World of Goo

World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game by a two-person team from the small studio 2D Boy, which arrived on WiiWare in 2008 and became one of the strongest arguments that the console's digital store made sense. The premise is simple and instantly understandable: the player has a pile of living balls of sticky goo and must build a structure from them that reaches a suction pipe and delivers the required number of balls into it. Anyone can master the early levels within a moment, but later on it's necessary to account for weight, center of gravity, wind, and the fact that some types of goo burn or can't be reused.

The game's strength lies in how it constantly introduces new ideas and then just as quickly abandons them, so it never repeats itself even for a moment. Each chapter brings a different type of goo ball and a different environment, from pastel hills through factory pipes to zero gravity, and alongside it runs a side mode in which the player builds a single tallest possible tower out of the goo balls collected throughout the whole adventure. The Wii version is controlled with a pointer, which works surprisingly nicely for placing individual balls, and it can even be played by several people at once, each holding their own cursor.

The atmosphere is carried by the visual style and music. Hand-drawn backgrounds reminiscent of a puppet film are accompanied by a soundtrack with strong orchestral motifs, and signs from the mysterious Sign Painter appear between levels, commenting on events with ironic detachment and remarks about the world of big corporations. The game was received exceptionally well at the time and became one of the titles that helped the independent scene break through to a wide audience. It's still one of the best-designed puzzle games ever released on consoles, and its difficulty rises exactly in a way that never discourages the player. The authors also released it without any copy protection and with open trust in players, which drew a great deal of attention at the time and became part of the story told about the game to this day.