Support us on Patreon to keep GamingOnLinux alive. This ensures all of our main content remains free for everyone. Just good, fresh content! Alternatively, you can donate through PayPal. You can also buy games using our partner links for GOG and Humble Store.
We do often include affiliate links to earn us some pennies. See more here.

One of the original greats from the original indie games boom has returned, World of Goo 2 from 2DBOY and Tomorrow Corporation is now available.

While it's exclusive to the Epic Store when it comes to launchers, you can also buy it with Native Linux support DRM-free directly from their website. So no launcher at all is needed for it.

As for why it's an Epic Exclusive they said this: "World of Goo 2 would not exist if Epic had not helped us fund the game! We were able to hire artists and engineers for multiple years to help us build the biggest game we've ever made. We're grateful for this! You've likely seen similar arrangements with other games, and I imagine ours is comparable."

Check out the latest trailer:

YouTube Thumbnail
YouTube videos require cookies, you must accept their cookies to view. View cookie preferences.
Accept Cookies & Show   Direct Link

Also, I once again love seeing that the YouTuber trailer notes in the description "Video edited with Kdenlive on Linux Mint.".

More about it:

Discover realistic, flowing, viscous liquid. Route its flow like a river, convert it into Goo Balls, extinguish fires, and solve puzzles.

WHAT STRANGE NEW CREATURES!
Discover new species of Goo: Jelly Goo, Liquid Launchers, Growing Goo, Shrinking Goo, Explosive Goo, and more. All with mysterious new properties.

IT SOUNDS LIKE…
World of Goo 2 has dozens of new musical tracks in a beautiful and haunting new soundtrack.

WELCOME TO…
A thrilling new story to explore over the course of 5 new chapters, bursting with over 60 new levels, each featuring additional challenges.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE...
A powerful company has re-branded as an environmentally friendly, sustainable, green, clean, Goo processing non-profit.Help them collect as much Goo as possible. But what do they really want? Explore a new story spanning hundreds of thousands of years and watch the world change.

LET’S SEE WHAT HAPPENS THIS TIME.
Be careful! The world is beautiful, but it is dangerous. Guide as many Goo Balls into the exit pipe of each area as you can. ...but what's on the other end of the pipe?

Check it out on the World of Goo 2 website.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
22 Likes
About the author -
author picture
I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly checked on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. You can also follow my personal adventures on Bluesky.
See more from me
All posts need to follow our rules. For users logged in: please hit the Report Flag icon on any post that breaks the rules or contains illegal / harmful content. Guest readers can email us for any issues.
26 comments
Page: 1/2»
  Go to:

Video edited with Kdenlive on Linux Mint
I sadly had to switch to Lightworks because both the Arch Linux package and the Flatpak are broken.

But I'm pretty happy with Lightworks. I just bought my lifetime Pro License and everything, so now seems like a good time to switch.

As for World of Goo...still need to play the first one.
Ehvis Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Video edited with Kdenlive on Linux Mint
I sadly had to switch to Lightworks because both the Arch Linux package and the Flatpak are broken.

But I'm pretty happy with Lightworks. I just bought my lifetime Pro License and everything, so now seems like a good time to switch.

I once tried to install it and the list of dependencies was so long that I left it. Now I edit my incidental video with Shotcut.
Eike Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Who tries it before I buys it? ;)
poke86 Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter
Who tries it before I buys it? ;)

I bought it, the Linux version is an AppImage and it works perfectly. Purchase goes through the Humble Store which is convenient.

The game itself feels very familiar, in a good way, same gameplay but there are some interesting new species of Goo. It feels more difficult than I remember the first one being but levels are skippable if you just want to push ahead.


Last edited by poke86 on 7 August 2024 at 12:15 pm UTC
Eike Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Who tries it before I buys it? ;)

I bought it, the Linux version is an AppImage and it works perfectly. Purchase goes through the Humble Store which is convenient.

The game itself feels very familiar, in a good way, same gameplay but there are some interesting new species of Goo. It feels more difficult than I remember the first one being but levels are skippable if you just want to push ahead.

Cool!

