Bad at puzzles, I fell for LayerQ's bomb caterpillar in Öoo

Tenth time's the charm (double digits, and double digits of mugicha refills too)

Hi, I'm Tsumiki. "Can't Solve Them, Still Hooked" hits double digits today with episode ten. I thought about doing something special for the milestone, but in the end it's the usual routine: peek at a let's play, go "huh." Today I'm back in Japanese-language territory with a video LayerQ played: "Öoo."

"Öoo" is a puzzle-action game where you guide an adorable bomb-laying caterpillar through a dungeon-like maze. Nothing about the name gives that away, but apparently it earned an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating right out of the gate. And the hero can't jump on its own — I got curious how that even works as a puzzle game, so I went and watched.

What I watched today

This time it's LayerQ *Indie Channel*, from the Japanese-speaking side. The video is titled "[An Adventure Always Starts Suddenly] Playing Öoo Casually No.001 [The Bomb Caterpillar's Eureka Experience]." LayerQ apparently never dumps a full playthrough at once, instead cutting it into roughly 20-minute chunks posted over several days. Take a look below first.

"Öoo" is made by indie developer NamaTakahashi, and it hit "Overwhelmingly Positive" right after launching on August 8, 2025. The hero bomb caterpillar can't jump on its own, but it can plant up to two bombs at once and detonate them whenever it likes, using the blast to launch upward or clear gaps. Some reviews even call it "a new kind of Metroidvania" — apparently the exploration and the puzzles mesh together really well.

What I think while watching, hopeless at solving

My favorite part was how LayerQ ends episode one showing only the stage, deliberately unsolved. The screen cuts to black with zero spoilers, leaving viewers stuck on "wait, how do you even get across this," and suddenly you can't wait for the next part. Is this let's player being too considerate?

Let me be serious for a second. That "can't jump" constraint sounds minor, but I think it's doing a lot of work. Every moment that would normally just be "jump over it" in a regular action puzzler gets replaced with "where do I place the bomb." So watching it, discoveries like "oh, there's a way to avoid jumping at all" keep bubbling up. Taking jumping away to make the puzzles denser — that's a quietly brilliant piece of design.

And best of all, while researching this I found out the developer themselves was genuinely moved by LayerQ's playthrough style, which warmed my heart a little. In a genre where let's plays are said to rarely translate into sales, that kind of care — splitting things up and cutting right at the interesting part — must mean a lot to the person who made the game.

So it's okay not to solve it

"Öoo" — if I played it myself, I'm confident I'd burn 30 minutes just on "wait, is this bomb position even right?" But even without solving it myself, just watching LayerQ's playthrough got the fun of the bomb caterpillar's ideas across just fine. If you're curious how it continues, go check out the full series.

Do you enjoy watching a hero who can't jump, jump anyway? I'm the type who's satisfied just from the moment of "oh, so that's how it jumps." My mugicha ran out. Not sure who to feature next — tell me in the comments, it helps me pick.