From Recotechnology, we’re beyond excited to announce the release of our new game, EL COCO, today, november 28th 2025, on PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, XBOX Series X/S, XBOX ONE, PC Steam and Linux.
El Coco is an action roguelike where players take on the role of Ky, a small lost soul trapped within The Uncertain, the land of dreams. Their mission is to descend through The Hole to its deepest layers, facing nightmares and incarnations of our most primal fears — until they reach the King of Nightmares, El Coco, and attempt to defeat him once and for all.
El Coco is inspired by the legends and characters of western mythology, including characters like Xana, inspired by water fairies; Martinique, a mischievous goblin; Leltxu, a spirit that hides in the night to confuse the moon; or Ratoncito Pérez, a curious little mouse with a strange obsession for baby teeth, among others.
GAME MECHANICS
Each Run… A Different Nightmare
The game revolves around the nightmares that haunt children every night — terrifying and chasing them each time they close their eyes. However, nightmares can be overcome with courage and wit — that is the soul of El Coco. The game presents different challenges the player must complete while facing hordes of monsters, turning each level into a bad dream where the player must manage enemies wisely to emerge victorious.
El Coco’s Deals: Chilling Temptations
To survive, Ky must adapt to every situation that awaits within The Hole — even if it means making a pact with her terrifying enemy.
El Coco’s Deals offer the chance to gain great rewards at a terrible cost, creating moments where the “safe” option might not be the right choice. Each deal must be weighed carefully — you might let a huge reward slip away, or pay a price far too steep.
The Fight Against Darkness
To confront the terror, Ky wields various weapons and powerups, making every run completely different. The game’s weapons feature unique combos, different damage types, and knockback effects. Players can use anything from quick, slashing claws to a mighty hammer that pushes enemies and finishes them with a devastating blow.
Powerups, on the other hand, are rewards earned by completing challenges — one at the start of each level. These upgrades can enhance Ky’s stats, grant powerful passive abilities, or modify basic actions. Players can also find potent trinkets to use in combat, unleashing old power to the battlefield.
The Tricks: A Relentless Chase
The Lord of Nightmares never lets his prey escape. Each run revolves around candles, the essential resource required to play levels before confronting each boss. The more candles you collect during a run, the better your equipment will be to face the horrors of The Hole. However, El Coco lurks at every step, making Ky the unwilling participant in his macabre games. Throughout the levels, random dangers appear, adding extra complexity like stealing candles from the player, interfering with their senses, and much more.
MYTHOLOGY & CHARACTERS
In El Coco, players take on the role of Ky, a small lost soul trapped within The Uncertain. Their mission is to descend through The Hole into its deepest depths, facing nightmares and incarnations of humanity’s most primal fears, until finally reaching the King of Nightmares, El Coco, and attempting to defeat him once and for all… or not.
Along the way, Ky will find allies to aid in the journey through The Hole. Among them is Ratoncito Pérez, a curious little mouse with a strange obsession with baby teeth. Pérez is not only the owner of the shop that sells the essential resources needed to survive within The Hole, but he also harbors a secret passion for regional costumes donning them to join Ky in battle against the nightmares.
Then there’s La Xana, inspired by the water fairies of Western Mythology. They dwell in places of pure, crystalline water and, in folklore, are known for swapping newborn babies of young mothers with their own offspring. Our Xana uses the healing properties of her spring’s water to help Ky on her journey, though her true motives remain unclear. What is certain, however, is her deep affection for little Ky.
Martinico is a mischievous goblin who delights in stealing socks (leaving them unmatched) and other items just to drive humans crazy. He tends to appear to children, who are more easily drawn into his pranks. Despite his mischief, he is kind-hearted and seeks to help children, which is why he’ll sell Ky trinkets to aid in the fight against the nightmares lurking throughout The Hole.
Leltxu is a spirit from Western Mythology who hides in the night to confuse the moon. It takes many forms, but the most well-known is that of a bird that spits fire from its beak and appears suddenly in the darkness. While not inherently evil, it is infamous for leading travelers astray in deep forests. In our tale, Ieltxu will sell candles to help Ky feel less alone in the darkness of The Uncertain, that is, if he doesn’t eat them all first.
Tho is a small dream, lost within The Uncertain. It accompanies Ky throughout the journey, guiding and asking for help in freeing all souls from the evil influence of El Coco. It seems Tho holds a personal grudge against the Meigas…
But not everyone within The Uncertain will be friendly. Among Ky’s greatest foes are the three powerful Witches called Meigas, three sisters based on the western witches who once watched over The Uncertain but have since been corrupted by fear and now serve to El Coco.
Their names are Roxelia, Begonia, and Germinia, and they spread terror throughout The Uncertain. Roxelia, the wildest of the three, attacks with lightning-fast claws. Begonia, perhaps the most benevolent, only wishes to protect her sisters and will torment Ky with her impenetrable shields. Finally, Germinia, the cunning, malevolent mastermind, will stop at nothing to destroy little Ky, using her dark spells to make the journey a living nightmare.
And last, but by no means least, stands El Coco, the King of Nightmares, a lost soul completely consumed by fear. Based on the ancient Iberian legend of the same name, El Coco is said to kidnap and devour children who stay up too late. In our story, he feeds on the souls that fall into The Hole, devouring those consumed by fear and nightmares
EL COCO Art & Concept
At Recotechnology, we’d like to share with you the creative process behind El Coco: how the idea of drawing inspiration from the European mythology came to be, what our main references were, and how we developed the final artistic style that brings the world of The Uncertain to life.
From the very beginning of development, we knew we wanted to create something tied to Western Mithology, a lesser-explored part of European folklore that has always fascinated us. It felt like a unique opportunity to breathe life into a universe filled with monsters, witches, and nightmares drawn from our own legends. With that concept in mind, we quickly realized that the visual style should be stylized and evocative, reminiscent of the bedtime stories our grandmothers used to tell us.
With those foundations established, we began shaping the world of El Coco. Every character was designed with a cartoon aesthetic, and the environments were conceived to resemble pop-up books or paper dioramas, using simple shapes and repeating elements to create a sense of familiarity.
The user interface follows the same philosophy, incorporating watercolor textures and hand-drawn strokes to preserve the feeling of stepping inside an illustrated storybook.
Building The Uncertain
During development, we explored numerous ideas and references, drawing inspiration from adventure and roguelike titles. Ultimately, we concluded that The Uncertain should be a limbo where the souls of lost children arrive, a dreamlike place once inhabited by magical beings, now corrupted by nightmares.
The source of this darkness is El Coco, who was once a lost soul like Ky, our protagonist. However, unlike Ky, El Coco arrived in The Uncertain completely consumed by fear. Hiding in its depths, he began to feed the nightmares, corrupting everything around him.
The Hole represents the entrance to his lair: a symbolic descent into the places that embody our deepest fears. Graveyards haunted by ghosts, caves filled with cultists, and factories where nightmares themselves are forged are just a few of the settings that accompany this journey toward the origin of evil.
