It was a warm Sunday morning as Dale awoke. The sun shined through his curtains, promising a day of clear skies and a chance to be outside in his garden. As he pulled on his dungarees, Dale thought to himself, ‘today I’m going to pull up those carrots’. He excitedly tied his boot laces and ventured out to the bright sunny day.

He could hear the birds singing and taste the clean countryside air. Pottering down to his shed, he searches for his trusty trowel…but it’s not there. ‘Strange’ thinks Dale, as he looks around, the radio isn’t where he left it either.

*Honk*

A chill runs up Dale’s spine. ‘No it can’t be’ he gasps to himself. He turns around quickly but there’s nothing there, just the greenery of his shrubs. He reaches down slowly to pick up his radio.

*Honk*

The radio drops, the chill is back but this time it’s ten times worse. Dale squeezes his eyes shut, ‘no not again’ he thinks, as his heart starts to race. He turns slowly and tentatively opens his eyes. At first it’s blurry, but Dale knows the white and orange are undeniable.

*Honk*

It’s back, the beast that has been menacing him and his garden for months.

*Honk*

That insufferable sound, emitting from it’s long slender neck.

*Honk*

Dale knows the trouble the beast can cause, the pain, the pulled up plants. He knows that this Goose is trouble and that his quiet day of gardening was really just a dream…

Dale and his tormentor!

The ‘Game’ in Untitled Goose Game.

When you bring it down to brass tax, Untitled Goose Game (UGG) is a stealth game. You play as a naughty goose who terrorises a sleepy British village. Stealing peoples’ belongings, turning taps on and honking at whoever you can.

No Geese allowed!

As the goose you’re given a sheet of paper with tasks to complete, which in turn progress the ‘story’. These include tricking someone into buying their own stuff at a shop, to locking someone in a garage. Once you complete a set number of tasks, a short cut scene will occur and a new area of the town will unlock.

Tasks ranged from simplistic to cryptic. Honestly, I had to use a guide to beat UGG. I’ve seen people describe the game as a puzzle game, which it is- I guess. However, the puzzles aren’t like something you’d play in a Zelda game, but more like puzzles you’d see in a point and click adventure game. The type where you’re supposed to just try random stuff and hope it works.

To do list

One example is in the pub. The task is to set a table with certain items found around the pub. Seems simple right? That is until you realise there’s about 20 tables in the pub. Without the guide I’d still be going from table to table hoping that it was the right one! SPOILER: it turns out the table you need isn’t even a table at all, but a wooden drum in the alley behind the pub.

Utterly Charming

The game is so charming, and it feels so funny chasing after a scared little boy with your wings spread wide and your beak honking. In this week’s episode of the Switch Indie Fix Podcast, we were asked the question: why is UGG so successful?

In my opinion, it’s because the developers of the game had such a unique and charming idea. Everyone knows Geese are assholes. So playing as one feels so unique because it almost feels realistic. What I mean by this is that in some small village somewhere in Southern England, there could be an annoying goose that does things like this.

New Duck Souls Boss

Should it be an Untitled Goose ‘Game’?

I believe the developers have said themselves that the idea for UGG came from a funny mechanic they accidentally developed. And to be honest, it feels like that. I think UGG is a fantastic idea and an amazing open world (sort of) sandbox. However, the actual gameplay wasn’t that fun for me. I think the game would have been more enjoyable if it was left as a sandbox.

This is because I found the tasks way too linear, as there was only one way to accomplish them. It would have been cooler if you could achieve the tasks by using your own creativity and wits. An example of this was the ‘get the gardener wet’ task. In the game the only way to do this is to lure the gardener (poor Dale) to a sprinkler and turn it on.

Honk!

In the garden there are other sources of water that could get the gardener wet. I stole his trowel and ran away with it into a pond. I thought that if the gardener fell in, he’d get wet and therefore, I’d complete the task. This wasnt the case though, he ran around in circles chasing me in the pond but my task still wasn’t complete (even though Dale was technically wet).

I think House House missed a great opportunity by making the tasks too linear. There could have been some ‘water cooler’ momments online with people discussing creative ways they managed to complete each task. In addition, making the game’s challenges more open would have made the game more replayable, as you could play through it again and complete it in different ways. Almost like in the new Hitman series. Every time you play you always play on the same map, but there are hundreds of ways to knock out your target. Obviously, House House don’t have the resources to do it on that scale however, having a few different options to achieve each task would have been nice.

The AI

We all know that the AI in stealth games is usually pretty bad, and the same can be said with UGG. For me, the AI was an another aspect of the game that just didn’t make it fun to play. It was both frustratingly exact and utterly stupid at the same time.

You’ve got something on your face mate.

One example is poor old Dale. He would be on the other side of the map, out of eye sight, and would know when I picked up a carrot. He’d come marching over, targeted on my fluffy white behind. Then he’d snatch the carrot from my beak and start walking away to replant it. However, if I ran up to him and spammed the A button, I would eventually snatch the carrot out of his hands and he’d start chasing me again. Then the cycle would go on like this until I completed the task I was working on. If I got sick of the cycle, I would just touch an item close to Dale, which would cause his AI to reroute to that item. He’d drop the carrot and pick up the new thing, giving me a chance to nab the carrot again and walk away.

This is pretty much the extent of the interaction you have with the NPCs in the game. Unlike other stealth games, I’d argue there’s no strategy to the stealth in UGG and actually no consequences for failing to be stealthy. Therefore, I’d rather run up behind Dale and spam A as fast as I can than actually try and sneak up on him and steal his things the way the game intended.

Have a gander at this

I love the art style of UGG, I think it’s what adds so much charm to the game and characters. It looks almost amateurish, like someone made it with the brush tool in Microsoft Paint. However, the character and environmental designs are so colourful and detailed that you get a real feeling that this place could be a small village somewhere in the UK. This is emphasised with the typical British signs that act as the game’s pause menu.

The music design in the game is minimal and to be honest- I didn’t mind. This is because the sound design is focused on the Goose’s honk and having any other loud background music would take away from how great the honk is. For some reason it’s so satisfying to do. I’ve not experienced satisfaction from something so small in a video game like this since Laviathon in God of War. The noise and the reactions of the goose and NPCs is always hilarious and it was the art and honk that got me through most of this game.

I pressed Y a lot.

The Golden Egg of indie gaming?

There’s been so much hype surrounding Untitled Goose Game and I can see why. It’s a unique idea, with a hilarious concept and a beautiful art style. The name itself causes intrigue and has people asking ‘what the hell is that game?’. I think House House have done an excellent job of marketing what is only their second game, because it seems to have sold in the 100s of thousands.

I’m just an innocent Goose.

However, there were many things I didn’t like about the game. I found it too linear and not open enough for me to use my own creativity to solve tasks. If the game had been an open world sandbox, say like Hitman 2, I think I would have preferred it more. The NPC AI was both enraging and dumb founding, to the point where you could out smart them just by spamming A.

Should you buy this game on Switch? I would say no. I don’t think it’s worth $19.99 unless you absolutely love stealth games. There are so many other better indie games out there for that price or cheaper, which you should definitely play first. I’m thinking games like, Hyper Light Drifter, Golf Story, Steamworld Dig 2 etc.

Therefore, I give Untitled Goose Game by House House my rating of

A 6! Controversial I know. What did you think of my Untitled Goose Game Switch Review? Do you think I’m being too harsh on the game, or do you think it’s been over hyped too. Also what do you think of my Untitled Goose Game fan fiction. Let me know over on Twitter or come and join the SIF Discord community.

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