World of Goo Review

 This'll be a good chill game to whittle away at in the eveni- and I beat it in 3 days.

A game that I only realized in playing it today was essentially an early example of the modern bridge building subgenre. World of Goo is a physics based puzzler where you connect up little goo balls of varying properties and abilities. Guiding them to a pipe to be sucked away to victory. Score is based on using a minimal number of goo balls while simultaneously avoiding losing any to the hazards of the level. Though the "OCD" challenges being the 100% completion mark often have varying challenges based partially on if the challenge is efficient building, or speed building.

It's easy to see why it had it's following, World of Goo is charming, addicting, and extremely user friendly. With very few annoyances or issues to be found on the design or control front. There is some issue in that you don't really get to decide where goo does and does not connect for any given spot. But generally speaking none of it gets in the way of anything but the most hyper-optimized of strategies. Making simple supports and shapes to build your goo in whatever manner the game desires never quite loses it's charm. Even as the levels begin to wane and bridges and towers start to get a little samey.

On that note, I think World of Goo is a little more concerned with entertaining the player as opposed to a more pure puzzler experience. Many levels have gimmicks, silly physics solutions, developer intended cheese, and even some weird bouncy action sections that remind me of something from Portal 1, where all of a sudden the game is testing your aim under pressure instead of letting you puzzle your way. But that doesn't necessarily come out of the blue, the level complete pipe has a strong suction effect that can often cause an otherwise unstable tower to stand perfectly upright. Rewarding quick placements over thoughtful ones. I can't say if this is to the games benefit or not, more I think it's simply a subjective thing. An experience better given the title of "arcade" than puzzle. Or maybe casual if that's your preferred term for Popcap style simple concept gameplay.

I don't know if I recommend World of Goo, but given it's age it's very likely you have it floating around somewhere in your steam library or similar. If you never tried it out, maybe give it a whirl and see how you like the physics system. It's not super long and probably worth a days chill playthrough.

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