Untitled Goose Game Is the Video Game We Need Right Now

Untitled Goose Game has a deceptive sort of simplicity. The game, which originated as an office joke and finally hit Mac, PC, and the Nintendo Switch last week, has simplistic but gorgeous animations and a straightforward plot. You are the goose in this untitled goose game, which means your job is to wander the village and torment its residents. You torment for plain fun (you’re a goose, after all, and everyone knows geese are kind of a-holes) and because sometimes a goose wants to, say, have a picnic and those humans are hoarding all the best picnic supplies in their stupid human garden. What are supposed to do–not steal their stuff?

I don’t know about you, but all weekend, my Twitter feed was full of people working their way through the goose game.

A silly little goose should not be this engaging but it really is.

You don’t even have to be particularly into birds to enjoy the goose game, although that certainly doesn’t hurt.

That a game about a naughty goose has struck a chord with so many people is both amazing and makes perfect sense. In 2017, we all became obsessed with Stardew Valley because we all just wanted to calm the hell down. In 2019, maybe we all want something nice and cute and simple, but where we’re also able to be a little bit of a jerk. Untitled Goose Game lets you do some mischief without causing anyone any real harm.

I wasn’t expecting to get so invested in the goose game but it’s just absolutely delightful. Some of the puzzles are really challenging but also there’s just this goose with a silly walk that thinks it’s hot sh*t and it’ll make you giggle. A lot. A game like that was always going to be great but it sure does feel like we all had this culturally specific goose game-shaped hole in our lives that needed to be filled. We needed a place to blow off some steam by honking at children, stealing carrots, and flapping our silly little wings.

(image: House House/Panic Inc)

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Vivian Kane

Vivian Kane (she/her) is the Senior News Editor at The Mary Sue, where she's been writing about politics and entertainment (and all the ways in which the two overlap) since the dark days of late 2016. Born in San Francisco and radicalized in Los Angeles, she now lives in Kansas City, Missouri, where she gets to put her MFA to use covering the local theatre scene. She is the co-owner of The Pitch, Kansas City’s alt news and culture magazine, alongside her husband, Brock Wilbur, with whom she also shares many cats.

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