The Distracted Gamer

I downloaded the demo of World of Goo from Greenhouse.  This is the fist game from independent game developer 2D Boy.  The basic idea is that you have these goo ‘globs’ that can connect to each other to reach a suction hose that collects them up.  The un-used globs will be sucked up into the hose and each level has a minimum number that you need to collect. The game is based on realistic physics, so if you’re building a structure it’s going to bend and sway depending on how you build it.

If it sounds weird, it’s because it is.  This is a game that is definitely high on the bizarre humour ratings.  It’s essentially a puzzle game, and it gets progressively harder as the levels go on.  You also get new types of goo, such as ones that you can re-use.

Also, each level has an OCD award.  You get this for either collecting the maximum number of globs or finishing in a set number of moves.  I’ve only managed to get a couple of these, it’s pretty hard.

There’s also the World of Goo Corporation, which is a little minigame challenge.  Each glob that you collect gets added to your overall pile, which can then be used in the minigame.  It’s basically a ‘build the highest tower’ challenge, but the cool bit is the built-in ranking.  While you’re building there, clouds appear behind you which have a name, number and flag on them.  These are other people who have played or are playing right now and what their records are.  There’s also a leaderboard where you can see who has done the best on each level and the World of Goo Corporation challenge.

There are a bunch of good reviews on their site, the consensus seems to be pretty positive.  For US19.95, it’s not bad.  It also has fairly low spec requirements.  It plays just fine on my Dell Latitude D620 laptop with its crappy integrated video card.

I highly recommend this game.  It’s great fun, challenging and really easy to pick up and play quickly.   It does suffer from unskippable cut scene syndrome, where on each level it makes you watch the little intro each time.  This is kind of annoying, but they only last about 2 seconds so it’s not really a big deal.  Also, at least in the demo, you can’t save mid-level.  Not a big deal on most of the demo levels, but the last one is fairly long, and I imagine they’ll get longer in the real game.  I’d hope you can save in the full game, but I wouldn’t count on it.

Never the less, I like this game. Definitely one to check out.  You can get it from Greenhouse or on Steam (for 4 cents more).

Here’ the promo video for the game to get a better idea about the look & feel;