As I’ve grown older, I’ve come to appreciate the condensed, more focused experiences of shorter games. Time is at a premium, and I’d rather a game contain only the very best ideas and executions of its premise rather than be bloated and go on for way too long. Untitled Goose Game is one of the best examples of “short but sweet” in the gaming industry. You play as a horrible goose whose only goal is to annoy and antagonize the residents of a quaint town.

Untitled Goose Game is a rare kind of game. It’s a pure experience, built with a singular purpose of having the player be a goose. There is no bloat. You start the game and are told how to move, grab things, honk, and flap your wings. There’s not a lengthy tutorial explaining how to interact with the NPCs or steal items. There are no dialog sequences or a written story; the story is instead told through the environmental storytelling. I really appreciate it when a game trims the fat and trusts the player to figure things out. It leaves the joy of discovery and problem solving in the player’s hands rather than it being spoon-fed to them.

The game consists of a few different areas in the village to play around in. Each area has a list of mayhem inducing tasks, but leaves the player to figure out how they want to accomplish those tasks. From stealing vegetables to have a picnic, to chasing a terrified boy until he hides in a phone booth, to pulling the stool out from an old man trying to sit down, the goose is an arbiter of chaos. At its heart, Untitled Goose Game is a mix of puzzle game and stealth game. It’s up to the player to figure out how to finish their list of disorderly deeds, but usually you have to be somewhat stealthy to prevent the pesky humans from undoing your hard work.

Part of the fun that comes with being a goose is just messing about and being an absolute pain in the ass. While the list of tasks is solid guidance on what to do to progress the game, there is a ton of other fun interactions to engage with. I loved just exploring the tiny town and finding what items I could mess with. It almost feels like a modern Hitman game in the sense that the developers thought of so many different interactions and possibilities in the context of being a goose.

There’s no debating that Untitled Goose Game is short. The main game can be completed in a couple of hours, and while there is some bonus content in the post-game, the meat of Untitled Goose Game can be experience in an afternoon. A common sentiment among gamers is that “hours per dollar” is a valuable metric in judging a game’s worth. This is a garbage way of determining if a game is good. It’s how we end up with 100+ hour games that are filled with repetitive and unnecessary bloat. I’d rather have a short, focused experience than one that drags on for way too long and outlives its entertainment. My most common complaint with many games is that they are too long and up being tedious as you drag towards the finish line. Untitled Goose Game is an absolute delight that is the perfect length for its premise.

Overall, Untitled Goose Game is the perfect game to sit on the couch with your friends or family and just be goofy for a few hours. There’s something genuine and pure about the Untitled Goose Game, it’s just fun. It may not blow anyone’s mind, and it certainly isn’t going to revolutionize the industry, but there’s nothing wrong with just having some plain old fun. It is for these reasons that I give Untitled Goose Game an 8/10. Be a goose, cause some chaos, honk at bystanders, steal what is rightfully yours, and chase children to your hearts content.