Generic Properties of Goo Balls
Weight and gravity
Weight refers to how much a structure is affected by gravity. Loose Goo Balls, structure nodes (another name for attached Goo Balls) and structure attachments (also known as legs) have the same weight. The only Goo Balls with larger than normal weight are Beauty Goo, Ugly Goo, and Large Black Goo, which are appropriately larger.
The attached Goo Balls weigh more than loose Goo Balls due to additional weight of the attachments. Thus heavy structures can be made by using Goo which can form more attachments between nodes, like White Goo.
Structures and stability
The most stable structures are triangular-shaped. Usually if an additional node is added to the structure, its legs will adjust their length to near-medium. One of the most notable exceptions to this is White Goo.
- Swaying is common when the weight of the structure and loose Goo on it becomes large,and the structure itself is not supported well, causing back-and-forth momentum. This creates tension between attachments of nodes. Swaying can be countered by:
- Adding additional support to structure.
An example of structure collapsing due to its weight
- Removing weight from the unstable end of the structure. Most common ways for this is to use the whistle ability to drive loose Goo to stable part of the structure or to pick them up individually.
- Adding additional support to structure.
- Collapsing is a generally undesirable phenomenon where the weight of unstable part of the structure becomes so heavy that one or more attachments bends drastically to reduce tension, causing the structure to fall. In levels without spikes and other killing hazards collapsing is often the main difficulty to overcome.
- Wobbling is a phenomenon which sometimes occurs with Goo structures interacting with the environment. One example of this in Hang Low where making a heavy structure below the initial one causes 2 pieces of land to wobble.
Detachability of nodes
Nodes are Goo Balls made into structures. Some of them, most notably, Green Goo, can be detached manually.
There are also other ways for attached Goo to become loose again. Nodes of structures become loose Goo if:
- Neighbor nodes, to which the node is attached, are destroyed.
- Node hits boundary lines of some levels.
- Node hits gears.
- All Neighbor nodes are detachable and these nodes are detached.
- Tension in legs between nodes becomes too heavy. This is extremely hard to achieve since structure will most likely collapse before that unless having Block Goo nearby which allows to break the attachments easily.
Comparison of Goo Balls and structures
Goo | Official name | Maximum legs | Pick up with cursor | Pipe access | Detachable legs | Flammable | Explosive | Goo can move on legs | Invulnerable | |
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Black Goo | Common | 2 | Yes | Normal | No | No | No | Yes | No |
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Black Goo | Common Black | 2 | Yes | Normal | No | No | No | Yes | No |
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White Goo | Common Albino | 4 | Yes | Normal | No | No | No | Yes | No |
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Corporation Goo | Drained/DrainedIsh | 2 | Yes | N/A | Yes | N/A | N/A | Yes | N/A |
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Green Goo | Ivy | 3 | Yes | Normal | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
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Red Goo | Fuse | 2 | Yes | Normal | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
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Dark Black Goo | GooProduct | 0 | No | Normal | No legs | No | No | No legs | No |
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Balloon Goo | Balloon | 1 | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
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Immobile Black Goo | UtilChapter2 | N/A | No | No | No | N/A | N/A | Yes | No |
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Eyeball Goo | EvilEye | 1 | Yes | Normal | No | No | No | No | No |
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Water Goo | Water | 1 | Yes | Normal | No | No | No | Yes | No |
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Small Beauty Goo | BeautyProduct | 0 | No | Normal + Red | No legs | No | No | No legs | No |
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Small Ugly Goo | UglyProduct | 0 | No | When Beauty is absent | No legs | No | No | No legs | Yes |
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Small Beauty Goo (eye) | BeautyProductEye | 0 | No | Normal + Red | No legs | No | No | No legs | No |
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Bomb | BombMini/BombShaft | 8 | No | N/A | No | Yes | Yes | No | No info |
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Sticky Bomb | BombSticky | 5 | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
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Skull Goo | Bone | 2 | Yes | Normal | Yes | No | No | No | Yes |
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Spike Goo | Pokey | 4 | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | No | No |
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Large Black Goo | ZBombMom | 0 | No | N/A | No legs | No | No | No legs | Fragile |
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Beauty Goo | Beauty | 0 | No | No | No legs | No | No | No legs | Fragile |
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Ugly Goo | Ugly | 0 | No | No | No legs | No | No | No legs | Fragile |
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Large Black Goo (shattered) | ZBomb | 0 | No | N/A | No legs | Yes | No? | No legs | Presumably |
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Launch Goo | Bit | 0 | Launched | Normal | No legs | Yes | Yes | No legs | No |
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Infected Goo | Pilot | 1 | Launched | Normal | No | No | No | Yes | No |
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Bright Square Goo | Pixel | 2 | Yes | Normal + Green | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
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Square Goo | PixelProduct | 0 | No | Normal + Green | No legs | Yes | No | No legs | No |
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Bright Green Goo | Hex | 0 | No | Normal + Green | No legs | No | No | No legs | No |
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Block Goo | RectHead/BlockHead | 0 | Yes | No | No legs | No | No | No legs | No |
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Fish | Fish | 1 | Yes | No | No | No | No | No | No |
Maximum legs
Shows how many "legs" the Goo Ball can have when attaching it to a structure.
