Video Game / World of Goo 2

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World of Goo 2 is an indie Puzzle Game developed by 2D Boy and Tomorrow Corporation, and was released on August 2nd, 2024. It is the sequel to the 2008 surprise hit World of Goo.

Like in its predecessor, the player has to clear levels by cleverly and carefully building structure by using balls made of the eponymous goo to reach the exit. Its story takes place some time after the events of the first game, showing a slow but gradual return of the Goo Balls, following up a seismic fracture.

It is available on PC (Initially via the Epic Games Store, as well as DRM-Free via the developers own website, and released on Steam eight months later), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, iOS, and Android.

This game provides examples of:

• Achilles' Power Cord: At the end of Chapter 4, Cliff Spanner tripping on the power cord of the Curator's CRT television causes the entire World of Goo archive to be deleted.
• Anti-Climax: At the very end of Chapter 4 and The Black Stain, the Curator calls Cliff Spanner over to play fan games of World of Goo. However, on the way there, he trips over the power cable for the CRT television, causing the deletion of the Curator alone with the entire archive of World of Goo sequels and other related content without much build-up.
• Art Shift: The World of Goo 17: The Black Stain set of levels in Chapter 4 is presented with pixel art.
• Bait-and-Switch: Chapter 2 runs on the assumption that many satellite dishes of the island that used to be beauty generator are listening into some kind of distant signal. The tower is actually a giant powerful transmitter used by World of Goo Organization to beam ads into the phones and tvs of people.
• Benevolent A.I.: The Curator is eventually revealed to be one, being the program responsible for preserving many World Of Goo sequels for future generations. A mishap on the player's part results in the CRT being unplugged from power and, as result, deletion of Curator and everything he preserved.
• Big Bad: World Of Goo Corporation, rebranded as World Of Goo Organization, is back to its ways, using goo to create beauty products, food and as fuel for ad -transmitting station, destroying environment in the process.
• Blackout Basement: The Chapter 3 level, Night Factory, has you descend a twisting shaft in almost complete darkness. Luckily, you have three Glow Goo to light the way.
• Blob Monster: The jelly goos in this game are now actually more blob-like, as opposed to the solid balls of the Beauty Goo/Ugly Goo in the original.
• Brutal Bonus Level: Unlike the previous game, which had no optional challenge levels, this game has one in the first chapter, two in the second chapter, and three in the third. Those require strategic approach, careful placement of goo and quick reaction, especially for OCDs.
• Cool Train: Atomic Express, location of Chapter 3. It also happens to be a new goo-collecting tool in Organization's use that allows the goo collecting amounts to skyrocket and generates a ton of waste in return.
• Call-Back: Cliff Spanner uses the phrase "laconic crusader" in reference to the prior game's LaconicCrusadr13.
• Convection, Schmonvection: Lava, abundant in the game Chapter 3 onward, only destroys goo on direct collision.
• Cyberpunk with a Chance of Rain: The cyberpunk-looking city in The Black Stain is always dark and raining in reference to the environmental destruction.
• Dark Reprise: "Just Another Bit Of Filth" is a more melancholic and jazzy version of "Ode to the Bridge Builder" song.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After being exploited by World of Goo Organization yet again, Goo Balls manage to escape into the future thanks to Organization speeding up its Goo-collecting Atomic Express to incredible speed to increase its collection rates, causing it to go fast enough for time travel to happen. A traveler who's been watching the world for a while and tried to reach it in a rocket then arrives on the planet and, collecting all goo balls in the world, distributes them on many other planets, allowing them to live in peace in many Worlds Of Goo.
• Eye Scream: In Chapter 2, the Beauty Generator makes an appearance again, this time broken down and retrofitted into a kind of radio tower on a small Floating Continent suspended in the sky by rocket engines. Where her eyes should be, there are parabolic antennae jutting from the now-hollow sockets.
• "Eureka!" Moment: In the World of Goo 17: The Black Stain level "Dark Night at El Sol", while Cliff Spanner ruminates about an alternative to the possibility of Sunshine Power killing the heir of their direct competitor, the person working at the Mexican food stand mentions that it's Always Night and raining in their city. This comment gives Cliff the breakthrough needed to crack the case.
• Frothy Mugs of Water: The Sour Note in Chapter 4 is a bar that mostly serves milk. When Cliff Spanner mentions whiskey the bartender doesn't know what that is.
• The Ghost: Both the person responsible for painting the signs and the Curator from chapter 4 aren't met in person. Eventually subverted with the Curator, who first appears as a janitor in Black Stain and later in his true form as an AI in a giant CRT.
• Gravity Screw: Chapter 4 contains a fictional sequel called World of Goo 11: This Way Up where there are a few levels that contain a square with an arrow on it that determines which way gravity faces. You can control what direction it faces except for on "Stumbler" where it spins on its own.
• Greenwashed Villainy:
  • World of Goo Corporation (now rebranded as World of Goo Organization) tries to advertise themselves as being much more environmentally friendly to salvage their reputation, but it's clear from their actions they haven't changed at all since the first game.
  • At the end of World of Goo 17: The Black Stain, Cliff Spanner suspects that that Sunshine Power is merely a subdivision of Blackwood Oil designed to deceive the people into thinking that green energy is being researched.
