/Comments/

I decided to do a run of World of Goo at the end of March 2009 after I had finished my Max Payne Speedrun. I really liked this game and a puzzle game makes a nice change for a run. This is my 2nd Speedrun and I wanted to do a Single-segment run again though this is definitely most suited to an IL run. It took months of practising levels and it took ages to find the best strategies for each level, I got a lot of information from Kopalexis's, DaftasBrush's and dmanparttwo's youtube channels. Those guys are real masters at World of Goo with their profiles racking up 400+ hours! Though they are masters at IL runs of various sorts and not single-segment runs meaning I had to come up with a lot of my own strats to make a SS run feasible. After a few months I finally started running this. I aimed for 0 retries and had rough times I wanted to stick to for each level. It took weeks of actual attempts to get this but the most time was actually spent at mastering certain levels, some of which are particularly nasty. I was initially aiming for sub 1 hour right at the start, but with some neat tricks this quickly went to sub 55min then finally about 50mins (though I thought this was optimistic). That is timing from starting to losing control. I got a 50;52 run with no retries and some really great luck so I was very happy with this and decided to keep it as I thought sub 50min was asking too much with the strats risky enough as they were. I will note some more specific stuff about some of the levels and a list of tricks below. Enjoy the bloopers also, this game is very well suited to them!

See the link below for my profile on goofans which shows the stats for each level: http://goofans.com/leaderboard/profile/f694e15977e95b898ea34efedc5f7b56

/Credits/

Radix - For hosting such a great website with a great community.
Nate - For taking the time to encode people's runs and doing all the video stuff required for submitting.
Mike - For helping out greatly with the submission process, especially verification and timing.
Discussion thread participants at SDA: http://speeddemosarchive.com/forum/index.php/topic,9424.0.html
Discussion thread participants at 2d boy: http://2dboy.com/forum/index.php/topic,1928.0.html
Of special help were: Kopalexis, DaftasBrush, dmanparttwo, error1 and finally IG-64 for suggesting the idea of a World of goo speedrun.
The verifiers - For taking the time to scrutinize this run.
Fellow Speedrunners - For helping to inspire me with some really great runs.

/Tricks used in this run (I have no idea who discovered all this stuff)/

Skipping cut scenes - I don't do this as it is a massive hassle considering the number of attempts I need to pull this run off. If you view all cut scenes in another profile then start your run in a new profile WITHOUT restarting the game then the cut scenes can be skipped. Obviously this means like 5+ mins of viewing cut scenes EVERY time you want to have another attempt (unless you have several attempts in one session), which is a bit ridiculous and so I didn't bother. This way you can actually see the whole story line anyway :)
Throwing goos through walls - To do this you let go before the goo hits the wall and throw at a reasonable pace and it will go through and then you can grab it on the other side and build a structure through the wall (for example in upper shaft).
Setting goos on fire without building a structure to it - If a flammable goo touches fire after it has touched the ground or another goo then it will set on fire. Example: Product Launcher, Burning Man.
Boosting - By throwing a goo into another goo or object you can boost that object and keep it mid air or boost it horizontally. Examples: Volcanic Percolator Day Spa, Genetic sorting machine.
Whistle early in Whistler - In the level Whistler you can whistle in the starting cutscene if you get OCD's on the 2 previous levels and enter this level before the OCD flag for the previous level pops up. I think Kopalexis discovered this, he told me how to do it as well.

/Level comments/ T=Target time, A=Actual time

Note: My target times are deliberately ambitious and I don't expect to make them all as it is SS. They are pretty much the times I would aim for if I were to do any level with that strategy so they assume virtually no errors.

Chapter 1
Level 1: T 0;04 /A 0;04 - 0:03 is possible but very rare.
Level 2: T 0;10 /A 0;11 - I play on for a bit to see if I can make this time up.
Level 3: T 0;14 /A 0;13 - Fast
Level 4: T 0;24 /A 0;29 - Few mistakes unfortunately, I build too steep upwards meaning I have to build too far left to get past the saw and structure does not remain attached to pipe.
Level 5: T 0;13 /A 0;13 - Fast, no errors.
Level 6: T 0;18 /A 0;16 - New personal best.
Level 7: T 0;22 /A 0;20 - I would be happy with 0:24 on this level, I get a new personal best.
Level 8: T 0;10 /A 0;09 - Fast, I build left to balance it, if you retry you have a more stable structure and can build straight there.
Level 9: T 0;36 /A 0;35 - Slight alteration I came up with to the IL record strat, careful building up and using the goos to throw against the structure for balance.
Level10: T 0;22 /A 0;28 - Very unlucky. Somehow a goo gets ripped out and breaks the structure but at least the time bug lives up to my expectations, it is still useless.
Level11: T 0;33 /A 0:36 - Bit of bad balancing at the start but still pretty solid considering its a risky strategy. I am still happy with this time.
Level12: A 0;57 - No target time for this level. I just go for no mistakes and fast building which is what I achieve here. I boost the structure up a bit but its risky, many times I accidentally rip a goo out of the structure and ruin it so I don't take any chances.