- 0: the Goo cannot attach to other Goos, like Dark Black Goo and Small Beauty Goo.
- 1: the Goo can attach to one Goo Ball, like Water Goo and Infected Goo.
- 2: the Goo can attach to two points on a structure, like Black Goo or Red Goo.
- 3: the Goo can attach to three Goo Balls, like and Green Goo.
- 4: the Goo can attach to four points on a Goo Ball structure, like White Goo and Spike Goo.
- 5: the Goo can attach to five whole Goo Balls, like the Sticky Bomb.
- N/A: It is not known how many Goo Balls it can attach to, as it cannot be picked up.
Pick up with cursor
If a Goo can be picked up and dragged with the mouse. Launched Goo cannot be freely moved, but they can be launched on spot.
- Yes: the Goo can be picked up and carried, like Fish.
- No: the Goo cannot be picked up by the player, like the Large Black Goo.
- Launched: the Goo cannot be picked up, but can be aimed and fired to relocate it, like Launch Goo.
Pipe access
Shows which pipes Goo can enter, if any.
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- (+) Red: the Goo can be collected in the special red pipe, reserved for shattered Beauty Goo.
- (+) Green: the Goo can be collected in the Chapter 4 green pipe, for Launch Goo. Note that this means a pipe in Alice and Bob and the Third Party. Green pipes on the rest of the levels with green pipes in Chapter 4 accept any Goo with normal access.
- No: the Goo cannot be collected.
- N/A: information is not available for this portion, usually because the Goo appeared in only a few levels.
Detachable legs
Of Goo has legs, shows which of them can be detached and reattached. Note that Goo Balls which aren't manually detachable, must use other means to detach them from each other. For an example, gears or edges of the screen.
- Yes: the Goo can be taken off of its structure.
- No: the Goo cannot be removed directly once placed.
- No legs: the Goo cannot attached to structures and therefore cannot be attached or detached.
Flammable
Shows if a Goo and its attachments can burn and spread fire.
- Yes: the Goo Ball can burn, and if the same type of Goo made a structure, the structure will burn too.
- No: the Goo Ball will be unharmed by fire, provided the structure the Goo Ball is on that's on fire is not over a pit.
- N/A: information is not avalible for this portion, usually because the Goo appeared in only a few levels.
Explosive
Shows if a Goo can explode.
- Yes: the Goo Ball is capable of exploding, rather than popping, when lit on fire.
- No: the Goo Ball may or may not be able to set on fire, but will not generate an explosion.
Goo can move on legs
Shows if loose Goo Balls can move along legs of the structure of the attached Goo.
- Yes: the Goo Ball's legs provide a place for loose Goos to roam about.
- No: the Goo Ball can attach to structures, but Goos cannot move on its legs.
- No legs: the Goo Ball cannot be used to attach to structures.
Invulnerable
Shows if Goo Balls themselves are impervious to spikes, blades, poison flowers, etc. They can still be killed by boundary lines or blown up if they're explosive.
- Yes: the Goo Ball cannot killed by a blades, spikes or poison flowers. It can only be killed when falling off the screen.
- No: the Goo Ball can be killed with blades, spikes and poison flowers.
- Fragile: In addition to blades, spikes and poison flowers, it will also shatter on a contact with gears.