Indie Watch

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo - An Artful Surrealist Puzzler

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a surrealist point-and-click adventure with an odd story, a host of wacky and weird hand-drawn animations, and some challenging puzzles.

Greg Redd

Sep 15, 2023 • 5 min read

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a surrealist point-and-click adventure with an odd story, a host of wacky and weird hand-drawn animations, and some challenging puzzles.

Nacho Rodriguez' artwork for the game is a combination of animated cartoon, stylised realism, and plain old weird.

Mr. Coo and this game are creations of the artist Nacho Rodríguez. 2D animator and director, Rodríguez has been nominated for the Goya Awards for his short film “A Lifestory”. He was also the lead animator of the game O.zen at Ubisoft. Mr. Coo is one of his most celebrated characters, having appeared in several short films.

Personally, when I first saw Mr. Coo the first thing that popped into my head was the old Italian line cartoon, La Linea, that the SABC used as filler in the early days of local television broadcasting. It's probably the nose.

A friend who watched me play through the game said there were bits where he thought of Cuphead. Mr. Coo has elements of both of these, a healthy dose of Alice in Wonderland, and a lot more besides. And that's not a bad thing. It's just a little confusing is all.

Developed and published independently by Rodriguez through Gammera Nest and Meridiem Games, The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is clearly a labour of love for the Spanish artist. The game was released on Steam just a few weeks ago, but as you can see from the published date game teaser video above, it's been in development for over seven years.

In short, Mr. Coo is stuck in a weird, nonsensical world, and he needs help to get out of it. Before he can though, he'll need to find all his pieces and be whole again! Early on the game Mr. Coo lands up getting split into three parts - legs, torso, and head. The player, using simple point-and-click mechanics must interact with the weird environments and the objects in them to put the three pieces back together. Each of the three parts can be controlled independently by switching to it using a mouse or keyboard toggle.

The standout feature of the game for me are the hand-drawn and animated characters, and backgrounds. Objects, characters, and monsters in the game distort and morph and ebb as they react to the players' clicks and the weird world in which they exist.

In addition to its impressive visuals, The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo also offers a very good musical soundtrack and audio design - much of which helps the player identify keys to solving some of the puzzles.

The story starts off with an isolated Mr. Coo looking forward to eating the delicious apple he's received from a pair of disembodied arms clad in long silk gloves. It just gets weirder from there.

The game starts off simply with some obvious elements to click on in order to advance to the next chapter. As things progress though, players will encounter more complex puzzles. I found the second to last puzzle especially confusing and spent a good third of the two or so hours I had with the game on solving it alone.

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a relatively short game. Most players familiar with basic point-and-click mechanics will be able to complete it within two hours. On completing the game for the first time, players can return to individual chapters in additional playthroughs to collect scattered note pages throughout each chapter, providing some replay value.

Despite the positives, The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo does have a few technical bugs. In one of the puzzles the character and the monster he was attached to at the time simply disappeared from the screen. I could hear the sound of their movement, the music continued playing, and the background and movement of other elements all continued working as normal. Just no Mr. Coo and the Monster.

The game has a number of puzzles that need to be solved in order to progress to the next part. There are hints that accompany each puzzle but using them prevents you from getting all the achievements for the game.

Later, the game camera just stopped following the character piece I needed to control at that point - the head - and seemed to get stuck switching between the torso and the legs.

A shut down and restart repaired both issues, but they did pull me out of the immersive world that the game had drawn me into at that point.

In conclusion, The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is a distinctive point-and-click adventure game that offers players a surreal and visually stunning experience. With its challenging puzzles, eerie atmosphere, and intriguing storyline, the game is worth a try for those seeking a unique gaming experience.

The Many Pieces of Mr. Coo is out now of PC via Steam and Epic Games, and on Switch, PlayStation 4 and 5, and Xbox One and Series X|S. A demo of the first two chapters is also available on Steam.