I really had no idea what I was getting into when I started playing this game. The upbeat Russian/gypsy(?) music gives the game a distinct flavor while the puzzle driven game play propagates the curiosity appeal of the game. In the end it was a whimsical journey through this world rife with compelling story and subversive humor.
Rather than try to spin this short paper one way or the other, I’m going to focus on 3 major elements of the design in an attempt to describe how these facets contribute to making this addictively fun game. The elements I will focus on are level design, balance, and reward.
Level Design
The level design in World of Goo is driven by the mechanics of the game. As such each level is centered around 1-3 core mechanics leaving room for some creativity in the implementation thereof. The progression of levels maintains an interesting mix of new and learned mechanics such that there isn’t a tedious level.
Within each level itself, the process of identifying and executing the mechanics required to win is straightforward. I never felt like I was needlessly punished for trying something new. There are frustrating times where you are trying to finesse position and weight balance and you just have to try over and over again. Fortunately the designer(who was also responsible for the art of the game) foresaw this and provided the flying bugs which undo your last action.
The balance between trial and error, and information provided to the player make for a fun experience by giving the player opportunities to play with the physics as he attempts to solve the puzzle. The story lends to the game play by describing a desolate world in which pain and sorrow are commonplace. This lessens the pressure upon the player when he loses goo balls, no big deal.
The level design takes advantage of physics interactions between the goo, the lattice, the world, and physics objects which are dispersed throughout the level. The core challenge of the game is augmented by the presence of physics objects which the player can interact with. Instead of simply trying to build the lattice in a way that creates a path to the goal, the player may need to use the physics objects to complete a level where normal lattice driven play is not an adequate solution.
Without getting into each individual type of goo, it’s enough to say that the variety of goo types provides ample types of puzzles without getting out of hand. There isn’t a type of goo which is unnecessary or that the game could do well enough without. Many times the level design, which is based on puzzles, drives or is driven by the types of goo present in the level.
For example, the level where the skull is introduced the player needs to use it in a way that the goo has never been used before. This in itself represents a puzzle to the player. He must observe that the skull is rolling through a killzone, something no other goo ball has done before. Seeing that this goo is immune to the spikes, the player may surmise that this new goo type will help support a bridge across the spike filled valley. This conclusion is further supported by the pattern of giving the player a new type of goo and presenting him with a puzzle specialized for that new type of goo.
Balance
Perhaps the holiest of grails of game design, balance represents the union of fun and management. In World of Goo the designers were met with several balance issues that, improperly implemented, would have ruined the game. The first balance issue that I noticed was the number of goo-balls available to the player.
Each level has a required amount of goo balls to be rescued. Furthermore, there are areas of the level which will destroy any goo balls that come near. Finally, the player must use goo-balls to build a lattice. Each of these facts force the player to manage the amount of goo balls he is using while limiting the amount he loses to kill zones. As an example, the player may want to build the sturdiest structure possible to get across a pit to minimize his losses. Unfortunately, the player uses so many goo balls to solidify his foundation that, even though he crossed the pit, he cannot save enough goo balls to complete the level.
This design mechanic forces the player to think very carefully about the nature of his structure and become more skilled at one of the basest mechanics of the game: how to build the largest structure while maintaining the structure’s integrity. As a side note, the player is further incentivized to discover the secret behind solid structures so that he can build the tallest structure in the World of Goo Corporation and be competitive with other players.
Aside from their implementations in specific puzzles the goos’ types present the player with another challenge: which types to use. If the player wants to save as many goo balls as possible it is, most of the time, necessary to manage what types of balls he uses and where. For example, in a simple level populated with green and black balls, the player would be wise to use as many green goo galls as he can to build the lattice. In using green balls he is able to rescue more because the green ones can be detached from the lattice and saved, while the black ones are stuck if used.
The game provides the power player with opportunities to prove is mettle. In order to earn the OCD reward which is given for rescuing a predetermined number of balls or finishing the level using a predetermined number of moves. This forces the player to preserve as many of his resources as possible and use them effectively. Often it means a unique tertiary mechanic, such as hanging a lattice on the goal and slowly detaching goo balls to be saved on the dangling lattice thus causing the player to discover new ways of using the balls.
Reward
World of Goo provides many means of reward to the player, from visual rewards, to numerical rewards, and audio rewards. I want to focus on the number driven rewards. The two most important number based rewards are the number of goo balls rescued, and the amount of moves to complete the level. The player receives the OCD award if he rescues enough goo balls or completes the level using a certain number of moves.
The OCD reward motivates the player to play better and provides a trophy type reward for his efforts. This type of reward gives the game its primary replay value. Because the game is limited to the puzzles present in each level there isn’t a lot of room for lateral integration, that is rewards for doing things differently. However the game provides vertical integration in that the player may try to get the highest score possible by playing more efficiently.
The player is further rewarded by rescuing as many goo balls as possible. Rescuing extra balls not only gives the player his OCD award, but it grants him extra goo balls to build a tower in the World of Goo corporation level. This also adds to the replay value of the game. It incentivizes the player to play through again in order to rescue as many goo balls as possible. This appeals to the bragging rights need of players. The player who rescues the most goo, and builds the tallest tower with his superior collection of goo.
