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World of Goo is a critically acclaimed physics-based puzzle game for WiiWare, PC/MAC, and Linux. The game was produced and developed by the independent company 2D Boy.

Overview

World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game released as a part of the Nintendo Wii's WiiWare downloadable service, PC/MAC, as well as Linux. On the Wii, the game is released as a WiiWare title in the US, but it was released as a Wii disc in Europe and was slightly more expensive on disc. The PC and the WiiWare versions were released on October 13th, 2008 and are identical for the most part. An iPhone version of the game is in development. World of Goo is an independent game and was reportedly made by only 3 people, 2 of which were the main contributors. 

Story

The story centers around the World of Goo Corporation, a satire of big businesses that seems to be exploiting goo balls for profit by turning them into popular products such as tasty beverages. The corporation has set up pipes throughout the goo balls' home world in order to collect them. The goo balls work tirelessly to reach these pipes, as they constantly seek adventure and see the pipes as "warm and inviting." The goo balls sucked into the pipe during each level are collected at the World of Goo Corporation, where they build a tower to the sky for unknown reasons. The goo balls remain blissfully unaware of most of what is going on during the story, but the player guides them through a quest to stop the World of Goo Corporation. 
  
The story begins in The Goo Filled Hills, a pastoral island home to many goo balls. Eventually, they escape the island using large balloons in hopes of finding new adventures. The story then shifts to Little Miss World of Goo, a land where beauty reigns. There, a giant statue is injected with "Beauty Goos" in order to regain its beauty, and through that its ability to power the World of Goo. The next world, titled Cog in the Machine, follows the journey of the goo balls through a factory where outsource work is done for the World of Goo Corporation. Eventually, "Product Z" is launched at the factory, which converts the 2-dimensional world into 3D. An error message appears telling the player that he/she is incompatible with this new world, prompting him/her to seek tech support in the next level, the Information Super Highway. In this world, the goo balls find themselves inside the internet. They first upgrade the woefully outdated internet to support modern graphics, and then proceed to MOM, a spambot who teaches the player how to destroy the World of Goo Corporation. This is done by "undeleting" all of the deleted spam in the history of the internet and sending it to the World of Goo Corporation. This succeeds, blowing up the corporation and returning the world to 2D. At this point, although the main objective for the player seems complete, as the corporation has played the role of the villain, the goo balls continue their tireless quest to travel higher. The player is taken to the epilogue level, titled The End of the World. Here, the goo balls take on increasingly difficult challenges, during which The Sign Painter loses faith in their ability to succeed. In a twist ending, a sign left in the final level reveals that each and every goo ball has been sucked up by the pipes and transported to what was once the World of Goo Corporation. The sign then complains that a layer of smoke from the explosion of the corporation is blocking him from seeing out of his telescope, which he is currently operating in the center of the level. The player helps by attaching flying fish to the telescope in order to raise it above the smoke, allowing The Telescope Operator (Which The Sign Painter refers to himself at this point as) to see far, eventually spotting a faraway world seemingly inhabited entirely by goo balls, suggesting that this world may have been what the goo balls were seeking during their quest upward.

Gameplay

In World of Goo, you build structures using balls of goo in order to get from your starting position to a pipe that sucks in excess goo balls that you haven't used, sometimes of only a special type. These extra goo balls go to the World of Goo Corporation where the player can use them to create other towers and compare these to their friends. Goo balls come in many varieties, including standard, flammable, "dead", explosive, and many other types as well. There are fly-like creatures called time bugs flying around the screen and clicking on anyone of the time bugs will cause you to reverse your last move. These can only be used in certain levels and only a few times per level, they are essentially used as a "try again" system. Each of the goo balls has its own physics properties which include density, weight, how stretchable it is, and with what other goo balls it could interact with among other aspects. Another game type involves simply going up, which is usually the theme of the final levels in each chapter. New concepts or goo types are typically introduced through the enigmatic Sign Painter, who leaves painted signs in most levels in order to help the player progress.

Length

The main story mode takes around 6-7 hours to complete It and includes 48 levels over 5 chapters with each introducing more kinds of goo balls and a harder difficulty. After you finish the story mode, there is also a freeform tower building mode called the World of Goo Corporation in which the aim is to make the highest tower possible using the extra goo balls you have rescued during story mode. In this mode, other player's structures are represented as clouds in real time. 

Additional replay value is also found trying to accomplish the "OCD" (Obsessive Completion Distinction) challenge on each level, which usually involves solving the level with a certain number of goo balls remaining, in a certain number of moves, or within a time limit. 

Wii specific features

• The Wii version of World Of Goo allows 4 player co-op simultaneous game play.

PC/Mac specific features

• The PC/MAC offers a "profanity pack" as digital download replacing the goo's vocabulary with a more vulgar one.
• Online leader boards for every level were once hosted by 2DBoy. These, however, have gone down with no sign of return.
• The PC version features no DRM system at all.
  
• A level Editor has been completed by fans, and fully supported by 2DBoy.

 

iPhone Version

On October 13th 2009, 2D Boy announced development of an iPhone version via their official blog. No details for the port are currently known.

Soundtrack

The whole World Of Goo soundtrack composed by Kyle Gabler can be downloaded for free here.

1. "World of Goo Beginning" − 1:09
2. "The Goo Filled Hills" − 0:25
3. "Brave Adventurers" − 1:07
4. "Another Mysterious Pipe Appeared" − 1:18
5. "World of Goo Corporation" − 0:17
6. "Regurgitation Pumping Station" − 3:40
7. "Threadcutter" − 0:55
8. "Rain Rain Windy Windy" − 2:45
9. "Jelly" − 2:38
10. "Tumbler" − 1:52
11. "Screamer" − 1:36
12. "Burning Man" − 1:49
13. "Cog in the Machine" − 4:03
14. "Happy New Year (tm) Brought to You by Product Z" − 0:54
15. "Welcome to the Information Superhighway" − 1:56
16. "Graphic Processing Unit" − 1:06
17. "Years of Work" − 3:39
18. "My Virtual World of Goo Corporation" − 1:05
19. "Hello, MOM" − 0:06
20. "Inside the Big Computer" − 2:21
21. "Are You Coming Home, Love MOM" − 3:02
22. "Ode to the Bridge Builder" − 1:25
23. "The Last of the Goo Balls and the Telescope Operator" − 1:00
24. "Best of Times" − 3:41
25. "Red Carpet Extend-o-matic" − 4:04
26. "World of Goo Corporation's Valued Customers" − 0:13
27. "World of Goo Ending" − 1:09

System Requirements

Minimum System requirements:

• Supported OS: Windows® XP or Vista
• Processor: 1GHz or faster
• Memory: 512MB RAM
• Video: Any 3D graphics accelerator less than 5 years old
• DirectX® Version: 9.0c
• Hard Drive: 100MB

  

Mac System Requirements  

• OS: OS X version Leopard 10.5.8, Snow Leopard 10.6.3, or later
• Processor: Intel Core Duo
• Memory: 512 MB
• Graphics: 64 MB

Trivia

• A demo including the entire first chapter of world of goo was released on October, 15th 2008 after high demands for it. A demo was initially to be launched in early 2009, rather than before the official game's release.
• World of Goo won Spike TV's Best Independent Game of 2008 Award [sponsored by MT. Dew].
• The developers for World of Goo released the figures and it appears that the game had a 90% piracy rate comparing number of units bought and number or players online.
• The Mac Version of World of Goo was included in MacHeist 3.