
World of Goo Update, 10 Years Later - troydavis
https://tomorrowcorporation.com/posts/world-of-goo-update-10-years-later
======
ChrisRR
World of Goo was a great example from the early Android days of what people
thought the future of mobile gaming would be. High quality games that could be
controlled with tapping and swiping.

Unfortunately it turned out to be mostly games preying on the impatience of
the player to make microtransactions.

~~~
paxys
Flight Control, Doodle Jump, (early) Angry Birds, Fruit Ninja, Tap Tap
Revenge, Cut the Rope, Fieldrunners. I really miss the good old days of iPhone
gaming.

~~~
gokaygurcan
Flight Control :(

I wish they update the game to make it compatible with latest iOS.

~~~
StavrosK
Tiny Wings was a masterpiece.

~~~
isk517
Switched to Android years ago and am still sad that Tiny Wings is the pretty
much the only game that is Apple exclusive.

~~~
sfilipov
Maybe try Dragon, Fly! It is quite similar.

------
kgwxd
Holy cow, I bought the game 10 years ago, found my old email with the "Secret
World of Goo Download Location" and it worked :) No Linux update yet, but I'm
going to play the original anyway. Such a fun game.

Edit: .deb package didn't work on Xubuntu 19.04 but extracting the .tar.gz and
running ./WorldOfGoo.bin64 worked like a charm

~~~
air7
I just remembered I too bought the game 10 years ago, as part of the Humble
Indie Bundle. I also found the old email but it didn't "just" work.

Interestingly, the part of the chain that failed was their then email
marketing provider, that hijacked all the links in the email to provide click
tracking, doesn't exists anymore. So all the links are dead even though they
would have redirected to pages that are still functioning.

~~~
em-bee
look at the text version of the email, it contains the actual URL.

based on your post i checked if i got the bundle that included world of goo,
and it turns out i did. it contained the key url as
[http://www.humblebundle.com/?key=..](http://www.humblebundle.com/?key=..).
and that url is still working. as someone stated elsewhere in this discussion,
the humble bundle version is not updated. it's downloading version 1.30 right
now...

~~~
em-bee
in the meantime i am playing osmos in the browser which the humble download
page helpfully includes. i am pretty sure that can't have been there when the
bundle was released initially

------
crazygringo
I _loved_ playing World of Goo when it came out.

And nothing has made me feel older than finding out it's 10 years old. I would
have been like... 4 years? 5 at the most? _Wow._

Congrats to them!

~~~
ehsankia
Games like World of Goo, Braid and Super Meat Boy really paved the way for
indie games. They showed that small teams can product quality entertainment,
and that there's a real demand for it.

~~~
LoSboccacc
back then the indie scene was super interesting.
[https://experimentalgameplay.com/](https://experimentalgameplay.com/) was
full of gems and igf had plenty interesting concepts too with lot less focus
on trying to make them marketable.

~~~
yani
Do you know why the sector did not boom?

~~~
LoSboccacc
it did boom!

 _edit: rewrote the whole paragraph to be more clear and remove unnecessary
negative connotation against mainstream indie which I do not share_

thanks to early experiment success and profitability indie games managed to
get a lot of visibility and the genre exploded. whole business revolve now
around making indies meet buyers (kickstarter, indiegogo, steam greenlight);
as a compromise they lost some of the original experimental nature and gained
in term of polishing and content quality.

I'd say the sector transformed; it lost some innovation, gained some
marketability. there's less explorative projects now and they are harder to
find, but you can still find them; currently itch.io seems to be a trove of
these kind of content, but the lack of curation makes hard to find anything
among the pile of crap (no offence intended, it's just Sturgeon's law)

~~~
SketchySeaBeast
It also got absolutely flooded - Steam is chock-full of indie stuff, but as
everything always is, 99% of it is crap, and by making it easier for a
developer to get visibility, it's now virtually impossible to sift through to
find the promising stuff.

~~~
ehsankia
It's worth pointing that there still is amazing gems in there, just last year
we had games such as Into The Breach, Celeste, Obra Dinn, Gris, and many many
more. But yeah, since the bar has been lowered, there's also far more crap
too.

------
gbraad
Likely in preparation of the Fre Giveaway for the Epic Gamestore?
[https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-US/](https://www.epicgames.com/store/en-
US/)

~~~
Reedx
This seems like a strategy everyone can appreciate: Epic pays indie developers
to update their old games

~~~
figgis
> Epic buys Rocket League publisher, announces Epic Launcher exclusive, and
> goes silent after backlash

Seems like a better way to put it. They are buying IP left and right and
pushing their unfinished, buggy client in a very unhealthy way.

