A fantastic game from my childhood, this was awesome to come back to even as an adult, but those OCD achievements are just unforgiving in certain levels (looking at you, Chapter 4 Bulletin Board System) other than that.

8/10 game; thanks for the memories.

A puzzle game in which you construct various structures using shape-shifting goo balls.

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World of Goo drops you into a foreign world inhabited by different kinds of goo balls. The game comprises a series of levels, each of which contains a number of goo balls and an exit pipe which you'll have to help the creatures reach. To achieve this, you can grab any goo and attach it to others, leading to them being connected through trusses. Goo balls can slither along these trusses, allowing them to move across goo structures and towards the exit pipe.

The goo trusses are rather flexible, meaning you'll have to keep an eye on the integrity of the structures you create, lest they collapse. This is further complicated by the fact that each level requires a minimum amount of goo balls to reach the exit in order to be completed, so you'll have to strike a balance that allows for as many goo balls as possible to stay free. To push this concept even further, every level contains a bonus challenge, tasking you with completing it in a set amount of time or with an even greater number of goo balls escaping. These can be rather tricky to complete and provide some nice replay value.

As you progress, World of Goo gradually introduces different kinds of goo balls, such as floating or flammable ones as well as various stage hazards. Through this, the game's basic premise manages to stay interesting throughout its runtime while maintaining a fair difficulty curve. Every level also contains some observational monologues provided by an unseen character. This provides some background information on the world and events of the game, though stays rather vague throughout, leading to me personally not really caring too much about it.

For highscore hunters, the game also features leaderboards for each level, allowing you to push your solutions even further. Similarly, all goo balls you collect throughout the games' levels are placed in a separate area, where you can use them to assemble a tower, competing with other for the highest one.

Presentation-wise, World of goo goes for a charming cartoonish look that complements its overall tone. There's some decent music playing throughout the game, though it is mostly atmospheric and thus rarely memorable. Overall, I found the game's atmosphere to be a bit too bleak overall, which certainly matches the lore it contains, but can feel rather dreary.

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All in all, I enjoyed my time with world of goo, in large part thanks to its interesting premise.

unplayable after the 2019 update - stuttering, broken forced aspect ratio the gameplay was not designed for