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Help, this horrible goose has taken over my desktop

Desktop Goose is like Untitled Goose Game, but for your life

Nicole Carpenter is a senior reporter specializing in investigative features about labor issues in the game industry, as well as the business and culture of games.

I am trying to work, but a horrible goose keeps tracking mud over my screen. When I close the memes it drags in front of Google Docs, it chases my cursor until it snatches it, then runs off the screen. Its webbed goose feet slap across the page, like someone clomping down a hallway in flip-flops. Intermittent honks are drowning out any other noise coming from my computer.

A terrible, terrible goose has taken over my desktop. As I write this, it has dragged a note onto the screen: “nsfdassafsfsda asdas sorry hard to type with feet.” Moments later, another note: “i am an agent of chaos.”

This is such a horrible thing to put on your computer, and yet, it’s something I’ve done to myself.

Developer Sam Chiet created Desktop Goose, an application that “destroys your computer.” Chiet said it’s a tribute to House House’s Untitled Goose Game. You, too, can destroy your desktop by downloading the app on itch.io, where you can name your own price. Desktop Goose comes programmed with a whole bunch of memes and notes that it’ll drag onto your screen, but Chiet said users can upload their own memes by adding them to the asset folder. You can also make your life considerably worse by adjusting the goose’s properties — like aggression level — in the files.

People on the internet are having a lot of fun with the goose. One person put Desktop Goose on all their work computers — “some of them are a bit angry.” Another goose has learned to draw. One menace has put multiple geese on the desktop.

Desktop Goose app overlaid on Temtem
Look, goose, leave my Temtem alone.
Image: CremaGames, Sam Chiet via Polygon

Meanwhile, I am too scared to adjust its aggression level. The goose on my desktop is already terrifying. It’s begun to integrate itself into my games. I think it thinks it’s a Temtem, seen above as I played Temtem. I think it’s scaring all my other creatures, and yet it doesn’t help out in battles.

My real-life cat has become obsessed with the goose, intent on catching the little monster in her paws. I think I’ll let her try.