Having said that, the production overall is pretty much flawless, the graphics are charming and so fitting to the gameplay. A slight annoyance for those who strive towards OCD completion though is the disappearance of the “retry” button when you achieve the normal criteria for level completion – having to go back to the overview screen and watch the intro over again to try again for OCD wastes a fair bit of time. Especially because the extra goo balls go into the pool for your meta game mega tower. These are exceedingly difficult criteria which range from completing a level in a certain number of moves, or rescuing a certain number of goo balls over and above the normal completion amount required – but like so much else in this game if you come back to earlier levels after learning a few new tricks in later chapters the methods you need to employ to see that wonderful little flag go up on the overview screen will become more obvious – and this really keeps you coming back to the game for more. They have also, in a very clever twist on the usual achievement type system, created what they call Obsessive Completion Distinction criteria for every level. Well I'm fairly sure there's an easier way to do THAT level… 2d Boy cleverly integrated a competitive element to this by automatically showing you little clouds with the details of other players’ towers – the dizzy heights they’ve scaled with how many balls. But each level of the game requires you to collect a certain number of goo balls, and the extra balls you collect along the way go towards the World of Goo Corporation meta game which allows you to attempt to build the largest structure possible with the extra balls you’ve gathered. I won’t go into detail about why the World of Goo Corporation needs to collect so much goo and spoil the story – to be perfectly honest this is partly because I’m not entirely sure I could explain it coherently if I wanted to – it’s bizarre… surreal even… in a good way. World of Goo’s story structure is around a year of time passing, and each new chapter is a new season with new advances. You’re also guided through the levels by the Sign Painter, who, if you choose to read the signs (do, even if you don’t need the hint – they’re often hilarious and tell more of the story) will subtly draw your attention to what you need to try to do, without throwing it in your face like so many “hint” systems. The solution is never hidden – there’s just that perfect balance between “WTF?” and “ Ah, of course!”.

When you begin a new level, you often get that feeling with which puzzle gamers are all too familiar – “How the hell am I ever going to manage this?” But the design is so clever if you just look at the level your attention is drawn to the graphical clues.

Rather than simply making each new level harder, it instead builds upon what you’ve learnt before and gives you a completely different challenge, not a harder version of the same thing you’ve just done. That’s part of world of Goo’s real beauty. These two aspects together make it feel like you are constantly doing something new rather than rehashing old puzzles. Little green guys that can be removed and reattached red match stick looking chaps that are flammable clear, water goo balls that form a single bond rather than the normal two and much more beyond these that I don’t want to spoil. A simple enough concept, but 2d Boy have injected their game with so much imagination and creativity that the concept never gets old, or even predictable.Īs well as using various different concepts such as wind, fire and water to keep things fresh in terms of the level design itself, there are also different types of goo ball that are introduced gradually as you progress through the different levels of the game. The little goo balls which you haven’t used to build the structures themselves, will shimmy along on its rigid rails towards the exit pipe. When I was first getting my head around the gameplay, I couldn’t help but think back to my school days, and remember my technology teacher Mr Solomon explaining to the class the concept of struts and ties… he’d have had a much easier time explaining it with a quick demo of World of Goo.

To do this you’ll need to use your balls to build towers, bridges and other structures, avoiding obstacles such as spikes and defying gravity as you do so. The aim of the game is to get your little goo balls from their starting positions, to the exit pipe which sucks them into a big tank.

Demo of world of goo