordingly.

As a game, which asks the player to click on the screen, where with each click new data unfolds and through them, the player is asked to figure out how to proceed further. Initially, the hotspots are one or two at a time, so it's relatively easy to find the solution to each puzzle. Later on, and especially after the middle of the game where Mr. Coo consists of three pieces (head, torso and legs) and they are handled alternately (in practice there are two, but don't let me spoil it any further), the situation becomes more like a "normal" adventure and more mental concentration, thinking and, no doubt, much more imagination is required.

Let's not forget that we are playing a game set in a highly surreal world, the laws of physics are non-existent and the only limitation is the imagination of its creator, which is really... running wild. In common, there is no shortage of extreme moon logic moments, which are only resolved after persistent, random, clicks and in the hope that we can somehow get into the mind of its creator. Nevertheless, thankfully a hint system exists, which can help to some extent as to the context we are supposed to move in, but occasionally it remains a puzzle itself that the player is asked to decipher what to do.

However, with few action screens per "chapter", combined with equally few hotspots, you may not spend much time figuring out what your next step will be. As long as, of course, the game agrees with you, because unfortunately there are a few bugs, mainly in the use of hotspots and the interaction between them, with the game engine sometimes refusing to follow your instructions. And there are reports of cases where the game ends in a dead end if you attempt to perform certain actions in the wrong order, with the only solution being to restart (there is no manual save). Sure, these are problems that can be fixed with a patch, but when Mr. Coo has been in development for six years, it's frustrating that such serious bugs still exist.

Obviously, all of the development focus has been on the audiovisual aspect, leaving the gameplay aside, which as mentioned above, lasts as long as a coffee, and whether it's capable of supporting it as a full game and not just a pretty demo. The fact that Mr. Coo ends with a "to be continued" means that plans are already in place for the project to have a sequel, it's just a matter of when that will happen (another six years of development?), while its sequel is bound to have a much greater wealth of puzzles and length to stand up to.

So, at this stage, I would suggest trying Many Pieces of Mr. Coo only when it is (inevitably) included in a bundle, in order to spend a few minutes of the day in a highly original, surreal and psychedelic world and then move on.

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