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Inspired by my Ecology and Islands illustrations series, Geometric Interactive approached me to create the art for their debut title: a mind-bending puzzle adventure called ‘COCOON’. While I had worked on some smaller games before, this was my first time working on a production of this scale.

above: some very early style screens

After being the only artist for about a year, production slowly scaled up and I ended up art directing a small art team of three 3D generalists. It was a very hands-on production; over the course of 6+ years I designed and modelled a wide variety of elements: ranging from characters, creatures, and alien architecture, to the otherworldly environments and gameplay elements. I also contributed with some animation work, drawing up storyboards, and developed the worldbuilding together with the game’s director, Jeppe Carlsen.

The worlds-within-worlds gameplay concept easily lent itself to a sci-fi setting, but other than that I was free to explore the artistic direction. My initial research veered more towards brutalist architecture and recognizable scifi, but after reactions to the early protagonist design, the art direction pivoted towards an insect-inspired design language. That organic approach automatically lent itself to embrace my greatest influence: the biomechanical works of H. R. Giger, or as GamesRadar put it:

Another major inspiration was how colony insects build their nests from the surrounding material, like wood and mud. This became a core inspiration for Cocoon’s architecture; I wanted the buildings to look like they were grown from their environment, as if the landscape had been manipulated into becoming structure. I also took cues from natural and artificial encapsulated structures such as egg casings, and the spherical rooms of neutrino detectors. They perfectly matched the idea of the game’s world-within-worlds gameplay both visually as well as conceptually. As such, layered circular and spherical motifs can be seen throughout the game.


For our materials, I was drawn to the metallic lustre that insect carapaces and cocoons can have. It helps them stand out against the natural surroundings, and because of their metallic sheen, look like technology. So we applied golden and iridescent materials for specific elements in the game, to make them stand out, and also to add a quality of sophistication to the alien culture. After all: they’re so advanced, they can fold entire worlds into tiny orbs!
 

For our protagonist, we liked the idea of him being born/created for the task of carrying orbs and traversing through worlds within worlds; there was a clear purpose to him. Early explorations leaned into the notion of him being a machine/robot. An important requirement was that his design should look functional and have visible clamps or grabbers to carry an orb with.


A design inspired by an astronaut’s suit was chosen for further development. I had given it a cape, to emphasize a sense of adventure. But with capes (and astronauts) being a bit overused, I decided to split the cape into two. It proved to be a pleasant enough design, and our playtesters commented on him looking like a bug.

This spurred further conversations about his design, that also tied into our ideas on the backstory of the game. We had been leaning into the idea that the game was about the (re-)assembly of a solarsystem, one planet at a time. This led to the idea that our protagonist wasn’t the only one of his kind performing this act; every solar system out there was being constructed as well.


Inspired by my research into colony insects, and the already insect-like appearance of our main character, these conceptual threads helped solidify a more insect-inspired design language for both the protagonist as well as the rest of the game.
 

For the architecture I took inspiration from insect nests and monumental land art, to convey an ancient and advance civilization with the power to shape entire landscapes and worlds to their liking. Circular patterns feature throughout many designs in the game and help express a very organic and alien architectural language.


As the game often has the player warp from one location to another, each location had to be instantly recognizable from the previous one. To this end, each world was expressed in a distinct color palette and biome: a grey industrial world, a red dusty rocky world, a lush green marsh, an organic purple skin-like landscape, and a cosmically strange dark mineralscape. While each world’s style derives from very different inspirational sources, by applying the circle designs in all of them, we were able create an eerie consistency, hinting at how the same alien culture has shaped all of these different locales.

Along his journey, our protagonist encounters several living mechanisms, creatures, as well as boss fights. I was lucky to have the time to design and model all of the creatures in the game. Their designs are a mix of arthropod and marine invertebrate anatomy, combined in a biomechanical fashion. The talent of the animators, audio designers and programmers further helped bring these creatures to life and populate the worlds of Cocoon.


Through the many designs I was able to convey more of the alien culture. Though very unhuman, I didn’t want them to look disgusting. After all, a culture that can fold entire solarsystems into orbs must be advanced beyond imagination. They and their culture might look alien, but also had to look graceful. To achieve this, I often considered them akin to angels, and many have large wing-like structures, or wide curved spines and antennae that evoke halos. Considered use of iridescence and shiny metallic parts help give a sense of sophistication. 

The game was published by Annapurna Interactive in September ’23 to critical acclaim and has since garnered many nominations, including Best Visual Art at the GDC Awards 2024, Artistic Achievement at the BAFTA Game Awards 2024 and won, amongst others, the Danish Spilprisen 2024 Award for Best Visuals and was named Eurogamer’s Game of the Year.

I’ve spoken extensively about my process and involvement with the game at schools, on podcasts, and at industry events, like Nordic Games in Sweden, Aalto University in Finland for their GamesNow! sessions, and on Gamereactor’s Spilstrøm.

Together with Lost in Cult we’ve been working on an art book that will be released in 2026. It will be packed interviews with the team, and hundreds of sketches and behind-the-scenes material.

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