I remember the first one as difficult enough already. Besides that, all I remember is having lots of fun, so even no new stuff would probably be enough for me. :)
the Linux version is an AppImage and
it does not work out-of-the-box on Gentoo, because the AppImage does not contain all dependencies - the one thing that the AppImage format promises to solve.

So, what does one need to get the game to run on Gentoo?
The AppImage would need the outdated sys-fs/fuse version (slot 2 - luckily it can be installed at the same time as the up-to-date version). However, installing that will just lead to a different error message, this time about libcurl-gnutls, which is not bundled in the AppImage, though it should be.

In order to get the game to run, I had to first unpack the appimage (there is a command line switch for that), and then create a symlink in the game folder from libcurl-gnutls.so.i-forgot-the-version to /usr/lib64/libcurl.so.that-same-version. Then, launching the game with LD_LIBRARY_PATH="./" set (so that it finds the symlinked lib) finally gets it to run.

My conclusion from this is that AppImage does not make the dependency situation better. If at all, it makes it more annoying.
Klaas Aug 7
My conclusion from this is that AppImage does not make the dependency situation better. If at all, it makes it more annoying.
Yes! And adding an addition layer of obfuscation adds an additional step when fixing things.
CatKiller Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
it does not work out-of-the-box on Gentoo, because the AppImage does not contain all dependencies - the one thing that the AppImage format promises to solve.
To be fair, that's "unclean build environment" rather than an Appimage issue per se - they could have included all the libraries they needed, but didn't. Still an annoying end result, either way.

Personally, I'll be waiting till it comes to Steam.
poke86 Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter
it does not work out-of-the-box on Gentoo, because the AppImage does not contain all dependencies

Have you reached out to the devs about this? They should fix this.


Last edited by poke86 on 7 August 2024 at 1:18 pm UTC
melkemind Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter
the Linux version is an AppImage and
it does not work out-of-the-box on Gentoo, because the AppImage does not contain all dependencies - the one thing that the AppImage format promises to solve.

So, what does one need to get the game to run on Gentoo?
The AppImage would need the outdated sys-fs/fuse version (slot 2 - luckily it can be installed at the same time as the up-to-date version). However, installing that will just lead to a different error message, this time about libcurl-gnutls, which is not bundled in the AppImage, though it should be.

In order to get the game to run, I had to first unpack the appimage (there is a command line switch for that), and then create a symlink in the game folder from libcurl-gnutls.so.i-forgot-the-version to /usr/lib64/libcurl.so.that-same-version. Then, launching the game with LD_LIBRARY_PATH="./" set (so that it finds the symlinked lib) finally gets it to run.

My conclusion from this is that AppImage does not make the dependency situation better. If at all, it makes it more annoying.
+ Click to view long quote

Considering it also comes with the Windows version, it probably would've been easier for you to just run it through Wine (I'm joking. Don't recompile me).
lqe5433 Aug 7
Is it Vulkan or OpenGL?
Is it Vulkan or OpenGL?
I need to check to be sure (am at work...), but on my laptop, which does not have Vulkan set up, it crashes on launch when it tries to render something. That might, however, also be a Box64 issue, as my laptop is ARM-based.
it does not work out-of-the-box on Gentoo, because the AppImage does not contain all dependencies

Have you reached out to the devs about this? They should fix this.
Not yet. I need to check if they have a proper bug-report form or something... (I only downloaded it yesterday and didn't even play - just tried to launch it.)

Also, I don't think the World of Goo devs can do much about the libfuse dependency. That's a dependency problem introduced directly by AppImage and can only be fixed by the AppImage devs.
Video edited with Kdenlive on Linux Mint
I sadly had to switch to Lightworks because both the Arch Linux package and the Flatpak are broken.

But I'm pretty happy with Lightworks. I just bought my lifetime Pro License and everything, so now seems like a good time to switch.

I once tried to install it and the list of dependencies was so long that I left it. Now I edit my incidental video with Shotcut.
If you were concerned about how that might impact your system, you could always try an unofficial Flatpak which encapsulates all the dependencies: https://github.com/kekkoudesu/lightworks-flatpak

LWKS introduced a Flatpak for the beta one month ago, and they'll have a Flatpak for the next stable release.

