the game developer’s conference is taking place here in san francisco this week.  it was around this time last year that a spotlight first shone on world of goo, and it got me thinking about this past year and what an amazing ride it’s been.  being a tiny little studio forces us to be in direct contact with the people who play the game, and though it can be stressful and demanding to handle all the tech support and random questions ourselves, standing so close to our audience also brought us the purest moments of joy — reminders that games can touch people, bring joy, and inspire.  it’s particularly moving when this kind of thing involves kids.

THANK YOU, jack and celeste for your level designs (one day we will hire you!)

THANK YOU to aiden for the sweetest letter we’ve ever gotten!

and THANK YOU to everyone who’s written us with words of encouragement, funny stories, and entertaining notes.  you helped two guys who worked their little butts off for two years feel really good about what they’ve done.

Update: Ok, all systems appear to be functioning.
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Hi everyone, we’re in the process of moving to a new server, so some parts of this site are still gradually coming back online.  Our old web hosting provider (bluehost, avoid them!) canceled our account with no warning for using too much of our “unlimited” resources.  If you emailed or tried to contact us in the last 24 hours, you might want to try again. The good news is, there’s actually a level about crappy web hosts in World of Goo!

This past Thursday we released a preview of chapter 1 to everyone who pre-ordered the game. After we fixed an installer problem that prevented the game from running (oops) things started to flow pretty smoothly. It was meant to be a “Thank you, happy Valentine’s day everyone!” but it turned out to be bigger than that.

The biggest surprise was the amount of encouragement and support that you guys sent our way. Thank you! How unexpectedly wonderful! It filled me with gratitude and joy. A bunch of people also started helping out with testing, sending in bug reports and suggestions… some really good ones, too. It’s been so helpful that we opened up the beta email list so that anyone can post to it and allowed everyone to subscribe (more info here).

Hope to see some of you at GDC next week… can’t wait!!!