Video Game / BOKURA

Following

BOKURA is a series of co-op puzzle platformers made by tokoronyori and published by the Kodansha Game Creators Lab. The games cannot be played alone, requiring two players who have a way to communicate with each other. In addition, the games encourage the players to hide their perspectives from each other, only talking about what they see instead of showing it outright.

The first game, simply titled BOKURA and released August 9th, 2023, sees two children run away from home and find themselves lost in a strange environment completely transformed from the world they left behind, with each player controlling one of the two children. The main gameplay mechanic is that each child is shown a completely different view of the area, and the players must communicate to solve puzzles and guide their partner to find safe paths across seemingly impossible terrain. At times, the children are split up with each one learning individual secrets about the plot before coming back together to make an important choice, each player having to use what they individually learned and what the other player tells them to figure out what to do.

The second game, BOKURA: planet, sees two adults wake up from cryosleep after their ship malfunctions and crash lands on an alien planet. With no other options, the duo head out to find a way to repair their ship and find a way back to Earth. In contrast to the previous game, these Player Characters are condemned criminals with no reason to trust each other, and while the split world mechanics from the previous game are lessened, the separate points of view remain. This time, the players are encouraged to hide the secrets they learn about their characters, convincing their partner to make necessary choices without giving away their full motivations. BOKURA: planet was released on April 24th, 2025.

BOKURA and BOKURA: planet contain examples of:

