Games Review: World of Goo (Like Playing With Old Aunties)

Blogging, like the facts of life, is an attribute of a person that grows with the person as the person grows up, though facts of life are much less embarrassing to discover as your interviewee did more research on your background on the internet. Especially after your promising interview with said company.

Not that I have any horror interview stories to share (an interesting blog topic nonetheless) but a fact of my life that I’ve discovered while -trying to- growing up is being acquainted with a gaggle of old geese (to put it lightly) which I have mentioned around the blog messages as the Surau Aunties.

For multicultural readers, a surau is a religious Muslim building too small to be a registered centre, too exclusive to include large memberships and too unofficial to pay taxes to the government. Kind of like private banks in United States, only without the current economic recession and the CEOs don’t disappear in private jets (surau members fly AirAsia, which is far easier to track them down as AirAsia’s flights aren’t that timely anyway).

Surau Aunties don’t exist back in the pre-2008 Aidilfitri mainly because the said Surau (capital-S) I’m affiliated with wasn’t big enough to contain all their hot air, risking explosion. Now that the Surau had installed air-conditioning, every lady with pre- or pretend-menopause within a 30 kilometer radius flocked into the crescent-topped white cube to enjoy its climate control and exchange recipes, gossip and recipes for gossip.

So before we deviate from the blog title, what does Surau Aunties have anything to do with the game I’m writing about? A lot of similarities.

Oh God (pun intended), a whole lot of similarities.

World of Goo.

This simulation game was a smash hit when it came out sometime ago due to its simplicity of interface and yet the complexity of the gameplay, both adding up to a funny storyline into a whole lot of fun. Now if you know me, as I’ve yet to figure that out who is myself yet, I’m more of an rpg-fantasy-reader with dungeons and dragons around every corner, the 3D the better, especially when you beat a monster to crap.

Naturally, I didn’t thought of reviewing said game, especially since I couldn’t find the *ahem* full version to download. But LM, the youngest intern in where I work, took a short break from his Devil May Cry 4 to play something less devil, more squeaking than crying and a whole lot of numbers multiplied by 4.

So when the screams of death were suddenly replaced by sounds effects that can only be defined as ‘cute’, I had to check and see if LM had fallen sick and was playing a girly game. Far from the truth, World of Goo is a very tasking operation.


Playing with their balls.


Launch them gooey balls.

Designers from 2D Boy games had come up with a unique and refreshing game that brings in a lot of physics into play. The goal is straight-forward enough; link a chain of balls from a limited number of goo to become a stable structure and get close enough to the suction pipe for the rest of the goo balls to disappear to.

Infected with its cuteness, I downloaded a demo version to give it a try. Soon enough, I was building massive structures of web-linked goos, all trying to go against gravity in pursuing the elusive suction pipe on the other end.


All goos are naturally attracted to the tunnel at the end of the light.


If your structure is weak, it’ll collapse into pieces.

Here are no fight quests or boss monsters; your greatest enemy is gravity and wayward goos. There’s more to it than just building towers. There are also bridges across ravines and getting out of tight spots inside tumbling boxes and chambers. Every goo counts as most of the goos can’t be detached once they become the structure, only that good calculating (and occasionally, good timing!) can get the rest of the goos up toward the suction pipe.

And just like designing a building, the taller you get, the stronger the winds, making your goo tower sway and rock, ever risking massive deconstruction damage. I often had to click Retry or use up a lot of Time-Bugs (to reverse a move) even after only 3 minutes into the game due to bad calculations.


Why some goo balls are detachable.


Extra goo balls receive new benefits.

Hilarious. It is important that every goo ball’s mission is to serve the World of Goo Corporation for the advancements of goo balls everywhere. So innuendos and expressions and even references to real world irony are present in every chapter, like offshore resources, cosmetic surgery, politics and caffeinated beverages (in no particular order).

Again, reminds us all how very cute human nature can be as lumps of goo. (hehehehehehe!).

Which brings us back to how much playing World of Goo drew similarities between me being with my Surau Aunties and playing with an ever-moving force of miniature proportions poking fun in the form of jumping, squeaky, squiggly, yipping goo, that in all heart, each trying to fit itself into a purpose for something bigger and sturdier.

Like a mass of goo, all my Surau Aunties look alike and I can never tell then apart.
Like a mass of goo, all my Surau Aunties squeak in high-pitched sound effects that I don’t understand but smile anyway.
Like a mass of goo, all my Surau Aunties think they’re more delicious than the other.
Like a mass of goo, all my Surau Aunties are hard to detach once they stick to you or got stuck to another Surau Auntie.
And like a mass of goo I’ve been playing with, all my Surau Aunties are best at picking up when you’re down.


During festive holidays, Surau Aunties come in storms.

PS: Downloads for this demo can be found at 2D Boy's World of Goo Site.
PPS: Coincidently, if you can’t enjoy the full version of the game, you can still enjoy the play-by-play YouTube commentary by Gamer Shini1984 about the full version of the World of Goo (warning, use of excessive language. I mean, duuuuuh~...).