A sequel some of us have been waiting 15 years for.
World of Goo 2 will release later this week on August 2, and to celebrate the developers have released a new trailer showing off a bit more than we saw when they revealed it last fall. One of the early great digital distribution indies—and still fun today—World of Goo has players snatch up little weird goop balls and attach them into increasingly unwieldy constructions in order to get said little goop buddies to the end of each level on their journey through an increasingly absurd and equally unwieldy plot.
The trailer shows off all kinds of weird stuff, pretty much exactly what you'd expect from World of Goo, but most of all it definitely has the offputting aesthetic that developer 2DBoy and publisher Tomorrow Corporation are known for. Strange, goggle-eyed, vaguely upsetting people staring blankly at the world around them as terrible things happen. Just what the doctor ordered.
While the gameplay in the trailer is recognizably goo-ish, there's definitely new stuff going on here. The action looks smoother than what we could get in 2008, and there's definitely new simulation going on: Some scenes have black liquid goo that comes pouring out of the ground or from a strange octopus-worm and can apparently be caught up in shapes made from other goods that, if punctured, spill their contents everywhere. Seems like a good basis for more physics puzzling.
At launch, World of Goo 2 will be on Switch, Windows, and Mac. If you don't have one of those, or want the game to be on the "heavy computer that's strapped to my face and sprays pixels into my eyeballs" then the developer suggests you "throw your other platforms in the trash."
There's also a nice preview of the World of Goo 2 soundtrack by composers Kyle Gabler and Johnny Trengrove that's posted to YouTube. I found it pleasant, but then, I'm a fan of some nicely used horn and classical guitar.
Developer 2DBoy first released World of Goo back in 2008, one of the first early experiments in letting games that weren't made by Valve onto Steam. The physics plus construction puzzle gameplay was pretty novel stuff at the time, drawing wide acclaim—especially for an indie, where the standards of polish and relatively advanced tech usage were much lower.
You can find World of Goo 2 on its website, worldofgoo2.com. You'll be able to buy it directly from the developer or on the Epic Games Store, seems like.
Anyway, if you're also a person of taste in fine, slightly older indie games—or if your joints are just creaky—you might be interested in how The Behemoth is updating Castle Crashers, Battleblock Theater, and more.
