I'm a huge fan of puzzle games.
Ever since I was a child I've enjoyed them. Unfortunately, I'm also mentally handicapped which makes playing such a thing rather frustrating at times. Games that I truly appreciate and want to play like the Professor Layton series is unplayable to me because I suffer from severe dyscalculia, to the point of barely being able to do basic multiplication and division (and boy do I mean BARELY), while others just...are kind of...too hard for my big dumb damaged brain. Thankfully, Untitled Goose Game is one of the easiest puzzle games I've ever played, which only made it all the more enjoyable. From a fairly pleasant visual aesthetic to its cute little jaunty piano numbers to its overall concept, I knew long before it came out that I was going to enjoy it.
But there's something about Untitled Goose Game that surprised me in ways I didn't expect, and that's the overall point of the game itself, wherein you demand the right to exist and will force your irritant self on others until you're given that inalienable right. Just so we're clear, for those who somehow haven't played it yet, I'm going to dive into the ending of the game right now, because my review wouldn't exist without it. Spoilers ahead.
Untitled Goose Game starts off well enough. You're a simple little goose who wants to go into town and wreak havoc. But why? Sure, this isn't the kind of game that requires any kind of ridiculous lore or backstory or reasoning of any kind, but a reason does exist, actually, if only visually. At the start of the game, in the gooses habitat, you can see trash and litter and debris having been dumped in their home. Their territory is being encroached on, and they - rightfully so - have every reason to be pissed the hell about it.
Throughout the game, you solve little puzzles all centering around how to irritate the people you come into contact with, presumably because they've dumped waste into your life without any consideration towards how it affects you. So you honk and steal things and wreck their living spaces - an eye for an eye, a beak for a beak - and eventually you're shooed unto your next poor unsuspecting targets. But it isn't the end of the game that it all really kind of makes sense.
Untitled Goose Game wraps up with you sneaking into a miniature town and stealing a beautiful bell from their tower, then having to traverse your way back home through every place you just annoyed, all while your former victims of your seemingly insufferable behavior chase you down to take it back. At the end, you drop it into a hole back in your living space filled with a dozen other bells. Really, you're just doing is necessary to make the statement of, "Hey, I live here too. You want to screw with my home, you wanna mess with me? I'll do it right back at you."
Growing up, I had virtually no sense of space. I talked about this somewhat in my Space Invaders review, but I'll elaborate a bit more on it now. When my mother first remarried, my bedroom wasn't even a bedroom. It was simply what had once been my stepfathers home office. In fact, I wouldn't even have my own real bedroom until a few years later when a sudden flood caused by a burst pipe under our kitchen sink ruined a good portion of the house while were on vacation, and thusly I finally got a chance to redesign that room entirely and make it my own space. But even then, it was never my own space. I never felt safe or that I belonged there. And I certainly never felt that way anywhere else, either. Home was meant to be a refuge from the awfulness that was socializing at school, but when both are equally terrible, you begin to wonder if you have any right to exist at all, especially when everyone on both sides are so adamantly against your existence.
My stepsister would come into my bedroom late at night while our folks were out to hurt me, and my mother would constantly force her way in and berate me for not doing better at keeping it clean. My stepfather would barge in unexpectedly to complain about my lack of participation in school and thusly my poor abilities in doing well at school, and overall I simply never felt like I had the right to just....BE.
I related to this goose at first because he was funny. Haha a goose stealing a broom and chasing a boy into a phone booth. That's comedy, all right! But I related to this goose by the end because, much like him, I too had to fight simply for the right to exist and to feel and to want things. I never annoyed an entire town or stole shiny bells, but the overall outcome is the same.
People came into our world and they trashed it, they made it their own, they took away our sanctity, they told us we didn't belong with them, and then - to top it all off - they tried to hurt us when we tried to steal back even just a shred of dignity. When we tried to make it known that, yes, we do deserve to exist, whether you like it or not. We're taking your bell and we're making a stand. Whether it's a goose or a brain damaged queer girl we're fighting for the right to exist in a world that so often tells us we don't have that right. And while I may not be a destructive force of nature akin to a goose, I all but can empathize with his reign of terror and pathway of obstruction. I fought so hard to stay alive. I fought so hard to be acknowledge, to have my issues taken seriously, to be respected just because I'm not seen as much of a "fully functioning" human as everyone else may seem. I'm going to come into your town, take your bell and dump it into a hole with all the others I've managed to steal back.
I don't think you get it.
When you're queer, when you're mentally disabled, when you're autistic...every single aspect, every single facet of my personality, of my identity, has been told to me to be "wrong". To be "bad". To be "unnatural". When you're faced with that sort of constant barrage of hatred from almost every angle your entire life, sometimes the only fucking possible reaction IS to walk into their house, take what they love most, and then honk in their face.
Untitled Goose Game may be, to most, just an example of a rather short, silly puzzle game with a funny premise. But to me? This goose is a hero. This goose don't take no shit. This goose is fighting back.
And that's what every single day of my life has been. Fighting back.
So come on, let's plug in a controller and scream until we're heard. Because birds of a feather stick together.
My name is Maggie. I'm an artist/writer. If you like this review and want to support me, you can subscribe to my Patreon, buy merch from my shop, follow my main blog, or simply tip me a few bucks over here. Thanks for reading!
