Hands-on Preview: World of Goo - Coming to iPad December 16th!

I have longed for World of Goo for the iPhone and then the iPad for literally years now. Hard to believe it's been that long. The model of the game has just seemed perfect for a touch interface. Having played through the game three times on three different platforms (Wii, PC, Mac), I just wanted more. My PC is packed up. It's loaded down with so much anti-virus software it can hardly be used anymore. My Wii has, like most Wii consoles, an inch of dust on top of it. And my Mac, well when I sit down at my Mac I see I have 1,000 unanswered emails. Makes me feel too guilty to play World of Goo anymore. I want it on my new cool device of choice, the iPad!

Well that day has finally come. 2DBoy were kind enough to send us a final build of the World of Goo for the iPad. And I'm in heaven. I had to stop playing long enough to finish this preview, but after this is done, I'm right back to it.

World of Goo for the iPad is the full game that you know and love. But what about if you've been living under a rock. What is the game about? Well, it's a physics based puzzle game. One where you build structures out of these interconnected goo balls.

You start out not really knowing what the story is. You are just presented with a silhouetted world, the World of Goo. On the first level of Chapter 1 you are presented with a simple structure and a few goo balls roaming around. Your task is to help these goo balls escape via a vacuum tube at the top of the screen. To do this, you need to build a structure by dragging these balls, making connecting points, and thereby building structures that the free roaming goo balls can travel on.

Sounds harder to understand than it really is. It's pretty easy to get a handle on once you have played a couple levels. Take a look at the following video and it will all make sense.

Seems simple enough, right? The difficulty does ramp up considerably. And alone the multiple chapters and levels you'll encounter new types of goo balls. Some float, some are rubbery. All produce new challenges.

For a little background on the game, take a look at this promo video produced by the filmmakers behind Indie Game: The Movie, an in production movie about indie game developers.

World of Goo has something so many games are missing, personality, finish. It's a great game, and it's great to finally have it on the iPad. World of Goo in all it's gooey glory releases on December 16th for the iPad at $9.99.

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