phil@dler

Retro Review: Untitled Goose Game

TL;DR

Would I recommend this game? - Yes

Unexpectedly charming little game in which you play a rambunctious goose terrorizing the population of an English village. Appropriately soft graphics and a really smooth set of controls (with one exception). Irksome in places in the two player mode.

Review

I wish I could have been in the investor room when someone tried to pitch this game. I can only imagine that they showed the scene from hot fuzz in which Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are herding a swan around the Park and said “this, but moreso”.

It really is a lot of fun. My most important person and I decide to tackle the game two player and were left cackling as we moved through the village, reversing signs, smashing vases and stealing hats. Two player mode opens itself up to some excellent team play as you coordinate in order to distract the suffering villagers from whatever it is you’re trying to get your cheeky little beak into.

There was even a small engineering/computer science joke in there on the subject of recursion.

It’s not a very long game, and that’s fine for what it is. It is like a good dinner guest in that it arrives in a timely fashion, doesn’t outstay it’s welcome and provides good entertainment value for the duration of it’s stay. Given it’s brevity, one might be forgiven for making the assumption that it doesn’t have time for narrative wit, but there again, the authors exceed expectations, developing characters of the villagers, and an ending twist that is hilariously clever but which I won't spoil for you.

The UI is really smooth - with the exception of the controller selection screen in two player which says “press any button” but means “any button except B, because we’ve defaulted that to the ‘back’ action”. I enjoyed the to-do lists, partially because they provide a nice exercise in abstract problem solving (or problem causing depending on your perspective), and partially because there is an unanswered question as to how a goose writes a to-do list.

The game is, in short, a joy.