Untitled Goose Game 2019
Log Status
Completed
Playing
Backlog
Wishlist
Rating
Time Played
--
Days in Journal
2 days
Last played
November 13, 2020
First played
January 13, 2020
Platforms Played
GOTY 2019 - NUMBER FIVE
Video version
This is a choice that might seem like one based solely on charm. It’s a funny game about an irritating goose. It’s not hard to like that. I’m going to try and make the claim that it’s far more than that, though. My takeaway is that it’s probably the most successful attempt at a comedy game ever made.
It kind of seems like people gave up trying to make “the funny game” after point n click was invented. Point-and-click – possibly the driest way you could ever ask someone to interact with a computer. There have been silly games, and games plastered with one-liners and puns, but they’re never really their own thing. They’re silly versions of established concepts. Duke Nukem’s like a parody of Doom. Saints Row is a parody of GTA (and let’s not get into GTA’s attempts at comedy). They’re comedy versions of games. Untitled Goose Game is a comedy game, through and through.
One of my go-to fuckabout activities in a game is to see how much I can wind-up the NPCs without causing them any serious, long-term harm. There’s always something a little ill at odds about it though. Playing as some over-privileged tough guy fucking around with those with less power or confidence. I mean, in a lot of these games it’s an alternative to playing the game properly and straight-up murdering them, so it doesn’t seem so bad, but the balance is never totally comfortable.
Nobody can be taken seriously for getting annoyed with a goose. Nothing makes a mockery of humanity’s pompousness quite like a big goose running around with someone’s prized possession. This is the brilliance of Untitled Goose Game.
Untitled Goose Game almost seems like an accident. There’s no way someone could consciously conjure up a dynamic this good. You’re a goose who really bothers a village full of the English middle-class. There’s a button to honk. You can grab things in your beak and run away with them, and then drop them in the wrong place. And this is the whole focus of the game. You can nick someone’s Sunday paper (probably The Mail), and drop it in the pond. In fact, this is what you’re supposed to do. It’s a primary goal in the game. You can waddle about and honk as they fish it out, in frustration. There’s no reasoning with a wild goose. You can’t tell it off or effectively intimidate it. If there’s a particularly malicious one about, you can’t even hope for mercy. Your best course of action is to ignore it and hope it gets bored, but these villagers seem incapable of that. In fact, it’s against their programming.
The dynamic of “pompous man gets frustrated with funny goose” has universal appeal. There’s no barrier of age or language or culture. It’s made the game a massive hit with non-gamers. The fact that serious gamers are now frustrated with its popularity kind of mirrors that dynamic- the funny goose is messing up this thing they walled-off, cultivated and took as their own. It’s almost as if it was designed to remedy what’s wrong with games culture. But no. It’s nothing as lofty as that. It’s a funny goose that everyone wants to play with. It doesn’t even have a name. Pure, unrepeatable genius.
Video version
This is a choice that might seem like one based solely on charm. It’s a funny game about an irritating goose. It’s not hard to like that. I’m going to try and make the claim that it’s far more than that, though. My takeaway is that it’s probably the most successful attempt at a comedy game ever made.
It kind of seems like people gave up trying to make “the funny game” after point n click was invented. Point-and-click – possibly the driest way you could ever ask someone to interact with a computer. There have been silly games, and games plastered with one-liners and puns, but they’re never really their own thing. They’re silly versions of established concepts. Duke Nukem’s like a parody of Doom. Saints Row is a parody of GTA (and let’s not get into GTA’s attempts at comedy). They’re comedy versions of games. Untitled Goose Game is a comedy game, through and through.
One of my go-to fuckabout activities in a game is to see how much I can wind-up the NPCs without causing them any serious, long-term harm. There’s always something a little ill at odds about it though. Playing as some over-privileged tough guy fucking around with those with less power or confidence. I mean, in a lot of these games it’s an alternative to playing the game properly and straight-up murdering them, so it doesn’t seem so bad, but the balance is never totally comfortable.
Nobody can be taken seriously for getting annoyed with a goose. Nothing makes a mockery of humanity’s pompousness quite like a big goose running around with someone’s prized possession. This is the brilliance of Untitled Goose Game.
Untitled Goose Game almost seems like an accident. There’s no way someone could consciously conjure up a dynamic this good. You’re a goose who really bothers a village full of the English middle-class. There’s a button to honk. You can grab things in your beak and run away with them, and then drop them in the wrong place. And this is the whole focus of the game. You can nick someone’s Sunday paper (probably The Mail), and drop it in the pond. In fact, this is what you’re supposed to do. It’s a primary goal in the game. You can waddle about and honk as they fish it out, in frustration. There’s no reasoning with a wild goose. You can’t tell it off or effectively intimidate it. If there’s a particularly malicious one about, you can’t even hope for mercy. Your best course of action is to ignore it and hope it gets bored, but these villagers seem incapable of that. In fact, it’s against their programming.
The dynamic of “pompous man gets frustrated with funny goose” has universal appeal. There’s no barrier of age or language or culture. It’s made the game a massive hit with non-gamers. The fact that serious gamers are now frustrated with its popularity kind of mirrors that dynamic- the funny goose is messing up this thing they walled-off, cultivated and took as their own. It’s almost as if it was designed to remedy what’s wrong with games culture. But no. It’s nothing as lofty as that. It’s a funny goose that everyone wants to play with. It doesn’t even have a name. Pure, unrepeatable genius.