[0] - [https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-01-epic-
acquires-...](https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2019-05-01-epic-acquires-
psyonix-will-remove-rocket-league-from-sale-on-steam-later-this-year)

~~~
Creationer
I've bought a few games on Epic, and had no problems. The lack of junkware
like on Steam is great – I can honestly browse the store knowing that every
game is high quality (even if not necessarily in the genre I enjoy).

Achieveemnts not popping up helps focus on the actual game.

Cloud save, family sharing etc. are of marginal use for me and I imagine 99%
of consumers outside the vocal minority.

~~~
gambiting
Well, I was about to comment that the lack of cloud save is the absolute
dealbraker for me as I play games at home and at work, so if I can't sync
saves automatically then I won't buy a game from there(#1 reason why I haven't
bought Metro Exodus for instance, game which I am otherwise super interested
in).

But I guess that makes me a vocal minority :P

~~~
rangibaby
I used to “cloud save” my Borderlands 2 save files by symlinking the save game
folder to a Dropbox folder

~~~
gambiting
Yes, that would be an option if my work allowed any services like that(and
yes, it's slightly odd that dropbox/google drive are not allowed, but Steam
cloud sync is).

~~~
efreak
Not sure if it helps any, but box.net allows webdav access and can be mounted
natively by Windows.

~~~
gambiting
Oh but it's not a technical issue - both dropbox and google drive would
install and work fine, we have full administrative access on our machines with
no restrictions. But it is against policy.

------
azhenley
Because of this post, I just found out about Human Resource Machine...

I’m hooked. Currently I’m trying to optimize my Level 17 solution.

I hope these people continue producing new games.

~~~
zimpenfish
If you want a slightly quicker REPL for HRM, I've got a clunky-but-functional
CLI version that I use when I'm at work for testing ideas -
[https://bitbucket.org/rjp/hrm/src/master/](https://bitbucket.org/rjp/hrm/src/master/)

Pull requests gratefully accepted, etc.

~~~
gpiancastelli
When following the link to the repository, I'm forced to login, then receive
an access denied error from Bitbucket. Is the repository private?

~~~
zimpenfish
Ah, bugger, sorry, I thought I’d made it public a while back but obviously
didn’t. Apologies again, it’s definitely public now.

------
codetrotter
I bought the Humble Indie Bundle in May 2010 that included World of Goo. I
think I have the game on Steam as well through the Steam key that was included
but can’t check right now. Anyway, since some are saying it may take a while
before the Steam version is updated, I was wondering if the download that is
accessible through my account on Humble Bundle has been / will be updated?

~~~
nzgrover
I got it in the Humble Bundle. No Steam key provided and I just downloaded it
from the HB site and it's not updated. Pity, I really like this game and think
my kids, who weren't born when it came out(!), would really love it too.

~~~
em-bee
from this comment it looks like there is a different way to access the bundle
that get's an updated link. in any case they are aware of the humble bundle
and seem to promise to update that too:
[https://tomorrowcorporation.com/posts/world-of-goo-
update-10...](https://tomorrowcorporation.com/posts/world-of-goo-
update-10-years-later#comment-9291)

~~~
em-bee
the humble bundle download link has been updated. it features version 1.51 now

------
SmellyGeekBoy
I'm surprised nobody here has mentioned the Wii version. I do own the PC
release (from when it was in that first Humble Bundle) but this game was a
brilliant fit for the WiiMote controller. I still play it today.

~~~
mebo
There's a switch version that uses the accelerometer/gyro in the joy cons to
emulate a wiimote, it works surprisingly well - definitely worth a shot if you
want to replay it!

------
da_chicken
The other games from this developer, Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion
Humans, are fun little pseudo programming puzzle games. They're pretty good!

~~~
Adamantcheese
And if you like those, any of the Zachtronics series of games are perfect.
Spacechem is a personal favorite (machine layout programming), but there's
also TIS-100 (modular system programming), SHENZEN IO (modular digital logic
programming), and Opus Magnum (machine layout programming). The last two are
actually upgrades of older games they made, KOHCTPYKTOP and The Codex of
Alchemical Engineering. I'm hoping that Ruckingenur II gets an upgrade
eventually (debugging! in a video game!).

~~~
Aromasin
SHENZEN IO was my favourite by a mile. Although looking through a datasheet
half-written in Mandarin to understand what was going on, at 2am, to then go
into work at 6am and look through more datasheets half-written in Mandarin -
well, I swiftly began to question my life decisions.

