Playing A Game World of Goo PC

I'm super-glad that Steam posted a free demo of World of Goo, because the past several days of rave reviews were quickly driving me toward a purchase which, in retrospect, I probably would have regretted.

Honestly, I feel bad for not liking World of Goo more than I do. The presentation is more impressive than an independent game has a right to be, and the gameplay concept is very cool. But in practice, I didn't have much fun with it at all - more often than not, it just frustrated the hell out of me. The basic idea of the game is to build structures with your goo by dragging balls of it next to each other, but since the physics is super-elastic, already-constructed goo is constantly swaying around, and trying to get a sensible structure going is like- well, it's like trying to build a house that's alive and has Parkinson's.

Getting goo to attach correctly is also an unnecessary challenge, from picking it up - and trying to avoid picking up other goo in the same spot, since all the free goo is moving all the time - to placing it, as the placement options are chosen automatically based on your cursor's proximity to nearby goo nodes, and this often results in a choice which doesn't make any goddamn sense. (This isn't the only problem with the interface either: interface elements toward the edge of the screen, e.g. the Menu button, inevitably invoke auto-scrolling when you try to actually move the cursor to them.)

The level design, from what I saw, was pretty good; but the challenge of the game is less of a traditional think-it-out puzzle, and more of a real-time "tweak it until it works" puzzle, which is not something I really care for. There are definitely some good ideas at work in World of Goo - the bonus level where you compete in a global tower-building contest is a stroke of genius - but there are also several very important areas left to polish. It's certainly better than your average Flash game, but I'm not convinced that I should part with money for it.

Progress: Gave Up -- Finished demo (World 1)