I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: I love it when a game has a mechanic that is explored and implemented to its fullest potential. Nama Takahashi is a solo developer from Japan who has specialised in this approach to game design across several titles, with each game focused on a single mechanic. In an interview with the GSC, Takahashi-san explained how this design ethos is due to two factors: limited resources and his own personality. “In every game I make, I focus on digging deep into a single mechanic while carefully observing whether it naturally expands into diverse gameplay possibilities.” His new title, Öoo, also follows this school of game design, and I don’t think it’s too much to say that this is Takahashi-san’s greatest work to date.

Premise

Öoo is a 2D sidescrolling puzzle game where you control a little caterpillar-like bug who has been grabbed and gobbled up by a giant bird while trying to score some breakfast one morning. Still alive inside your avian prison, your goal is to traverse the bird’s insides, screen by screen, in the hope of finding some way to escape.

A simple, yet humorous premise that is played for laughs over drama, and swiftly sets the stage for what is happening and at stake. No extra information is needed; no backstory between our little grub and this feathered foe, no candlelit prophecy or ancient rite of passage. Simply put, it is the food chain in action, and you just so happen to be near the bottom, tough luck.

But our corvine captor’s luck also happens to have run out, as unbeknownst to them, they have swallowed a very unique little bug. You see, our bug is a Bomb Caterpillar, and when they eat, they grow another segment of their body, which happens to be a bomb! What follows is a short, minimalist puzzle game with light metroidvania elements, which sees you learn how to use your body bombs to move through your biological prison, destroying obstacles and applying new lessons to progress further into this flying beast.

Gameplay

First and foremost, I have to applaud Takahashi-san’s approach to accessibility in his games. Like his previous titles, Öoo has no written or spoken dialogue/text at all, with all information given to the player through image prompts and environmental clues. Before even starting your playthrough, there is a brief moment where the game asks you to press the buttons floating above our bug protagonist as they sleep. This teaches the player which buttons they will need for the game without explicitly stating their functions; it provides enough information to start playing the game without needing further explanation, and it encourages the player to learn how to play the game, thereby avoiding language barriers in the process.

For the first part of the game, you are just a head with no other option than to follow the path deeper into the bird. Thankfully, this takes you to the piece of food you were about to enjoy earlier, and eating it gives us our first body bomb. One button is used to prime a bomb, placing it where you were, and a second button has the bomb explode. Those are all the controls for the game: movement, bomb priming, and bomb detonation.

Once you have the first bomb, Öoo really begins, as you work through different coloured and themed regions of the bird, each of which focuses on a specific puzzle element for you to learn. It starts easy, teaching you to reach high places by priming a bomb underneath you (you sit on a primed bomb by default) and blowing it up to send you upwards. Later on, you are taught to sit next to your bomb, its explosion pushing you away in a straight line a certain distance, perfect for crossing wide gaps. These fundamentals are used throughout the rest of the game to traverse and solve puzzles, and are built upon once you gain your second body bomb. Soon, I was launching my little bug with one bomb across a ravine, sitting atop the second bomb, ready to launch him high up onto a ledge otherwise impossible to reach.

But bombs are not just used to move us or our other bombs around the screen; they can also be used to remove obstacles and uncover hidden paths. At first, these may seem a bit obtuse to have in a game like Öoo, but they are meant to teach you other important lessons about the game. Awareness of level design, environmental cues, as well as positioning, timing, and momentum, are all lessons that you will learn if you hope to escape.

You won’t be using bombs just to navigate this bird’s digestive tract, as you are not alone in here! Some puzzles require you to bring a buzzy yellow fly to a hungry, equally yellow toad who blocks your path. Once the gormless amphibians are fed, they will retreat into their hovels, your path ahead now clear. Be careful, though, checkpoints seem to have an appetite for flies as well! Lastly, and the most strange of all, is the Warp Worm. This friendly fellow acts as the game’s quick travel system, allowing you to move quickly between Warp Worm locations. This is a nice way to let players pursue other paths if they get stuck for a period, or revisit an area to go over some mechanical detail they may have forgotten. All it requires is for you to be eaten, again. (What is going on in this bird?!)

I cannot stress it enough: none of this is told to you through text tutorial messages or NPC explanations. You are presented with a puzzle on a screen with only the limited actions you have available, and it is up to you to apply what you have learned throughout the game to progress. With each region designed around a particular rule, slowly building in complexity and challenge, these newly discovered techniques are quickly internalised, as the player must understand them before moving on.

Playing Öoo was like having a little “Eureka!” moment every 5 to 10 minutes, a steady stream of thought-provoking puzzles that felt amazing to solve. One or two definitely left me stumped for a few minutes, but with the game’s generous checkpoint system and fast reloading upon your demise, it never felt like a chore. I always had what I needed; it was about accessing the right information I had learned along my journey, often combining elements and applying them to the problem at hand.

My one note is that a button that returned the player to the last Warp Worm they were at could be added in case people get stuck on a puzzle and would rather not backtrack or restart from their last save. But for a game that took me just over 2 hours to finish, this is a minor issue.

Visuals

I want to quickly highlight how Öoo’s art direction was used to convey information to the player in a clear way that makes intrusive elements like a UI unnecessary. Your bombs were coloured-coded when primed to communicate which will be detonated first, and obstacles that will return after a short period have a counter appear as an outline where they once were. It’s these sorts of details that belie Öoo’s level of design; everything has been thought through to be its most effective within the limits, and it is fantastic.

The chunky pixel art of Öoo perfectly matches Takahashi-san’s game design ethos, and Tiny Cactus Studio has done a fantastic job of creating fun, diverse levels and characters. Each zone of the bird has a different single colour palette and style, including toxic swamp, jungle, deep caves, stone buildings, and even a futuristic region! It was a lovely surprise to see what the next environment would look like, and it was often in direct contrast to the one that came before.

The few character models you come across in the game are incredibly cute and silly, especially the player bug. While backgrounds are static and subtler in tone, creatures stand out with bright colours and solid black borders, giving Öoo a clean presentation at all times. And again, that attention to detail is there, with the level itself warping ever so slightly around each bomb explosion, fully selling the impact happening on screen. With bouncy animations and suitably bombastic effects, Öoo is exploding with character.

Also, keep an eye on your bombs; sometimes they might look a little… different!

Sound

For Öoo’s chiptune soundtrack, Nama Takahashi turned again to composer Tsuymoi, who went above and beyond, creating over a dozen brilliant beats for the game. Each region has its own theme that matches the vibe perfectly without losing the light, silly nature of Öoo. More than a few songs had me bopping my head in time to the music, and I always enjoyed entering a new zone just to sit and listen to its signature bop. I particularly liked how all the songs took on a buzzy, kazoo-like tone when escorting a fly to a hungry toad.

Just like the soundtrack, the sound design of Öoo is impeccable, filled with bleeps, bloops, chirps, and pings! Every movement and action has a suitably satisfying sound effect, adding to the game’s whimsical feel and filling out the soundscape in just the right way.

Conclusion

With Öoo, Nama Takahashi has made another charming and creative puzzle game that I found immensely enjoyable, with just the right amount of challenge from start to finish. It is another great example of his design ethos on mechanics and their implementation, where the joy and satisfaction of successfully applying the knowledge you have learned is your reward.

If you are a fan of polished, meticulously designed puzzle games that will test your mental mettle and have you smiling from ear to ear, play Öoo, and then go back and play the rest of Nama Takahashi’s creations. You’ll have a blast!

Öoo is available now on PC(Steam).

Öoo was reviewed on PC(Steam) using a controller.

We would like to thank Nama Takahashi for providing the code for this review.