~~~
OskarS
You should check out EXAPUNKS if you haven't. It similar to SHENZEN I/O, but I
like better.

~~~
Aromasin
I've played all his games and they're all fantastic. EXAPUNKS is probably my
second favourite, but I'm an EE engineer so SHENZEN I/O is especially
satisfying to me. Zachtronics games are my vice. As a recovering self-
confessed video-game addict I only allow myself to play educational/puzzle
games now, and they toe the line just enough - while being fun as hell.

------
senectus1
wow.. just a few bits from the update:

To be super clear, there are no new levels, no new characters, no new battle
royale deathmatch mode. This is just a gentle remastering we did for fun.

The framework has been replaced. This is the thing that draws all the graphics
onto your screen, and sends all the audio to your speakers, etc. This means
the Win / Mac / Linux version should work on modern computers again without
freaking out, and you can run the game on modern displays at whatever
resolution you want.

Game now runs at a hi-def widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio by default. The
original ran at a squarer 4:3 ratio.

Resolution of graphics is doubled. The original game ran at 800×600, and the
tiny graphic files didn’t scale to huge monitors very gracefully. We used a
few different high quality upscaling tools to start, and then went over each
image by hand, tweaking each image further as needed. In a few lucky cases, we
still had the original source files and were able to use those. But if you
still really want the original flavor, there’s a setting to use the original
graphics, also included with the game.

Fabulous joke about looking good in hi-def has remained unchanged.

Brought over graphical and UI improvements from releases on other platforms,
like Nintendo Switch.

No more encrypted assets or save files. We hope this makes the game more open
and friendly to mod.

The config.user.txt file is now located wherever your save file is stored. So
no more editing that file in your Program Files folder. It has a bunch of new
config vars exposed as well.

We’ll be updating the game everywhere Win / Mac / Linux versions are available
in the next few days.

These updates 10 years after the initial release. These guys love their fans.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's worth noting that they're launching on Epic Games, free for two weeks,
tomorrow, I believe. So this is an update they were just recently effectively
paid to do. Though of course, it also benefits the folks on Steam as well.

~~~
notafraudster
Will it benefit the folks on Steam? I was under the impression the update was
not coming to Steam for a year, although the end of the blog post does seem to
suggest it'll be coming out. Maybe unclear reporting when the patch was
announced a few weeks ago?

~~~
stordoff
My reading of the blog post would be yes - "We’re slowly updating the game
everywhere it’s currently available over the course of this and next week." \-
but I wouldn't take it as a definitive statement.

------
xg15
Devs who update a game to make unrestricted modding _easier_. In 2019.

Really cool!

~~~
vanderZwan
Given what happened to them it's even more impressive:

[https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/11/acrying-shame-
world-o...](https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2008/11/acrying-shame-world-of-goo-
piracy-rate-near-90/)

~~~
Asooka
90% piracy is about par for the course. Doom and Quake's was even higher IIRC.
It basically tells you that your game runs on cheap PCs and poor people won't
spend more than 5-10$ on a game. Steam sales and region-based pricing are one
way of trying to capture that market.

~~~
badsectoracula
I was reading a book which was essentially the memories of some BBS nerd from
the 80s (i do not remember the name, sadly) and he basically quoted a magazine
post from around back then - the 9 out of 10 piracy was a thing even in the
80s, more than a decade before Doom. It doesn't surprise me that it would be
the same 10 and 20 years after it.

------
darkhorn
After AoE II, Worms, and World of Goo I wish similar update for Red Alert 2.

~~~
stordoff
CnC (original and Red Alert) is getting a remaster[1] - if that does well, I
can't see RA2 being far behind. It's also quite playable in CnCNet.

[1] [https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/command-and-conquer-red-alert-
rem...](https://www.pcgamer.com/uk/command-and-conquer-red-alert-remastered-
release-date/) (URL is somewhat misleading - release date is unknown)

~~~
Angostura
Oooh - I wonder if they will there will be a revamped Mac release.

------
Wowfunhappy
> To be super clear, there are no new levels, no new characters, no new battle
> royale deathmatch mode. This is just a gentle remastering we did for fun.

This update is great and all, but I was actually... really hoping for new
levels. I've wanted them for the past ten years. Pretty please? Maybe some
day? :'(

~~~
jjjensen90
They did unencrypt the assets and save files, so maybe some modders will add
new levels?

