World of Goo - Plot

Plot

The story is told primarily through the aforementioned cut scenes and signs encountered throughout the game, which were left by an unseen character known as the Sign Painter.

Initially, pipes appear throughout the land, waking up many sleeping Goo Balls who have gone undisturbed until this, as they are filled with a childlike sense of curiosity and naivety they build themselves towards the pipes. Upon reaching the pipe entrance, the Goo Balls are sucked by the pipe system into the "World of Goo Corporation" main building where they are processed into many products, for example an energy drink. The excess Goo Balls are left outside the Corporation headquarters where they together begin to build a giant tower. At the end of the first chapter, some Goo Balls escape from a Corporation building by attaching themselves to eyeballs which have the ability to fly. The chapter ends with the Goo Balls "seeing far away new lands".

In the second chapter, more pipes appear in an impossibly windy desert where World of Goo Corporation turns out to be searching for a new power source due to wind power not being sufficient anymore. However, the location and appearance of the power source was forgotten, because in the past, it stopped producing electricity. A new Goo Ball is introduced, which is ground up by the Corporation into a facial cream. Near the end of the chapter, the power plant, which looks like a giant woman, is discovered. It is revealed that for many years, its tremendous "beauty juice" powered the world. Unfortunately, as the years went by, its energy started to die. Thanks to the Goo Balls' actions, however, it becomes operational again, causing the world to fill up with energy again. This energy, among other things, opens up a factory in the south.

During the third chapter it is said that the Corporation is developing a mysterious "Product Z". It eventually turns out that the mysterious Product Z is actually the third dimension (Product Z is the Z axis in mathematics). This causes much commotion amongst the general population who cannot see where anything is now. World of Goo Corporation tells them to contact tech support in the information superhighway after mankind, all animal and plant life becomes rendered "incompatible with the world".

In the fourth chapter the Goo Balls set out to find the mysterious "MOM" program amongst a vector style environment. Shortly after the beginning the Goo Balls find the object responsible for rendering all the graphics. After pumping many of their own kind into the object, the graphics rendering improves, creating a more realistic environment (and the Pixel Goo Balls). Near the end they encounter the MOM program, during a somewhat disturbing conversation with, turns out to be a spam bot. The Goo Balls try to overload Product Z by sending every message in the history of spam to everyone at the World of Goo Corporation. After venturing to the Recycle Bin and un-deleting everything, World of Goo Corporation receives the mail and, unable to deal with so much spam and mail, explodes, shutting down Product Z while creating a massive layer of smog, dust, smoke and debris that envelops the entire world.

In the final chapter, it is revealed that all Goo Balls, except "scientifically pure" have been sucked away to the shattered pieces of the Corporation's Headquarters. The remaining Goo Balls decide to work their way up the island to reach a site where a telescope is located. The final level of the game reveals that the Goo Balls are now completely extinct, all the remaining having been sucked away to the shattered remains of the World of Goo Corporation and added to the tower, and the gigantic telescope at the site has been rendered useless as it cannot see past the layer of smog. The Sign Painter reveals that in his final sign he has now become the Telescope Operator. Some balloon-like fish in the sea connect to the telescope and lift it out of the ground, where it breaks through the layer of smog and sees the tower of goo that has been built at the former World of Goo Corporation Headquarters, which can also see past the smog. The telescope falls back to earth before it could see what the Goo Balls were building towards. However, a final and last cutscene reveals their goal; the camera pans up into space to reveal that the Goo Balls that escaped at the end of Chapter 1 have managed to reach a far-off planet populated entirely by Goo Balls.

An additional chapter, located on the Moon, was initially planned for the European retail version of the game. This idea was put on hold as the developer felt they were rushing to finish extra content to justify the price, "If we release any additional content, we will make it available on all platforms, to all people, at the same time. No more of this “region” nonsense".