Popucom combines match-3 puzzles, platforming, and co-op gameplay in one colorful package

The Epic Games Store has a trove of co-op titles to bring you and your friends together. From Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons Remake and A Way Out to We Were Here Expeditions: The Friendship, there’s no shortage of offerings that highlight how players can achieve success by working together as a team. But what if there was a game that combined multiple genres, not just platforming, but also match-3 puzzles? Enter Popucom, an upcoming co-op title from Countersurge Salient.

I played Popucom at the Tokyo Game Show, which my wife and I attended in late September. The 45-minute demo, in which we used color-based devices, battled enemies, and evaded traps, was filled with sheer, unadulterated fun.

Upon starting the demo, my wife and I were told that Popucom is set in a strange world once home to a genius known only as the Doctor, someone who researched the mysterious Prisma resource. The planet itself has since been taken over by monsters known as Pomu, though the Doctor had left behind powerful artifacts to battle these creatures. From there, we were informed that the player characters are boys and girls who have been summoned to gather the artifacts to end the Pomu threat. Our characters—mine was a boy with a blue motif and hers was a girl with a reddish hue—had just arrived to answer the call.

Right from the get-go, the cartoonish visuals, vibrant designs, and robot NPCs immediately caught my eye. The developers informed us that only robots have been left behind on this planet, and these characters were inspired by real-world counterparts. For instance, the Gambot robot merchant NPC is based on convenience store clerks. Furthermore, several levels consist of interconnected platforms and bases. These stages tend to have a part-futuristic, part-industrial theme owing to the Doctor’s inventions, robotic denizens, and other creatures that have arisen.

Early in the demo, we collected a weapon called a Rainbow Popper. I noticed that my blue character’s device could only hit blue targets, while my wife could only shoot the red ones. We were also able to swap to yellow and green colors, respectively, to interact with structures that had those colors as well. These objects and structures included platform switches, movable ledges, conveyor belts, aerial rings, laser traps, and more. We jumped across gaps, clambered over obstacles, and created our own means of traversal. There were even portions where we had to create barriers of a particular color to protect each other from deadly beams.

We had to be wary of enemies like the Stacko, a tall monster with a segmented body composed of interconnected balloons in several colors. The match-3 mechanics came into play since I could only hit the blue and yellow orbs, and my wife had to shoot the red and green ones. If we managed to connect three orbs of the same color, the enemy would be defeated, complete with a surprisingly loud pop. This concept also factored into moments when we had to create platforms. I could only stack two blue cubes because adding a third would cause the structure to explode, so my wife had to add either a red or green box.

Popucom's original gameplay differed significantly from the demo, as the game was first envisioned to use only physics-based interactions. When the team was just two people, they created a weapon called the Push Popper, which relied solely on physics mechanics. During early testing, there was also a creature similar to the Stacko—small monsters stacked on top of each other—whose parts could be pushed out with the Push Popper to trigger a match-3 effect.

However, the developers felt these early prototypes lacked appeal. They eventually added a color feature to the Push Popper, transforming it from a purely physics-based game into one with color and match-3 mechanics. This evolution led to the Rainbow Popper we used in the demo.

Popucom firmly emphasizes working together with your partner. It was imperative that my wife and I didn’t leave each other behind as we were traversing the levels. If I went to another area and my wife couldn’t interact with a color switch, then she wouldn’t be able to progress. If she went ahead of me in a section with a conveyor belt obstacle course, then she wouldn’t be able to protect me from lasers or hostiles. The team compared co-op mechanics to a three-legged race, a unique experience that requires two people to work together to succeed. The hope is to create a co-op game that strengthens player connections and promotes positive, real-world relationships.

The developers noted how shooting or swapping colors also works in bigger groups, and have expanded the game accordingly. Party Mode, which can support up to four players, should allow for unexpected combinations and player interactions, producing an open-ended challenge and allowing players to express themselves with different approaches. Likewise, there are plans to introduce high-difficulty levels in future updates.

There’s still a ways to go. The challenges of building a smooth, physics-based game with co-op can result in some unexpected, and funny, issues. For instance, one boss—a humanoid called Pobbaman—had an animation glitch that forced him into a silly walk, making him considerably less fearsome. Another time, a snake-like creature ended up doing endless sit-ups. These are just some of the problems with working on Popucom, which the developers did find amusing.

But development continues, and Popucom is set to release in the near future. You can wishlist it now on the Epic Games Store.