The Many Pieces of Mr Coo review – a brief but fun burst of Spanish surrealism

PC (version played), PlayStation 4/5; Gammera Nest/Astrolabe Games
Nacho Rodríguez’s point-and-click is like an old kid’s cartoon, a cavalcade of imagery where Lucasfilm meets Dalí

Mr Coo has a problem: he’s in pieces. Three of them, to be precise, and before you have a chance to consider whether that really qualifies as “many”, you find yourself tugging on a pensive demon’s thoughts to make it turn into a raincloud. You need it to rain on the plant pot where Mr Coo’s apple has turned itself back to a seed.

Even by point-and-click adventure standards, the puzzles and scenarios here are odd. This short burst of surrealism from the Spanish director and animator Nacho Rodríguez has the feeling of a half-forgotten cartoon you watched on holiday when you were a kid, and its constant artistic flourishes are absolutely the main event here. Solving the puzzles is secondary – like Mr Coo himself, pulling at a lever to make an old Punch and Judy show kick into life, you often feel as if your role is simply to interact with things in order to motor along more gorgeous, dreamlike visuals.

The Many Pieces of Mr Coo is out now; £11.39-£15.99

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