~~~
dcbadacd
There was (is?) a WoG modding site that contained a lot of new levels.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
If anyone has custom level recommendations, I'm all ears! I tried a few in the
past and found them of middling quality.

(I say this with all possible respect to the modders, of course, their efforts
are appreciated.)

------
zubspace
Very nice. But I wonder why they did encrypt assets or save files in the first
place for a single player game? Is this ever useful?

~~~
Lorkki
It may help stave off blatant rip-offs for a while.

Of course, if you strike it big, someone will eventually find enough time with
a debugger to get around it, but as a small indie dev you'll probably be most
interested in making sure you can break even first.

~~~
tty2300
Assets are protected by copyright. If you are not concerned about copyright
you can just redistribute the whole game.

~~~
wolfgke
Thus preventing the users from being able to use the fair use rights from US
copyright.

------
huydotnet
Damn, it's been 10 years, I used to follow their dev blog and their little 2d
starter code project is what lead me to game development. Now, I left game
dev, the guys still. Reading the update bring me back to these days, ohhh

------
wintorez
One of the best games I ever played. This along with "FAR: Lone Sails" are two
of my favorite chill games.

~~~
leppr
A few more: Blueberry Garden, Starseed Pilgrim, Crayon Physics Deluxe, Braid

------
vortico
This game really opened me (and possibly other people) up to indie gaming.
They're definitely not the first small team to tackle a fun game concept like
this (The first game companies were 2-4 people.) but maybe the most
influential of 10 years ago.

------
timvisee
Awesome! Based on the title I though the game didn't receive any updates for
about 10 years or so. Apparently that thought is incorrect:
[https://steamdb.info/sub/1045/history/](https://steamdb.info/sub/1045/history/)

------
ggambetta
Heh, this is amazing. I've thought of remastering and re-releasing some of the
old Mystery Studio titles
([http://mysterystudio.com](http://mysterystudio.com)). Unfortunately it would
need more art work than programming work, and art is not my thing :(

~~~
pbhjpbhj
If it's vectorising pixel graphics you're after then I've seen some incredible
stuff done automating that.

~~~
ggambetta
That might definitely help! Any pointers?

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Looking now I think it was much longer ago than I recalled so things could
have moved on considerably, but I think what I was recalling was
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601347](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2601347)
.

Also I hope that "pointers" pun was intentional!

~~~
ggambetta
Thanks for the link! As for the pun, no, it was a happy accident. I'm not that
clever :P

------
PhasmaFelis
I'm still waiting on my Profanity Pack, damn it!
[http://goofans.com/faq/world-of-goo/getting-world-of-
goo/whe...](http://goofans.com/faq/world-of-goo/getting-world-of-
goo/wherewhat-profanity-pack)

------
Retroity
It's super cool that the game is being updated 10 years later to effectively
remaster it AND make modding easier! I wish more developers were like this,
but I can see why that might be difficult (which makes this all the more
impressive)

------
raverbashing
Wow it's been 10 years already?

(Check my purchase email, it is from 2010)

Time flies. And WoG was such a nice game!

------
drej
I remember installing World of Goo on my iPad back in... 2010? It was super
fun, immersive, well ported to the tablet, it was actually one of my selling
points for the then new device.

I should get it again.

------
neves
Terrible news. I've just bought the desktop version to get some flashbacks :-)
BTW, the old version was terrible in my modern Windows machine.

------
WrtCdEvrydy
Where can you buy this now?

I like people who update things!

~~~
crowbahr
It's available on Steam for $10 or DRM free cross platform from
[https://2dboy.com/](https://2dboy.com/).

I believe there is also a mobile version? Correct me if I'm wrong.

~~~
Angostura
The iOS version has been sitting on my iPhone for 10 years and still runs very
nicely. Just checked the app store - still there.

------
zerr
I wonder what's the new engine. They were using PopCap Games Framework.

------
dcbadacd
I really wish they (PopCap) did the same with Plants vs. Zombies 1.

------
Scuds
I've always loved the Danny Elfman-esque soundtrack

------
zachguo
Mainly because they are trying to port it to Switch. It's great anyway.

~~~
Sektor
Trying? It's out already isn't it?

~~~
masklinn
It's been out for 2 years.

------
thrower123
I've tried to like this game, since it is an Indie Wonder. But it just isn't
much fun for me. There are better things to spend your time on.

------
Causality1
>we’ve just updated the Win / Mac / Linux versions of World of Goo for the
first time since 2008 or 2009

>release date October 2008

I get that it's a three-man studio but man that's a really bad support track
record.

