I recently picked up 2D Boy’s World of Goo in the amazing Steam sale that had it 75% off (thus knocking the $19.99 retail price down to a mere $5).  I’m glad I did, I had a blast with this game.  From the second I saw the loading screen, I knew I was in for something different.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward, you connect goo balls to other goo balls. (Gravity will teach you a lesson.)

And this kind of different turns out to be great.  World of Goo is quick to learn but still provides depth for those that want to master the world.

Your goal: Connect the goo balls together to get to the pipe in as few moves possible.

The goal on every level is to get the goo balls into the pipe.  There are a variety of different types of balls that will help you along the way.  Starting with the black balls, you can string them together until you get to the pipe.  The pipe then takes the remaining goo balls away and you’re treated to a celebratory screen telling you how well you did that level.

Quickly, the game introduces many other types of goo balls.  Some are detachable, others float like balloons to help keep your structures aloft, still others are just huge “pretty” balls of goo that have their own special pipe to go into.

The game starts you out with a certain number of goo balls, and on certain levels you can wake up more goo balls along the way.  The goo towers you construct are affected by a pretty impressive physics engine that causes some wobbling in the towers depending on where your extra goo balls are.

You can play levels again to better your time, lessen the number of moves you take or get extra goo balls.

There’s a good amount of replayability involved in the levels.  Collecting extra goo balls helps in the playground area.  It’s a section of the game that is infinitely wide and tall, allowing you to build as high of a structure as you possibly can.  It can get a little difficult when you reach great heights because gravity will weigh you down and crush the towers you were once proud of.   If you connect to the internet the playground actually becomes a sort of competition, showing you the other players connected that are around the same height as you.  The game also show’s you what the heighest tower in the world measures (when I was playing it was well over 800,000 meters, while I couldn’t get above 50).

Throughout the maps there are mysterious messages left on signs.

World of Goo is filled with signs, littering the landscape with different messages about the level and life.  It gives you a hint of the back story of the game, while making you laugh along the way.  Every sign is left by the mysterious ‘Sign Painter.’  There are dozens of levels, most times with multiple messages from the Sign Painter throughout.

Every message comes from the Sign Painter. He came here before you, to leave you important messages.

The story of the game is fleshed out through the messages left on the sign, and then little short videos between each act.

The game combines comedy, wit and solid gameplay mechanics to create a worthwhile experience.  The only thing to be frustrated with is the length (I finished it in a few sittings).   But at it’s bargain level price, World of Goo delivers plenty of value.  It’s simple enough for anyone to sit down and play, but provides some nice challenges to people who really want to get into the game.  It’s a great puzzle game in that respect because it appeals to a wide variety of players and play styles.

World of Goo has plenty of style to go along with its great gameplay.  The art is cartoony in nature, but does change depending on which part of the world you travel to.  It’s a great game.

Now it’s been said that you can’t change World of Goo’s resolution (there is no in-game option to change it from 800×600) but that doesn’t stop the intrepid computer user from modifying one of the game’s text files (which has some nice flavor text of its own) to display a resolution that’s more to your liking.  When I ran it in 1920×1200 however, there was some stretching that made the game menus unreadable, but didn’t affect in-game play.

I wish there was an options menu that would allow you to change the settings.  In fact, there’s a lack of options available to the user.  You can’t adjust mouse sensitivity in-game, so I hope you like the speed of your mouse on the desktop.

In all, World of Goo is a great game, it’s definitely worth $20 and was an absolute steal when I picked it up on sale for $5.

Questions? Shoot me an email at matt(dot)schuler(at)woodtv.com or hit up the comments section.  For more, shorter updates, check out my Twitter by clicking on twitter.com/mattschuler.