Rock, Paper, Shotgun

We’ve had a few people contact us regarding World of Goo‘s sudden unavailability on Steam for European customers, so this is just a quick post to explain what we know. The game, which yesterday went straight to the top of Steam’s top sellers chart, has different publishers in the US and UK for the boxed versions. The US boxed game is available now, while the EU box won’t be appearing until around February 2009. There appears to have been some confusion regarding the contracts here, which 2D BOY are looking into. In the meantime, European customers can buy the game directly from 2D BOY with no problems whatsoever (and then just mount it in Steam, for goodness sakes).

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World of Goo launches today. In fact, if you look at the 2D BOY website, it seems to have quietly launched already. Buy! It will also be appearing on Steam, Direct2Drive, Greenhouse, and Beanstalk as the day goes on.

Despite their crazy pre-launch weekend, 2D BOY’s Kyle Gabler and Ron Carmel generously spared some time to answer our questions about the process of developing the game, the complicated life of the independent developer, and why it’s so very important to care deeply about your game (rather than your cat).

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Hurrah! World Of Goo is finally announced for Steam. It launches on 13th October – next Monday – alongside the launch on 2D Boy’s own site. You can read our world exclusive review of the game here. Still not convinced? Try Eurogamer’s review.

Aaaand, if you pre-ordered it, and are all upset because you wanted it on Steam, look happy. You pre-order magic key will unlock it on Steam too, come Monday. Add to that the news that it’s integrating with Steamworks, and will be launching with eight achievements. And there’s lots more places to buy it too…

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World Of Goo has a release date, both on Wiiware (in the US – it’s getting a retail release in Europe, apparently), and PC. That date is: 13th October. So less than two weeks. Oh boy!

2D Boy have confirmed for us that those who pre-ordered the game will be getting their copies as soon as this Monday. Kyle Gabler told us,

“We’re going to start sending out PC copies of the game to people who pre-ordered this Monday, October 6. Pre-orderers will also have access to Mac and and Linux copies, but those builds are not ready yet, only the Windows version for now.”

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Some World Of Goo semi-news. While the boxed PC edition has been confirmed for the first week of November, we can confirm that those buying it digitally will be able to get it in October from 2D Boy’s site, and to-be-announced online distribution portals. The indie devs can’t yet pin down exactly when in October, but we’ve played it from top to bottom and can tell you there’s nary a need for another moment’s development. It is, beyond belief, wondrous.

We have a lot to say about it, but we don’t want to annoy you by overly-hyping up for a game you can’t get yet. So instead, we say this: If you didn’t get it originally five hundred years ago, pre-order this game now. Get the first chapter, play it to bits, and start anticipating. Er, that’s annoyingly hyping it up when you can’t play it yet, isn’t it? Sorry.

I wasn’t expecting my preview of IGF-Grand-Finalist nominee World of Goo to go up yet, but it has. Which is lucky, as I no longer have to bite my lip about getting really excited about it here. In it, I start like this…

Having played through the preview code of this, the first twenty percent of the full game, I found myself desperately looking around for someone to tell about the thing. Except it was after 1am and no-one was awake, so I just paced and growled and generally acted as if someone had put a bunch of termites inside my head, and I had no way of getting them out. Thank the Lord of Eurogamer that I get to tell you lot about it, as otherwise it’d be straightjacket time.

And pretty only get increasingly giddy. Go read the rest, then come back and I’ll find some more stuff to say.
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I’m currently working on a preview of IGF finalist World of Goo – short version: pre-order the thing, if only because you get a profanity pack(tm) with it – and find myself wandering 2D Boy’s website. I discover that they’ve lobbed online a 7-day prototype of something they were playing around with, the pithily titled Robot And The Cities That Built Him. While they make masses of caveats – it isn’t finished and was designed while listening to Bette Middler on a loop – its based around a neat little mechanic where you’re managing the upkeep, upgrading and growth of your robot army while they go about crushing and destroying as is a robot’s wont. It’s certainly worth smashing your way through the first thirty cities, before the game runs out of content. Also, as always: ROBOT! ROBOT!

(Via Fun-Motion) San Fran indie developers 2D Boy have posted a trailer for their forthcoming World of Goo. Here’s my impression of it:

I absolutely haven’t got the faintest idea what’s going on here, yet I know that it is good. It’s one of those occasions when I’d far rather be utterly mistified, than find out the reality of the situation, no matter how excellent it might be. Like watching Spanish soap operas, or The Bloomberg Channel.

(So no, I never played Tower of Goo, which you can get here.) [You really should play it, John, it's brilliant - Rest Of RPS Team.]