Chapter 2
Level 1: T 0;22 /A 0;24 - I don't do anything wrong, the goos just decide to not go up the structure meaning I have to spend an extra second or two fishing around for them.
Level 2: T 0;25 /A 0;21 - I think this is a new personal best.
Level 3: T 0;48 /A 0;40 - New personal best, virtually flawless.
Level 4: T 0;43 /A 0;49 - I don't make any mistakes as such, I just don't want to take any chances of not having enough goos so I wait around for too long for those last goos to go on the structure when I didn't need them; sods law :(
Level 5: T 0;18 /A 0;21 - I boost the beauty too much at the start which wastes seconds, still OCD.
Level 6: T 0;07 /A 0;07 - Easy enough though if your not careful you can easily rip a goo out of the structure which is a fail.
Level 7: T 0;26 /A 0;24 - New personal best. Took a lot of practise to get that inital boost to work.
Level 8: T 0;18 /A 0;16 - Went very well, new personal best - note the use of the whistle early trick.
Level 9: T 0;55 /A 0;45 - Using this strategy I don't think this time can be beaten, I got exactly this time once before. Getting a time of over 1 minute was not uncommon in previous attempts, the layout it just perfect here. I tried the time bug boost trick but it is VERY unreliable.
Level10: T 0;25 /A 0;26 - I always get very nervous at this level as building up is so risky and dodgy! Its quicker to get the goos under than over but through the wall is the quickest, if you watch the bloopers you will see why I did not do that!
Level11: A 1;02 - No target time. Absolutely loads of practise for the inital boosting bit here. You can just get the beauty up then boost her across the spike put but it is VERY dodgy and if you don't get that boost its a restart. Beauty resists being boosted a bit but pretty fast.

Chapter 3
Level 1: T 0;14 /A 0;16 - I rarely miss the first throw for setting the structure on fire but its still fast.
Level 2: T 0;22 /A 0;23 - Fast and a risky strat of throwing the goo down to set it on fire, saves about 3-5 seconds from the conventional method. I miss a lot of the falling goos meaning it maybe takes an extra second to collect enough at the end.
Level 3: T 0;43 /A 0;43 - Pretty much perfect.
Level 4: T 0;13 /A 0;13 - Good.
Level 5: T 0;57 /A 0;55 - Matches my personal best. One time I got to the third wheel and clicked on a time bug which was on the goo I wanted and it wasted over a minute and completely messed up my run!
Level 6: T 0;26 /A 0;20 - Oh wow another personal best. Around half a minute is acceptable, getting a goo through the wall that fast and catching it is insane.
Level 7: T 0;49 /A 0;49 - Good. I recently implemented a strategy of attaching the sun goo to the structure again as it rises to stabalize it. This way it doesn't hit the pipe and explode with goos, instead they go in the pipe and it really works! You can boost the structure but its hard and risky and is not much quicker.
Level 8: T 0;24 /A 0;19 - Very good. This level depends on how quick you can get the mine goo on fire, here it is very quick.
Level 9: T 0;49 /A 0;58 - I was a bit dazed at how well it was going (upper shaft in particular) so there is a bit of dodgy building at the start if I'm honest. I therefore lose a bit of time getting the structure to the other side but I'm still happy with under a minute and no restarts!
Level10: A 1;03 - No target time. Haha! I get the goo on fire with 1 throw! It also falls to the best possible place on the structure. Brilliant. You can just go mad and throw loads up and hope they catch fire but; this is single-segment...

Chapter 4
Level 1: T 0;08 /A 0;07 - Good, not much to this level.
Level 2: T 0;28 /A 0;31 - Good, I am careful but still use a fairly risky strategy where I can't lose any goos along the way.
Level 3: T 1;12 /A 1;22 - HORRIBLE LEVEL. Nastiest in the game without a doubt! Frankly I'm happy I did it with no restarts, I miss a few aims but its still not bad. Look out for me waiting for a very small goo to then aim and it JUST attaches to the structure, anything larger and this run would have failed! Small goos fly further. Getting the 4 goos in the pipe at the end was very nice.
Level 4: T 0;28 /A 0;38 - Bit unlucky this level. I know exactly how to aim the goos to get a chain to the pipe but it goes a bit wrong. For some reason the first goo does not fly fast enough, I must not have aimed it far enough but it was very unlucky. I quickly resolve this and then go about getting the red goos to the pipe. I fire too many at 45 degrees and when I go to look down you can see a goo go mid chain which pushes it away from the pipe, had I not fired an extra one at that angle it would have been OK. I then don't fire the green goos at the right angle in my frantic rush to get them in the pipe asap :(
Level 5: T 0;27 /A 0;27 - 0;23 is possible but I get an unlucky layout of rectangular blocks which make them hard my execution is excellent. I was going to do the boost strat but it is VERY risky at this stage in the run.
Level 6: T 0;14 /A 0;13 - Took a while to work out a solid strat for this level but watch this!
Level 7: T 0;48 /A 0;45 - Very good.
Level 8: T 0;14 /A 0;17 - Take a bit too long making sure there are goos at the top of the structure to go in the pipe quickly but its much better than having to restart as I have had to many times in the past.
Level 9: A 1;02 - No target time. Very fast building up, much faster than normal.
Level10: A 1;07 - No target time. I hope to get it all blowing up in one smooth go but that's wishful thinking on a level like this, all in all it goes very well, especially the end.

Chapter 5
Level 1: T 1;01 /A 0;57 - Very fast, all goes very well and luck that I had 4 goos left on the structure.
Level 2: T 0;44 /A 1;04 - Most badly performed level but you know how it all went wrong? About 5 seconds into the level I attach the balloon on the middle node and keep building, this causes the structure to be uneven on one level. This is magnified by the time I get near the top and I have to seriously improvise. That I even salvaged this situation is pretty good, its just a shame I lost time for such a small "mistake"!
Level 3: T 0;35 /A 0;39 - I finish with a risky strategy to be honest. It took a long time to perfect this strategy. I get slightly unlucky that I have to let the structure fly low to cut part of it off but it was very clean. I am very happy with this.
Level 4: T 0;36 /A 0;36 - Absolutely nothing to this level, the previous level is really the last level.

Actual time - Target time = approximately 25-30 seconds. So I am very happy with it overall, there are some real highlights and no retries so I hope you enjoy watching it if you haven't seen it yet.