Öoo is a puzzle platformer with a delightfully simple concept. You are a round little caterpillar that is eaten by a bird. Inside the bird, you find a series of interconnected rooms to navigate through. That is made more difficult by the fact that, while you can move left or right, you can’t jump even a little. Inside the bird, you find a bomb that can be placed with one button and detonated with another. Initially the bomb appears underneath you, and detonating it then will propel you into the air. Voilà, the jumping problem is solved, sort of. You can similarly span horizontal gaps by moving off the bomb to the left or right, then detonating it to push yourself in the opposite direction. After detonating, the bomb regenerates immediately.
It’s amazing what the game manages to do with that one simple mechanic. You will sometimes use the bomb to explode walls, move items around, and weigh down triggers. Sometimes you’ll need to detonate the bomb remotely, from a different room. And just when you think you’ve reached the limit of what is possible with one bomb, you find a second one, and from there the puzzles get more complex. With two bombs, you can of course jump a bit higher or farther by detonating them in sequence. You can also position them so they move you horizontally then vertically or vice versa.
What’s more, a number of new mechanics are gradually introduced as you progress: Destructible walls that reappear after a short time or when you leave and return; Triggers and gates that are often in separate rooms; Yellow frogs blocking your path that need to eat a fly before they will move; Platforms that allow bombs to fall through after a few seconds; Plus spikes, acid, and other hazards. With all those complications and only two bombs to work with, many rooms left me thinking, “There must be a third bomb somewhere that I missed for this to be possible.” But no, every puzzle in the game is solvable with no more than two bombs.
I completed the game 100% in about ten hours, mostly managing the puzzles on my own. I did refer to a map online to locate some of the secret rooms, and on a couple occasions I got hints about how to solve puzzles from posts on the Steam community forums or YouTube videos. But I always let myself struggle with a tough puzzle for a long while before relenting, and each time I needed a hint it increased my appreciation for this game and its developer’s commitment to such a simple concept.
A good puzzle game has to be a little frustrating, and Öoo is no different. Overall, though, I loved it and expect it to go down as a classic of the puzzle-platform genre.