A reader suggests some obvious sequels to Untitled Goose Game, to highlight the worst the animal kingdom has to offer from seagulls, spiders, cats, and dogs.
I’m looking forward to playing Untitled Goose Game when I get it for my Xbox. From how I’ve heard it described, I anticipate soon I’ll freely be able to indulge my secret inner antagonist, who for social and moral reasons I work hard to keep suppressed.
There are several ‘animal simulators’ now (those of the goat and the bee), and of course stretching back over decades you can have controlled hundreds of mammalian, avian, and insectoid avatars, for instance Ecco the dolphin and AiAi the monkey.
But the prospect of engaging in douche-type behaviour has prompted me to consider how a game based upon my own encounters with animals would play. Since almost all of those have been maddening.
1. You’re a gull. Turning your back on a life out at sea, you’ve discovered a new, easy to access source of nutrition and so set up on the roof of Primark in Glasgow city centre.
Objectives:
a) A man is eating a sandwich outside that cafe. Land on his table. Look him square in the eye and take his sandwich. Just take it right from his hands.
b) That guy has bought a new coat. Look as he proudly wears his new, expensive jacket. He really likes it. Defecate in its hood.
c) Eat an entire discarded sausage roll, then fail to be able to fly away and just kind of flap violently as people scatter.
d) It’s been a long day of trolling shoppers. Line up on the roof of Primark, grab the wing of your neighbouring gull in your beak and just yank it again and again.
2. You play a giant house spider and have infiltrated the home of a human man.
Objectives:
a) Run directly at your host, who has a phobia, as fast as you spiderly can. He’s never seen a giant house spider before and is appalled you exist. The horror of this first run-in with your type will have an effect comparable to that of watching Alien at age eight.
b) Wait on the pillow of your new friend and, as he awakens, opening his eyes just a slit, enjoy the chaos as the bedside table and lamp get knocked over and glass from its now broken bulb becomes embedded in his arm.
c) Cruelly, unfairly, climb into a mug in the cupboard. Reach one leg over the side as the resident goes to make tea. Enjoy the rest of your life in the mug in the bin.
3. You’re a dog on a lead.
Objectives:
a) Behave really calmly as you approach someone walking towards you. At the last moment, jump all over him as your owner uselessly attempts to control you. Keep this going for – what must seem to you – a comically long time, wiping your drool on his sleeve. (The sleeve of the jacket the passerby loves.)
b) Bite and inwardly snicker when your owner, really an inept, stupid man, tells your victim ‘don’t put out your hand!’
4. You’re my cat.
Objectives:
a) You have one objective. Be warm. Stalk the house seeking the warmest place then occupy it most of the day. To break up the resting, side-missions could include looking into the hedge because you think there are mice, or loudly reprimanding your owner for making you wait when you’d like to come back in the house.
On second thoughts, these games shouldn’t be made. They are more morally questionable than Grand Theft Auto 5.
By reader P. Thomas Donnelly
The reader’s feature does not necessary represent the views of GameCentral or Metro.
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