World of Goo

With the output of large games companies increasingly coming to resemble that of large movie companies in its genericism and general lack of experimentation or innovation, we increasingly must look to the "indie" games developers for interesting new games.

2DBoy are one such developer, who became known for their entry in the Experimental Gameplay Project - "Tower of Goo", a physics-based game in which you have to build as high a tower as you can out of, yes, Goo. The black goo balls form semi-rigid links with any already fixed goo close to them, and by careful balancing of forces, you can construct towers of impressive height.

This was, it turns out, a concept test for the first 2DBoy release itself - the titular "World of Goo", which is released to those who preordered it on Monday (and to the rest of the world on the 13th). Building on the basic physics with additional goo-balls (the preview levels provided to those who bought on preorder include "balloon goo", which can provide lift to sections of your structures, and "Ivy Goo" which can be detached as well as attached to a structure and exerts more force on its bonds), a distinct audio-visual feel reminiscent of Tim Burton and Pushing Daisies and what seems to be a quirky and non-intrusive backstory and plot, what we've seen of "World of Goo" is highly impressive for what is basically a structural physics game made by two guys whilst drinking coffee.

Even more encouragingly, World of Goo will be available not just for Windows, but also for OSX, Linux and Wii - and will have no DRM on it at all. 

You can read the opinions of Real Game Journalists who played the whole thing at Rock Paper Shotgun, the world's finest PC Games Blog Called Rock Paper Shotgun.

There's still time to preorder it before the release on Monday, and it's only $20.