But the goose knows no law, and through this avatar I can channel my silent screams into a cri de coeur. Like anyone else, I quietly endure tiny slights in my everyday life-when someone passes me abruptly in the bike lane or doesn’t hold the elevator-because I’m a socialized adult. Though delightful, the game revealed its dark side to me early on.
Sneaking and cheating are game-play elements that get rewarded being a bad goose is what it must feel like to be a card sharp, or a pool shark, or a Patriots fan. The game is most gratifying when players devise the canniest, most unexpected, and most unnecessary ways to trick the poor villagers whose unfortunate assignment it is to share a world with this wicked waterfowl. But in contrast to that pleasant concept and to other classic titles that invite players to take up the hero’s mantle, Untitled Goose Game’s appeal lies in how it encourages people to be their petty selves. Goose is hardly the first indie game to resonate so strongly with people another surprise best seller, Stardew Valley, which lets players realize their dreams of raising crops on a farm, has inspired a whole category of Etsy wares. It’s currently topping the lists for both all games and digital downloads for the Nintendo Switch, beating out recent releases from two megahit series, Dragon Quest and The Legend of Zelda. Two weeks after its official release, on September 20, the game is wildly popular and has already become a meme generator.
The work of a tiny Melbourne studio called House House, Untitled Goose Game got its start as a gag on the messaging platform Slack. The best encapsulation of the game comes in its tagline: “It’s a lovely morning in the village, and you are a horrible goose.” This rude creature shrieks at villagers, takes their things, and gets in their way, all while solving puzzles that grow more complex and twisted. The makers of this video game-the best-selling title for the Nintendo Switch as of this week-describe it as a “slapstick-stealth-sandbox” experience, in which players direct a bird to do mildly mean things to people as they go about their day. A goose emerges from a bush, focused and feathered, with no other purpose than to test the mettle of local villagers.
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