Tower of Goo

Once upon a time, an oil worker spilled a whole barrel of oil on the ground in the country-side. Hoping no-one would notice, he drove his truck away after securing the rest of the oil. The oil puddle remained.

Now, this was very nice countryside - pleasant and clean (except for the oil), and absolutely filled with good-will. Even the inhabitants didn't mind the oil! They just smiled and walked on their way, thinking good thoughts. So pleasant a place was it, in fact, that it brought the oil to life! Forming into tiny droplets, the oil was possessed with the ambient goodness of the land. And it thought: What should I do?

Then a pleasant French soundtrack started up. The gooey droplets realized what they had to do. They had to build a tower!

The game's afoot!

Sometimes things went poorly, but the goo learned quickly. They pulled themselves upwards, building triangles and squares to make ever larger structures. At first they just built straight up, but that was silly! Their towers just got unbalanced and fell over. So they built on top of that, and did it better. Hexagons were the key; stable and strong, tiling hexagons could go as high as they wanted! Tragically, this collapsed moments after I minimized the window to save the screenshot. (Minimizing tends to break things; try to avoid it.)

As the tower-building continued, more goo arrived to help. The original oil droplets didn't think anything of it! It was just that sort of countryside. So they continued to build upward, squealing with glee as their tower dominated the countryside.

Pop quiz: Is this tower stable? (Note the dense black at the bottom, the tragic remains of much of the 55-metre tower above, covering the pastoral landscape.)

You, too, can help the goo! A whole world awaits! Meringue!