Snatching sandwiches and throwing rakes into a river. It’s all part of the delightful, mischievous life of a sneaky goose.
Untitled Goose Game sets you loose on a village (or just a garden for the BitSummit build), asking you to get a few things accomplished. In this case, we had to set up a little picnic for ourselves with some sandwiches, music, and a few veggies. A little jam for its sweet taste. Oh yeah, and to get a farmer wet, just because he has a tendency to get in the way of our fun.
The game doesn’t demand you do anything in a particular way. You’re a goose who can grab stuff, dragging it or using it as you like. Maybe you want to turn on the sprinkler. Haul produce around. Carry a little radio. However you want to accomplish your mission is fine. Also, you have a dedicated honk button. What’s the point of being a goose if you’re not honking at folks?
The open world of the initial map offered a lot of freedom to see how things were all connected. If you snatched the radio, the farmer would follow the sound of it and take it back. If you turned on the sprinkler, the farmer would find the source of the water and shut it off. It felt like you were looking to set off chain reactions of events through your actions, carefully seeing how you could affect your environment and the characters based on your actions. There was a lot to discover simply by playing around with things, adding some interesting exploration to the game.
It was a blast to see how these systems connected in intuitive ways as well. Stealing veggies would get the farmer to chase you. Still, you could use that distract him while you snatched his keys. While stealth games can often offer complicated tools that allow you to skulk around your pursuers, simply being able to steal things and honk had multiple uses that would baffle your targets. It all felt quite natural, the game steadily teaching you how to be cunning as a trouble-making goose.
In this way, Untitled Goose Game was extremely approachable now matter how much experience you’ve had with games. It was simple to pick up, with only a few abilities to play around with, yet the map would hide so much interactivity and play using those simple powers. It was easy to become a sneaky goose, and the humor of watching the farmer’s troubles with your actions made for a silly, wonderful time. Easily one of the high points of BitSummit this year.
Untitled Goose Game is currently in development, but in the meantime, you can add it to your Steam Wishlist.
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