Goo Balls and structures

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.

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
Black Goo	Common	2	Yes	Normal	No	No	No	Yes	No
Black Goo	Common Black	2	Yes	Normal	No	No	No	Yes	No
White Goo	Common Albino	4	Yes	Normal	No	No	No	Yes	No
Corporation Goo	Drained/DrainedIsh	2	Yes	N/A	Yes	N/A	N/A	Yes	N/A
Green Goo	Ivy	3	Yes	Normal	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Red Goo	Fuse	2	Yes	Normal	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Dark Black Goo	GooProduct	0	No	Normal	No legs	No	No	No legs	No
Balloon Goo	Balloon	1	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Immobile Black Goo	UtilChapter2	N/A	No	No	No	N/A	N/A	Yes	No
Eyeball Goo	EvilEye	1	Yes	Normal	No	No	No	No	No
Water Goo	Water	1	Yes	Normal	No	No	No	Yes	No
Small Beauty Goo	BeautyProduct	0	No	Normal + Red	No legs	No	No	No legs	No
Small Ugly Goo	UglyProduct	0	No	When Beauty is absent	No legs	No	No	No legs	Yes
Small Beauty Goo (eye)	BeautyProductEye	0	No	Normal + Red	No legs	No	No	No legs	No
Bomb	BombMini/BombShaft	8	No	N/A	No	Yes	Yes	No	No info
Sticky Bomb	BombSticky	5	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes
Skull Goo	Bone	2	Yes	Normal	Yes	No	No	No	Yes
Spike Goo	Pokey	4	Yes	No	Yes	No	No	No	No
Large Black Goo	ZBombMom	0	No	N/A	No legs	No	No	No legs	Fragile
Beauty Goo	Beauty	0	No	No	No legs	No	No	No legs	Fragile
Ugly Goo	Ugly	0	No	No	No legs	No	No	No legs	Fragile
Large Black Goo (shattered)	ZBomb	0	No	N/A	No legs	Yes	No?	No legs	Presumably
Launch Goo	Bit	0	Launched	Normal	No legs	Yes	Yes	No legs	No
Infected Goo	Pilot	1	Launched	Normal	No	No	No	Yes	No
Bright Square Goo	Pixel	2	Yes	Normal + Green	No	Yes	No	Yes	No
Square Goo	PixelProduct	0	No	Normal + Green	No legs	Yes	No	No legs	No
Bright Green Goo	Hex	0	No	Normal + Green	No legs	No	No	No legs	No
Block Goo	RectHead/BlockHead	0	Yes	No	No legs	No	No	No legs	No
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.

Normal: the Goo can be collected in standard black pipes, like Black Goo.

(+) 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.