A physics based puzzle game that I really enjoyed playing
World of Goo feels like a mobile game from 2008.
That was my first thought as soon as I started playing it last week and, turns out, it came out in 2009, so I guess I was a bit early on my estimation, but still close enough.
My statement has nothing to do with the game feeling old, or dated, not at all. It is the biggest praise I can think of, when most modern mobile games flooding the app stores today are nothing but pay2win, always online, ad filled, time wasters. 1
World of Goo is a physics based puzzle game, where the goal is to reach a pipe to fill a tank with goo balls, in order to advance to the next level. I started playing it because @amin wanted me to check it out! Thanks for the recommendation dude!
Goo balls stick to each other, and can be placed to form bridges, tables, towers and the like, to allow the rest of the balls to reach their goal. There’s a limited amount of goo balls for each level, use too many, and you won’t reach the pipe, not enough, and your structure might fall apart into the void.
But it’s not just about building a structure and reaching the end. This is a physics game, and the goo balls aren’t very sturdy. External factors like wind and spikes, can destroy your goo balls or make your tower crumble on itself. There are also different types of Goo for different usecases, some can float like a balloon, or light on fire, for example.
The puzzle design is absolutely superb, with many different challenges that are fleshed out throughout the levels, some require time and patience, others will need to be solved as quickly as possible, but once you figure them out, you can always try to do it better, and the progression of the levels and variety of each chapter really is something to behold.
World of Goo really allows you think think outside the box, and the most obvious solution might not always be the most efficient, the physics of the game allow you to come up with tons of ways to reach your goal, so each level will count your moves and how many goo balls were left, so if you do it efficiently you can get an OCD achievement and a little flag showing you did it! just for that extra bit of satisfaction. I personally only OCD’d one level in the whole game tho.
The soundtrack was another think I really enjoyed, it was very unique, quirky and atmospheric, it felt kind of classic and elegant, it has class, you know? My favorite song is probably this one.
The writing itself was also great, every level has little signs that will give you hints and ideas, but will also flesh out a bit of story going on behind the scenes. It was very clever and had lots of jokes and fun moments that also feel very 2000s in the good way. I don’t think I got every reference in the game, but no matter, it was still enjoyable to read all the signs just to see what they might contain.
Overall, a fantastic little gem of a game that I finished in around 6 or so hours in a matter of days, I think it’s absolutely worth playing it! I got it for my Nintendo Switch and the touch controls were marvelous. It originally came out on the Wii back in the day, with motion controls which were actually ported to the Switch version, I tried it for a bit and it seemed fun, it apparently has a multiplayer mode too using both joycons as controllers, so I might play this again with my sister!
This is day 18 of #100DaysToOffload.
Of course, there are some good modern mobile games too, Guncho for example is a pretty great roguelite available on phones, and Balatro is out as well but they are not the norm at all. ↩
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