World of Goo, Analyzed
Jon Erik Ariza over at GameObserver has taken a close look at some of the themes and subtext in World of Goo, chapter by chapter.
We Are World of Goo – the game “touches on beauty, our past, the cost of progress, and our place in the world” – interesting read!
January 11th, 2010 at 4:48 pm
cool read bro
January 11th, 2010 at 6:50 pm
DITTO to “g”
January 11th, 2010 at 8:35 pm
That’s it. Final proof that both of you are geniuses.
Not that I ever doubted it, but this is impossible to overturn.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Great read! A few things felt like a bit of a stretch, but this certainly helped me see some of the subtle stuff.
January 12th, 2010 at 7:48 am
I thought it was just a game about creating chains and bridges of goo balls in order to complete objectives.
Also, I have a HUGE problem with this. “Puzzle games like Tetris are brilliant in their own right but often lack all semblance of a storyline.” So Tetris is an okay game, but if they added a story, it would be leaps and bounds better? I guess its lucky that it is still being played on every platform since its invention…
January 12th, 2010 at 10:21 am
actaually, that seemed more like a statement of fact. He didn’t call Tetris an okay game, he called it a brilliant game but it does not, in fact, have a storyline. I think that was meant more to emphasize the fact that World of Goo combined fun and addictive gameplay mechanics with a theme-laiden storyline than it was to deride Tetris, or any other puzzle game, such as Peggle or Bejeweled, that simply do not have a storyline component.
January 12th, 2010 at 3:40 pm
…wow. My head is about to explode… I think somebody has analyzed World of Goo to the point of art-game level!
January 12th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Wow.
That’s all I can say.
I agreed with a fair amount with what they had to say, but I think my own personal interpretation is superior.
That’s what happens when you have unwarranted self-importance.
But I digress. Good article.
January 12th, 2010 at 11:31 pm
What a nicely written article :)
I got the impression, not mentioned in the article, that MOM could also refer to social networks, who in all their so-called sincere ‘honesty’, collect and sell personal info (*cough*Beacon*cough*).
“Alice and Bob” are your typical meta-syntax names in cryptography. It made me chuckle, that level!
January 13th, 2010 at 12:14 am
[...] hidden meanings of 2D Boy’s World of Goo Creator of World of Goo, 2D Boy, posted about a GameObserver article looking at the latent meanings behind the [...]
January 13th, 2010 at 3:49 pm
I’ve seen another article similar to this one that analyzed this game.
I wonder how much of what this player wrote was intended by 2D Boy.
I agree about themes in video games: paradoxically, when they are blatantly shoved down my throat, I don’t think the effect is as strong as it is when I can see it happening without being told directly.
January 16th, 2010 at 10:17 am
Great article! I now want to go play world of goo all over from the start again! (:
January 16th, 2010 at 10:38 am
Holy Jesus, your right…. I’m afraid you two have just exploited all that is wrong with the world… It’s all in there, even poverty. I see that in the Server Farm. Which is also saying that todays farms are messed up… Did you guys mean for all of this!?
January 16th, 2010 at 9:31 pm
This guy didn’t miss a single thing… Like, did anyone actually pick up on the Fisty vs Misty thing? My favorite was all the implied messages of destruction in chapter 3, like he said, like with the Super Fuse Challenge Time, Incineration Destination (the best puzzle in any puzzle game), and just the whole concept of sacrificing lots of Goo balls to get their companions to the “safety” of destruction within the walls of a corporation. Just another opportunity of me and everyone else to commend Kyle and Ron on an amazing game.
January 19th, 2010 at 2:40 pm
Last week i entered goo world!!!i couldn’t stop myself from playing it, By the way it cost me 2 university exams!!!! that’s how my goo plays on a fantasy life, on my paper it was an adventure never created by y world before
January 25th, 2010 at 7:35 pm
Pretty interesting, though I’m pretty sure the telescope didn’t actually manage to see the eyeballoon tower in the end, and I’d say that the fact that all your work to get through the epilogue was in vain for anyone who wasn’t omniscient like the player could be interpreted in interesting ways…
January 28th, 2010 at 12:45 pm
va a salir el world of goo 2?
February 5th, 2010 at 2:57 am
Ah, that was a good read. I actually wrote an essay about themes in world of goo for a class last year although this one is clearly better. I focused a bit on how different types of goo were essentially accepted as having different capabilities and importance – for example the flammable ones are essentially completely expendable whereas failing to bring the skulls to the end of a level would be impressively unlikely. Yet the completely useless goo that couldn’t construct anything generally reached the pipe because they had no other purpose
I also don’t entirely like the description of the “beauty” goo as privileged when it’s implied they are sacrificed as much as any of the other goos.
April 27th, 2010 at 4:05 am
=))))