World of Goo

World of Goo is a video game for the Wii, Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, iOS, Nintendo Switch, and Linux by 2D Boy, an independent game developer founded by Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel, both former Electronic Arts employees. It was nominated for the Seumas McNally grand prize, Design Innovation Award, and Technical Excellence at the Independent Games Festival. It was released for the Wii's WiiWare in North America on October 13, 2008. On November 11 2008, 2D Boy announced that World of Goo will be released as WiiWare in Europe, instead of a retail release.

The game is built around the idea of creating large structures using balls of Goo. The game is divided into five chapters, each containing several levels. Each level has its own graphical and musical theme, giving it unique atmosphere. There is also a bonus meta-game called World of Goo Corporation, whose objective is to build the highest tower using Goo Balls which the player collected through the course of the game. Players from all over the world can compete, as the height of the tower and number of Goo Balls used are being constantly uploaded to the 2D Boy server.

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow!!

The story is told primarily through the cutscenes and signs encountered throughout the game, which were left by a mysterious figure known as the Sign Painter.

Initially, pipes appear throughout the land, waking up many sleeping Goo Balls who have gone undisturbed until this, as they are filled with a childlike sense of curiosity and naivety they build themselves towards the pipes. Upon reaching the pipe entrance, the Goo Balls are sucked by the pipe system into the "World of Goo Corporation" main building where they are processed into many products, most prominently energy drinks. The excess Goo Balls are left outside the Corporation headquarters where they together begin to build a massive tower. At the end of the first chapter, some Goo Balls escape from a Corporation building by attaching themselves to Eyeball Goo which have the ability to float. The chapter ends with the Goo Balls "seeing far away new lands."

The launch of Product Z is a turning point in the story

In the second chapter, more pipes appear in an impossibly windy desert where a giant power plant is located. However, during the past, the location and appearance of the plant was hidden, and its energy output slowed down. A new Goo Ball is introduced, which is ground up by the Corporation into a facial cream. Near the end of the chapter, the power plant, which looks like a giant woman, is discovered. It turns out that the power plant "ran on beauty" which is (according to the game) a highly reactive metal like lithium or francium. After some of the Small Beauty Goo are injected into it, it becomes operational again, allowing the Corporation to open up a new factory in the south.

The Telescope during the ending cutscene after the Epilogue

During the third chapter it is said that the Corporation develops a mysterious "Product Z". It eventually turns out that the mysterious Product Z is actually the third dimension (a reference to z-axis in mathematics). This causes much commotion amongst the general population who cannot see where anything is now. World of Goo Corporation tells them to contact tech support in the Information Superhighway after mankind, all animal and plant life becomes rendered "incompatible with the world".

In the fourth chapter the Goo Balls set out to find the mysterious "MOM" program amongst a vector-style environment. Shortly after the beginning the Goo Balls find the object responsible for rendering the graphics. After pumping many of their own kind into the object, the graphics render improves, creating a more realistic environment (and the Square Goos). Near the end they encounter the MOM program who, during a somewhat disturbing conversation with, turns out to be a spam bot. The Goo Balls try to overload Product Z by sending every message in the history of spam to World of Goo Corporation. After venturing to the Recycle Bin and un-deleting everything with an Undelete Pill, the Corporation headquarters explodes, shutting down Product Z while creating a massive layer of smog, dust, smoke and debris that envelops the entire planet.

In the Epilogue, the remaining "scientifically pure" Goo Balls are sucked away to the shattered pieces of the Corporation's headquarters. The remaining Goo Balls decide to work their way up the island to reach a site where a telescope is located. The final level of the game reveals that the Goo Balls are now completely extinct, all the remaining having been sucked away to the shattered fragments of the World of Goo Corporation and added to the tower, and the gigantic telescope at the site has been rendered useless as it cannot see past the layer of smog. The Sign Painter reveals in his final sign that he has now become the Telescope Operator. Some balloon-like Fish in the sea attach to the telescope and lift it out of the ground, where it breaks through the layer of smog and sees the tower of Goo that has been built at the former World of Goo Corporation Headquarters, which can also see past the smog. The telescope falls back to earth before it could see what the Goo Balls were building towards. However, a final and last cutscene reveals their goal; the camera pans up into space to reveal that the Goo Balls that escaped at the end of Chapter 1 have managed to reach a far-off planet populated entirely by Goo Balls.

An additional chapter was initially planned for the European retail version of the game, located on the Moon; however such plans have been abandoned because 2D Boy did not increase the price of the game for some, to make available the new chapter at the same time for all. It may be released later.

WORLD OF GOO

"This isn’t just the small matter of being one of the best games of the year, it’s also the emergence of a stellar new talent in gaming... a game that constantly reinvents itself, reimagining the possibilities, evolving and throwing out surprise after surprise."

Review at Rock Paper Shotgun

"easily the best WiiWare game to date and, perhaps, one of the best this generation"

Review at NintendoWorldReport

"A game so utterly charming, so pregnant with charisma, and so simple in concept, that it belongs in another era."

Review at Eurogamer

"brilliant, stunning, and ridiculously fun ... World of Goo is so good that it oftentimes feels like a title developed internally at Nintendo"

Review at IGN

"The comedy is implemented in bucket-loads, parodying the power of cynical marketing and the corrupt exploits of major corporations... and at this point I struggle to find a way to put into words how a puzzle game can explore so many themes. It's just incredible."

Review at The Dead Pixel Post

"I honestly don’t know where to begin on this one. This game is so startlingly brilliant on so many levels that it’s difficult to say ‘oh yeah that’s the stand out thing’ and then begin with that."

Review at Poisoned Sponge

"I myself gasped at a few points at the sheer brilliance of what I saw in front of my eyes. Words cannot describe how good this game is."

Review at Chris Evans

"Not only is World of Goo easily the best WiiWare release to date, it's also proof that you don't need a large development team or millions of dollars to create an outstanding video game. In an era of video gaming where style is often emphasized over substance, it's refreshing to see a title like World of Goo that somehow manages to feature an abundance of both."

Review at WiiWare World

"Before long, you're actually building your way out of a creature's stomach. First you've got to make a raft on the sea of his digestive juices, obviously ... ingenious and heart-warming."

Review at PC Gamer