Design lessons from World of Goo

#1

Post by bd » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 5:39 AM UTC

Design lessons from World of Goo
blog.wolfire.com

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#2

Post by wmeredith » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 6:17 AM UTC

This is a really fantastic deconstruction of an amazing game. I'm looking forward to more of these reviews.

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#3

Post by maximilian » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 6:21 AM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #2

This is a really fantastic deconstruction of an amazing game. I'm looking forward to more of these reviews.

The game looks really fun. Maybe when I finish the semester I'll buy it.

Does anybody know how the built the game (which languages, toolkits, frameworks, etc)? Its on wii, pc, mac, and linux so it must have been done in an amazingly portable way.

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#4

Post by snprbob86 » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 8:26 AM UTC

maximilian wrote: post #3

wmeredith wrote: post #2

This is a really fantastic deconstruction of an amazing game. I'm looking forward to more of these reviews.

The game looks really fun. Maybe when I finish the semester I'll buy it. Does anybody know how the built the game (which languages, toolkits, frameworks, etc)? Its on wii, pc, mac, and linux so it must have been done in an amazingly portable way.

I believe the Wii uses an "OpenGL-like" rendering API. It's probably just a lightly customized version of OpenGL ES.

Really, cross-platform in games is only really hard when you have a significant amount of rendering complexity. 2D games, in particular, are pretty easy to port.

EDIT: Oh, and World of Goo is a freaking great game!

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#5

Post by litewulf » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 8:46 AM UTC

wmeredith wrote: post #2

This is a really fantastic deconstruction of an amazing game. I'm looking forward to more of these reviews.

Also, these guys have been making pretty amazing games for a while. (I mean, they're indie developers, so check out their demo videos and let your jaw drop.)

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#6

Post by shaunxcode » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 3:37 PM UTC

wow what great free advertising - before that video was even over I had purchased the game via paypal. Reminds me of a combination of lemmings and fantastic contraption but with much lusher graphics and music.

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#7

Post by mthg » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 4:23 PM UTC

maximilian wrote: post #3

wmeredith wrote: post #2

This is a really fantastic deconstruction of an amazing game. I'm looking forward to more of these reviews.

The game looks really fun. Maybe when I finish the semester I'll buy it. Does anybody know how the built the game (which languages, toolkits, frameworks, etc)? Its on wii, pc, mac, and linux so it must have been done in an amazingly portable way.

SDL for boilerplate, ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) for the physics. My understanding is that ODE was started by a ex-Havok employee, and it is in fact an excellent oss physics engine.

Re: Design lessons from World of Goo

#8

Post by bd » Tue, Dec 02, 2008, 6:50 PM UTC

mthg wrote: post #7

maximilian wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The game looks really fun. Maybe when I finish the semester I'll buy it. Does anybody know how the built the game (which languages, toolkits, frameworks, etc)? Its on wii, pc, mac, and linux so it must have been done in an amazingly portable way.

SDL for boilerplate, ODE (Open Dynamics Engine) for the physics. My understanding is that ODE was started by a ex-Havok employee, and it is in fact an excellent oss physics engine.

Not Havok, but close. It was MathEngine, which made Karma physics engine (used for example in old Unreal).

They were later bought by Criterion (RenderWare) which was subsequently acquired by Electronic Arts, where it just died.