World of Goo Remastered Review

Corporate Restructuring

Gather the Goo Balls and travel the globe in World of Goo Remastered from developer 2D Boy and Netflix Games. Experience the classic 2008 physics-based puzzle game for the first time on mobile devices. Play across five different chapters over the course of a in-game year by collecting sentient balls of slime and building your way to the top of the world. Uncover the World of Goo Corporation’s secrets and witness the launch of a world-changing product.

Naturally Resourceful

World of Goo Remastered begins one fateful Summer day. Pipes have suddenly appeared across the World of Goo, sparking the curiosity of the once dormant Goo Balls. In order to reach these pipes, you’ll need to build structures using these Goo Balls. This includes bridges, towers, cannonballs, zeppelins and more. The mechanics are simple—tap and drag Goo Balls one at a time to the edges of existing Goo structures. As you hover near compatible nodes, a transparent guide will form to show where your future piece will materialize. Once you’re happy with its position, release your finger to form the new structure and go back for another critter.

As players assemble their architecture, they’ll need to avoid an array of environmental hazards like rows of spikes, towering walls, spinning gears, high winds and gaping chasms. Lucky for us the Goo Balls are not only delicious, natural resources, but also extremely adaptive. Each chapter of the game features several new species of Goo with unique abilities for players to exploit. Balloon Goo Balls form a balloon once attached to solid structure, lifting that portion of it into the air. Green Goo Balls can be repositioned as many times as necessary, making them vital for climbing walls. In total, I counted around 30 different types.

In addition to reaching the pneumatic tube, each chapter level requires a certain number of Goo Balls to complete. Players can earn the OCD bonus for exceeding the requisite number of Goo, finishing faster or using fewer moves. Once you reach the tube, the remaining Goo Balls are whisked away to the World of Goo Corporation headquarters. This campus acts as an optional meta minigame that allows players to manufacture structures of their choosing from the leftover Goo.

Good Til the Last Glop

Along the way, you’ll encounter signs left for you by the Sign Painter, the game’s mysterious narrator. Besides offering helpful hints to players, these signs provide the bulk of World of Goo Remastered’s story.

We learn that the World of Goo once relied on the Goo Balls as an energy source to power their living generators before choosing to switch to wind power. However, with the winds growing beyond their control, the corporation had no choice but to resume their goo-based operations. However, the corporation’s newest secret project promises to cure the World of Goo of their reliance on the Goo Balls. In the meantime, we continue harvesting the once dormant critters, reaching for new heights.

In addition to the biologically diverse Goo Balls, players can utilize Time Bugs during the more difficult levels. Time Bugs, which appear as white gnats, automatically generate after you complete a series of moves. To activate, simply tap on one of the bugs to undo your most recent action. While much of the game feels intuitive, these temporal insects come in handy in the latter, more complex levels where players could easily misstep.

Same Gloopy Goodness

World of Goo Remastered boasts optimized graphics for mobile devices, but I couldn’t spot much of a difference from the original game footage I’d seen. O.G. players might feel cheated without any real improvements or additional content, since the game’s basically a port of the original version. However, as a newcomer to the series, I thoroughly enjoyed almost every second of the game.

I say almost because some of the gameplay would benefit from better optimization. In smaller structural areas, the Goo Balls often congregated, quickly flowing past one another. This meant that I had to be careful about which Goo Balls I chose, especially when more than one type hovered in the crowded area. Normally, this wouldn’t be a problem, but the areas that this most often occurred were ones that required me to act quickly to prevent the jiggling structures from collapsing or tearing. This might not affect some players, but the frustration made me step away from the game on several occasions.

The Time Bugs also annoyed me from time to time. While extremely helpful, these nuisances would often fly away from me at the moment I needed them most. As I scrolled across the screen, they often scurried along to keep up, just in the opposite direction, which is the last thing you want your lifeline to do in a time of need. Maybe the developers intended to ramp up the difficulty. Maybe it’s user error. Either way, there are better alternatives.

All in all, World of Goo Remastered offers new and returning players plenty of quirky, creative fun. While there are certainly opportunities for gameplay improvements, World of Goo functions enjoyably enough, as is. Here’s hoping the renewed interest in the franchise brings us another gooey installment sooner rather than later.