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You irritate a gardener by stealing some of his belongings.
You honk at startling moments.
You make some of the villagers do awkward, annoying things to deal with your mischievous shenanigans.
You break a few things, but nothing all that important.
The worst thing that happens is someones thumb gets a little hurt.
Untitled Goose Gameis improbably fun, at least in part because of how low-stakes it all is.
Its silly and gentle and smart.
(Spoiler: They love this idea.)
We all agreed that geese were very funny.
What was the motivation for turning the funny goose into a game?
We knew we wanted to make a game in 3-D. We wanted to make a single-player thing.
But when that didnt quite work, we finally said, Oh, what about that goose thing?
Eventually we turned around and realized that it could be a serious idea, a viable game.
Watch: How Untitled Goose Game Was Made
Its interesting you were thinking about depictions of community.
But we didnt really think through how complicated itd be to design and program this completely systemic fete.
Id imagine that was mostly a practical issue?
The lack of a fail state isbecauseof that relationship, and because of how grounded it was.
McMaster:The relationship feels quite real, and quite tangible.
To turn that into a violent fail state would just feel so egregious in this setting.
We wanted to keep it as realistic as possible.
It was a way to keep it low-stakes in that personal, intimate way that we quite liked.
You describe the relationship between a person and a goose as one of depth and nuance.
The basic early blocks were there.
It was quite instant.
No matter where he was in the world, the goose would turn his head to look at him.
And the gardener would do the same.
Just that eye contact creates this relationship that you might put so much meaning into.
It happened early on.
And it was very, very funny.
I remember just feeling like wed landed on something special.
I love the ending very much.
We threw around a lot of ideas.
Do you have personal favorite details in the game?
Small things youre particularly fond of?Strasser:I really love the drinking fountain in the garden.
[McMaster laughs in the background.]
No one else will look at it, but its in the credits.
[Some background muttering.]
It doesnt have a lot of gameplay opportunity, and you could only interact with it one way.
Its a single gag in an entire game.
Theres been somevery small but angry political responsesto the game.
Have you seen any of it?
Do you have any feelings about it?
The goose is this chaotic neutral character.
Theyre just an animal whos not really aware of what theyre doing.
Youre very welcome to predict whatever youd like.
Weve got our joke canon.
McMaster:Im glad that the goose is a leftist icon; thatsveryfunny.
Id much rather it be a leftist icon than a right icon.
And if it pisses off some alt-right people, then great.
Strasser:That will maybe happen no matter what.
We made a game that we thought was funny, about a goose.
Maybe without realizing how strongly they felt about it.
So it creates a moment of joy.
There probablyissomething more interesting there, but Im not sure what it is.
Strasser:Yeah, I dont think weve figured it out.