If you just don't like having a lot of dependencies on your system, well... I use far too much software for that to bother me.

I do editing fairly often with a specific workflow, so I need something a little more advanced than Shotcut. I'd be using DaVinci Resolve, but the Linux version is lacking, so Lightworks or Kdenlive are the next best thing. I used Cinelerra-GG for some time, and while I do have a fondness for its quirks, the workflow is inefficient, it's unoptimized, it's not color accurate, and the proxies are...kind of weird. Blender is quirky and inefficient too but the project management is the worst part about it. Not a big fan. Pitivi crashed when I imported 4K footage.

Both Flowbade and Shotcut I've tried but quickly gave up on for whatever reason. I don't remember much about them. I never tried OpenShot because I was and remain biased against the interface.

Olive was fine but I found it less efficient than Kdenlive and the fade effect was broken.

I'm kind of excited about Lumiera, if that thing ever gets an actual release

I've done some chain edits with ffmpeg filtergraphs but that workflow is only efficient for a specific kind of project. Also, I don't know if my mind is prepared to perform that sort of black magic again any time soon.

Ultimately, it's between Lightworks and Kdenlive. Lightworks is quirky too and the fades kind of suck, but the color controls are much much better and the timeline navigation is so quick. Kdenlive has a native Wayland version, though, which means it's not blurry on GNOME like Lightworks. But Lightworks might be working on a Wayland version soon...

Also, I don't think the World of Goo devs can do much about the libfuse dependency. That's a dependency problem introduced directly by AppImage and can only be fixed by the AppImage devs.
I'm not very familiar with AppImage, but I remember something about them being stuck on an old libfuse version because they need to support older distributions, but this causes problems for newer distributions which have a newer version of fuse. Found the page: https://github.com/AppImage/AppImageKit/wiki/FUSE

How are Flatpaks on Gentoo?
melkemind Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter
So, I just tried it on my Steam Deck and got a missing libraries error, specifically libcurl-gnutls.so.4. On my desktop, running Manjaro, it started right up with no problem.
Villian Aug 7
the Linux version is an AppImage and
My conclusion from this is that AppImage does not make the dependency situation better. If at all, it makes it more annoying.

the only conclusion you can take from that is tha flatpak is a lot more distro independent than appimage and gentoo is annoying
scaine Aug 7
View PC info
  • Contributing Editor
  • Mega Supporter
Is it coming to Steam at a later date? All these dependency issues (even on Steam Deck!?) put me off. As does the connection to Epic Games, but that's another story, I suppose.
CatKiller Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Is it coming to Steam at a later date?

They don't really have the pull of a Minecraft or a Tarkov to get loads of sales directly from their website. Selling through the Epic Store isn't going to get them a lot of sales, either. So... sensibly... they should sell it through Steam once they've worked off their obligations to Epic. But who knows for sure?

They don't have a Steam page for it currently, so I can't wishlist it there, so I'm only going to find out when it releases on Steam if Liam happens to notice and mention it.
Eike Aug 7
View PC info
  • Supporter Plus
Who tries it before I buys it? ;)

I bought it, the Linux version is an AppImage and it works perfectly. Purchase goes through the Humble Store which is convenient.

After reading this (and before the problem reports were posted), I bought the game, and it runs ootb on my Debian Stable. Looking forward!
the Linux version is an AppImage and
My conclusion from this is that AppImage does not make the dependency situation better. If at all, it makes it more annoying.

the only conclusion you can take from that is tha flatpak is a lot more distro independent than appimage and gentoo is annoying
Yeah, Gentoo is so annoying, it even manages to cause the same issue with libcurl on Steam OS.
So, I just tried it on my Steam Deck and got a missing libraries error, specifically libcurl-gnutls.so.4. On my desktop, running Manjaro, it started right up with no problem.
While you're here, please consider supporting GamingOnLinux on:

Reward Tiers: Patreon. Plain Donations: PayPal.

This ensures all of our main content remains totally free for everyone! Patreon supporters can also remove all adverts and sponsors! Supporting us helps bring good, fresh content. Without your continued support, we simply could not continue!

You can find even more ways to support us on this dedicated page any time. If you already are, thank you!
Login / Register