• Action Bomb: The landmines in planet, little turtle-shaped automatons that wander around searching for people so it can wander up and detonate itself. They can also disguise as humans to lure in unsuspecting prey, something Blue and Yellow learn the hard way in the ending.
• Animals Hate Him: Used for a gameplay mechanic in BOKURA. The local dogs in the area will attack Green on sight, but they like Blue and will ignore him to go about their day.
• Color-Coded Characters: The characters are unnamed and dress similarly, but can be differentiated by the color of their clothes. The kids in BOKURA wear green and blue coats, while the astronauts in planet wear blue and yellow space helmets and talk with speech bubbles of the corresponding color.
• Fake Memories: In planet, Blue was brainwashed to take on the memories of Yellow's father before embarking on his assignment, Blue's original self was an emotionless loner that would be easy to overwrite. His personal conflict during the expedition is whether his fatherly feelings for Yellow could actually be real if they come from a false narrative.
• Foreshadowing: Part of the draw of the series is that the players will have absolutely no idea what the other person is seeing sometimes and have to rely on what their friend tells them to piece things together. This doesn't mean that there aren't times the game will drop hints on what's up with their character's partner:
  • BOKURA
    • Green asking Blue not to "eat [him]" shortly after the world changes will make no sense to Blue's player, who sees the world as a metallic wasteland and the two kids as robots, but will make more sense once they learn Green sees them as Funny Animals (specifically seeing himself as a duck and his friend as a bear)
    • The mother of the bickering couple is insistent that the missing kid is "her" child. She doesn't say "their kid", she says her kid. This won't mean much to Green, but Blue knows she thinks that because her husband is the boy's stepfather and doesn't consider him an actual father because of it.
    • Haru's situation. He's confused on why the boys don't seem scared of him when they meet, and both children see him the same way despite the two children seemingly existing in separate planes of reality. He's a monstrous figure in the original world.
  • planet
    • After reuniting after their first separation, Yellow starts to display mood swings, gets eager about Earth food Blue isn't that excited about, and recklessly picks unidentified berries from the planet to eat. Because he's now an alien parasite learning about human emotions and Earth for the first time, he's not quite sure how to act around Blue to keep him from getting suspicious, and is familiar enough with the planet to know what's safe to eat.
    • When the duo learn the truth about the planet, the normally logic-focused Blue suddenly discusses philosophy with the robot copy of the scientist about whether the copied memories could really be considered his. Blue is struggling with these thoughts regarding his Fake Memories and is asking for reassurance.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • At the end of BOKURA, the children are cornered by a monster who has seemingly eaten the surviving parent and the only way to escape is a seesaw that will force one of them to stay behind while the other flees to safety. The players are forced to choose which child to save... only for them to not be able to leave their friend behind and go back to save them.
  • At the end of planet, the astronauts get attacked by one of the planet's landmines right as they're about to leave the planet. Whichever astronaut reacts first will push their companion to safety and try to throw the mine away, but they are unable to escape the blast radius and will be fatally wounded as a result.
• How We Got Here: Both games start after the events of the plot, with BOKURA opening on the grown up version of the child they're playing as and planet starting with an astronaut that just finished a long return trip to Earth from the titular planet after being taken over by the parasite child. In the latter case, the character is left intentionally non-descript to allow for the possibility of it being either of the Player Characters.
• Humanity Is Infectious: The parasites in planet are wild animals who only take over others out of instinct and a means to survive, taking on their host's memories in the process. While the planet's other inhabitants don't provide as much knowledge for the parasite to absorb, Yellow's knowledge gives his parasite complete awareness and sapience, to the point where it develops guilt for killing Yellow and deceiving Blue. Depending on the ending, the parasite can even sacrifice itself to save Blue from the landmine.
• Mind Screw: The world in BOKURA is completely unnatural, and it doesn't take long for the boys to realize reality has gone out to lunch. Where one person sees a completely solid wall, the other can see an open path and just walk right on through. Where Blue sees scattered robot parts that can be attached together like a puzzle, Green sees his friend putting dismembered body parts back together and it working.
• Multiple Endings: Each game has three endings, with each game intending for the same pair to play the game three times to get the full story.
  • For BOKURA, the endings are sequentially obtained with each playthrough, albeit with some slight variations depending on choices made earlier in the playthrough:
    • First playthrough: When the kids are about to go home, they find themselves cornered by a strange monster who swallows the parent who survived the hunter earlier in the game into its mouth and are forced to choose who will weigh down a see-saw to let the other escape. Regardless of who is chosen, they will come back just before the monster reaches their friend and scare off the monster with rocks. The monster will spit up the parent before running away crying, as well as the handkerchief the kids gave Haru earlier. Wondering why the monster had the handkerchief, the scene flash forwards to show each player their character all grown up, thinking about their friend that they haven't seen in years and still thinking about that strange day...
    • Second playthrough: Before the monster can run away, the world glitches out and transforms back into the distorted world to reveal the monster is actually Haru, who sorrowfully lets his parent go before running away, believing the children hate him. When Haru's parent gives the kids the handkerchief, the two break down crying as the realization of what they did to Haru sinks in, still wanting to be his friend even knowing his true form.
    • Third playthrough: The two kids, now all grown up, reunite and go back into the forest to find Haru, now even larger and more monstrous than before. When the kids approach, Haru opens his mouth and pulls his friends in, the world glitching to show the human Haru hugging them. The world then changes back to show the monstrous Haru again, and the scene cuts to black.
  • planet has two endings depending on which astronaut reacts first to save their companion from the landmine and keeps the Playable Epilogue for the third playthrough from the first game. Like the last game, the second playthrough's ending is extended to provide additional details.
    • Blue: Blue's dying words are a declaration of familial love for Yellow, admitting that Yellow is his son (with only the Blue player knowing Blue means this metaphorically) and is happy that he was able to prove to himself that he cared for his family. After he dies, a parasitic creature slips out of Yellow's coat and attaches to Yellow's face, taking over his body before vomiting something up. (With only Yellow's player knowing this is the parasite giving his child Yellow's body as a host so it can live, with the parasite's child then spitting out the parent's body)
    • Yellow: Yellow uses his last breath to admit he had to protect Blue, even at the cost of his own life, all for the sake of saving his child... but also that he had to protect his new friend, the only friend he's ever had. A parasitic creature then emerges from Yellow (with only Yellow's player knowing this is most likely the adult parasite's child) and attacks Blue, taking over his body before declaring his desire to go to Earth.
    • After the second playthrough, a short scene will play showing the possessed astronaut on their way to Earth, cutting away right after giving birth to another parasite.
    • Future (Third playthrough): After the parasite and his child make it to Earth, the child parasite befriends a human child. After the human reunites the two parasites, a sudden rockslide threatens the human and the adult parasite moves to save them, inspired by the astronaut who sacrificed themselves for their host all that time ago... but it turns out to be a false alarm and only a few smaller rocks fall. The human is curious exactly what the parasites are, and the scene cuts to black just as the adult parasite is about to explain.
• Not Quite Saved Enough: Both player characters in planet. The astronauts finally get the resources they need to leave the planet, and they don't even need to leave anybody behind. Just as they reach the door to their spaceship and prepare to reveal their respective secrets, they get interrupted by the sight of a human frantically running towards them begging for help. They have just enough time to think about what they were told about the war on the planet before the human is revealed to be a disguised landmine. Regardless of the ending, one astronaut is fatally wounded by the landmine while Yellow's hidden parasite child kills the other and turns them into its host.
• One Dialogue, Two Conversations: Each of the main endings in planet will have the dying astronaut give some final words, but both players will have different contexts that changes the meaning of their words:
  • For Blue, He will happily call Yellow his son just before he passes away. To Yellow, this seems like Blue revealing Blue was secretly his father the whole time, but Blue considers Yellow his son by choice after accepting his fake memories as who he really is.
  • For Yellow, His last words are that he needed Blue to survive for the sake of Yellow's child, to the point that he'll gladly die to save Blue. To Blue, it seems like Yellow is talking about his human child back on Earth, but this is actually the parasite inside Yellow admitting he needed Blue alive so his child could have a host and not die out.
• Parasite Zombie: The parasites in planet, who kill their host and take their bodies for themselves as a form of reproduction. Yellow falls victim to one almost immediately after he and Blue separate to search for Rika, with the parasite spending the rest of the game impersonating Yellow. In the ending, the parasite's child takes over the survivor and returns to Earth.
• Parents as People: A reoccurring theme of BOKURA is the fallibility of parents. The married couple the boys meet early on bicker relentlessly (with the kid running away to get away from it all) and openly plan on forcing their son to choose between them if they find him, Green is so used to his own home life that he sees that as perfectly normal, and Blue's mother doesn't really pay much attention to him.
• Phonýmon: The boys in BOKURA are often seen with their "Pakemon" games in cutscenes, with the chosen character thinking about how they used to play when they were a kid (specifically mentioning Gold and Silver, two real world Pokemon versions) and Blue mentioning a man playing with him in the park when his mother left him there alone, wondering if that was his dad. At the end of the game, Blue leaves his copy next to the firework bomb declaring that he doesn't need it anymore.
• Playable Epilogue: After the same pair of players beat the game twice (meaning they both saw both perspectives as the games force them to switch characters for the second playthrough), playing the game a third time will put them in a separate campaign that takes place some time after the initial playthrough. For BOKURA, it's The kids reuniting as adults to find Haru and make up for hurting him all those years ago. For planet, it's the adult parasite's child meeting a human kid while the aliens try to adjust to life on Earth.
• Rewatch Bonus: Midway through BOKURA, the kids first see Haru as he's looking down at the corpse of the hunter who had seemingly just fallen from a cliff. After getting more of the story, particularly the implication that the bickering couple are Haru's parents, the hunter having just killed one of them, and what Haru looks like in the original world, it's implied that Haru killed the hunter to avenge their family.