• His Name Is...: In "Murder on the Midnight Steamliner", Dmitri Cognac is murdered right when he's about to tell Cliff Spanner how to find Rusty Blackwood. He still does manage to give Spanner a hint.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After Organization reaches the physical limit of Goo-collecting speed thanks to their Atomic Express, their greed pushes them to raise the speed even further. As a result, the train speeds up so much it transcends time and space, travelling 200,000 years into the future, not only delivering all goo balls to safety, but also leaving the Organization without all of their resources and in shambles. Turns out you don't always have to overload the mail to take down evil corporation.
• Kraken and Leviathan: The final level in chapter 1 ("Angler") involves hooking in a giant squid-like monster, that is revealed to be the entire island.
• Locomotive Level: The entirety of chapter 3 takes place on its namesake train, Atomic Express.
• Medium Awareness: In the last level of Chapter 4, one of the janitors says they are in the fictional sequel World of Goo 17, but Cliff Spanner knows that they are actually in Chapter 4 of the game.
• No-Paper Future: A sign in Paper Goolf says that despite the name of that game, there was no paper in the world at the time of the game's release.
• Nostalgia Level: Quite a few levels are call-backs to the original game with new gimmicks or new mechanics. For example, "A Familiar Divide" references "Small Divide". Lampshaded by the Curator in "Stumbler" which calls the level a classic re-telling of "Tumbler" from the original.
• Obvious Rule Patch: Two achievements on the Steam version require flinging a goo ball into the pipe both on and offscreen. Given that the Goolf levels in chapter 4 require you to fling goo balls in order to complete them and thus would completely trivialize both achievements, the game specifies it must be a non-Goolf ball in order to unlock the achievement.
• Private Eye Monologue: Cliff Spanner is a private eye, and the point-and-click style of his levels gives him plenty to talk about, which he does in first-person with verbose descriptions. Lampshaded by Dmitri, who remarks "well go on then, don't just monologue to yourself." and openly acknowledges what Cliff says in them.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: Exaggerated in Chapter 4, which has a number of Unexpected Gameplay Changes that in part stem from you going to the future and playing World of Goo sequels, like a golf-themed stage (Paper Goolf, allegedly the 9th World of Goo title) and a point-and-click adventure game (The Black Stain, the 17th game in the series).
• Seasonal Baggage: Like the first game, chapter 1 takes place in summer, chapter 2 takes place in fall, chapter 3 takes place in winter, and chapter 5 takes place in spring, with chapter 4 being the oddball that breaks from the trend.
• Sequel Escalation:
  • In the first game World of Goo Corporation's antics drive the gooballs to near extinction and cause general environmental damage. In the sequel they accidentally cause the extinction of all human life on that world.
  • Inverted in Paper Goolf, where the environmental message from the original games is completely lost, to the point where the windmills from the original game, originally a symbol of alternative energy, become just a mini golf attraction.
• The Stinger: After the credits, Cliff Spanner from The Black Stain shows up on a completely blank screen, similar to The Nothing After Death, and he calls for help.
• Story Breadcrumbs:
  • Once again, the majority of the story is told through signs...except this time the person writing them as he explicitly notes in one sign, is not the Sign Painter from the first game.
  • In chapter 4, The Curator leaves around notes detailing the existence and story of various sequels.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Jelly Goo to Beauty Goo/ Ugly Goo, being giant clumps of goo that need to be processed before being accepted by special pipes. The final level of the chapter even involves breaking down a big version of it to power something up.
• Take That!: As in the first game, 2 is no stranger to delivering humorous jabs at all sorts of things, such as animal hunt, advert-overloaded internet, industrialization and even tendency for franchises to roll out a ton of sequels, one weirder than previous one. One signpost is essentially a tirade about how virtual reality is an awful idea, it's never been good, and it never will be good.
• That's No Moon: In the ending of Chapter 1, the island it takes place on is revealed to be an enormous squid-like monster.
• Time Dilation: In the ending of Chapter 3, the train goes so fast it causes time to massively slow down on it so it goes to the distant future where Chapter 4 is set.
• Timed Mission: Various OCDs require completing the level quick enough. A few missions also have pipes with time limit that start spewing lava once it ends.
• Unexpected Gameplay Change:
  • The fourth chapter "Ye Olde Reckonator" contains three in-universe sequels to World of Goo, each one changing up the traditional formula.
    • World of Goo 9: Paper Goolf turns the game into a Mini-Golf Episode. Goo Balls must be launched like the ones from Chapter 4 from the first game directly into the pipe, and there's no building involved.
    • World of Goo 11: This Way Up is based around Gravity Screw. A cube with an arrow controls which way is "down". Sometimes the player can manually control the cube to direct gravity, other times the cube will rotate on its own.
    • World of Goo 17: The Black Stain is basically a Point-and-Click Game. You're a private eye investigating a possible case of corporate sabotage when a client asks you to investigate her brother, the heir to the power company responsible for the city's energy. He is getting involved with a rival company's environmental activist, and may be sabotaging his own company.
  • Two more sequels are described by the Curator: World of Goo 8: Dimensional Accelerator brings the series to More than Three Dimensions, and World of Goo 21 is just a gameplay-generating program.