Who Are We? Player Identity in Untitled Goose Game

The paper was originally a final assignment of Game Studies I class at NYU

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          Playing House House's Untitled Goose Game has been an itch in my heart for days before its release. The burning desire to dive in that world is because of a simple yet compelling premise: the player gets to play as a mean-spirited goose. But after I downloaded the game and started playing it on a cozy weekend, I realized that it is not merely a regular fowl play: this goose is incredibly mean and horrible who aims to ruin everybody’s day in a small unsuspecting village. On the one hand, the game provides the player with a vivid demonstration of the animal protagonist: elegant walking animation, flexible long neck, it can even make an iconic honking sound; on the other hand, the player performs stealth and solves puzzles to make progress, giving the goose human traits and making it less realistic. In that case, is the player character truly a goose as suggested in the title? And why it still feels resonated with players even if there exists some discrepancy between the goose in the game and a goose in reality? As I continued messing around in the village, I found out that this game is a valuable case to study the player identity as well as the relationship between the player and the player character.

Defining Identity

In contemporary terms, identity is “the meanings that individuals hold for themselves — what it means to be who they are” (Burke 197). But “what it means” varies between individuals. Identity can be multifaceted, containing at least two aspects: our internal identity — how we perceive ourselves; and our external identity — how others perceive us. The merging of these two identities makes up the whole “self”. People also develop their identities by the roles they fulfill in their everyday lives (Boudreau 30). In post-modern terms, identity is an invention, the process of redefining and reinventing oneself is also within the realm of identity (Bauman 7). Despite the diversity, identity aims to reflect the individual in multiple aspects of the self. Hence, in video games, player identity refers to what the player believes his self is during his play.

          Players often take on the role of a pre-scripted or customizable playable character and control it within the structured confines of a game narrative. In this manner, identity is imposed on players through the character they are playing (Boudreau 73). There are many ways to learn the identity of the player character. The representation of the player character would be the first step to discover his identity, such as his race, gender, and appearance. Then what the game simulates about him is also part of identity construction — what model of behaviors the player character operates, how he reacts to events happening in the game world, and what he does to others can also help the player understand his identity. However, player identity does not equal to player character’s identity all the time. Knowing player character’s identity does not guarantee that the player truly identifies as or with him. The player can believe his self is the player character, but it is also possible that there exists gap between the two.

          Untitled Goose Game has some interesting designs. First, it features a player character that holds the appearance of a domestic white goose yet often does not behave like a real one. And players observe the fictional world from a front third-person view, which keeps a distance from the player character. But at the same time players have little control of the camera, players can zoom in and out, but they cannot rotate or move it as they want. Instead, it automatically follows the player character then frames the scene from a pre-set angle and position. Those designs greatly influence the player identity in the game. Based on my experience, there are at least two different ways of how players can perceive themselves and think about their relationship with the player character, which I will discuss in depth in the essay.

The Game as Mimicry Play

When it comes to the systematic classification of play and games, Roger Caillois proposes a division into four fundamental categories, one of which is called “mimicry” (Caillois 12). Mimicry play can consist not only of deploying actions or submitting to one's fate in an imaginary milieu but of becoming an illusory character oneself, and so of behaving (19). Hence, the first way of diving into Untitled Goose Game would be a mimicry play of the animal protagonist. Players identify as and with the goose. They believe they are the player character themselves, that they share experiences simultaneously and they put themselves into his shoes.

          Untitled Goose Game has done an excellent job of modeling and adding juiciness to the player character, making him look exactly like a cute white domestic goose. However, the goose's behaviors seem to conflict with the goal of mimicry. If we analyze the game through the concept of simulation, the conclusion would be that the game is not simulating a real goose. The focuses on the conflict between the player character and the people in the small village. Therefore, how he behaves when he is in confrontation with other non-player characters (NPCs) matters to his identity. In this game, the player character comes up with a long to-do list of how he will destroy other's lives. He plans to steal people's belongings behind their backs, mess backyards and gardens, startle or provoke people at the right timing, as well as play tricks on people and embarrass them. These reactions and behaviors, however, are quite different from what geese will do in reality. Geese are friendly in general, but male geese (ganders) can easily turn aggressive when defending their young and nests during mating seasons. A gander usually stretches his neck full length, throws his head back, and peers at you with one eye first. This posture indicates he is not sure about the wisdom of attacking (Carboneras 578). If he believes the people are still a threat, he will make a beeline toward them with his neck stretched forward, head down, and wings spread, making hissing sounds. Then he sprints suddenly and bites. Geese adopt a more offensive and dangerous strategy in real-life. While in Untitled Goose Game the player character is stealthy and cunning, annoying NPCs for fun and cruelty. The gameplay, especially the stealth skill, reminds me of other similar games such as Hitman, Metal Gear Solid, and Deus: Ex. Those games all have a male human player character who holds a military background and carries on dangerous missions sneakily. Untitled Goose Game does not grant us any fancy weapon, we are not assassinating any poor NPC, but I still felt that the animal protagonist possesses a human's intelligence and emotions when I performed stealth for the first few times. Would it break the spell of illusion if the animal player character's behaviors do not purely match with his representation? Would it become a hindrance on our way to identify as and with this type of player character?

          Several factors help solve the problem. The first one relates to anthropomorphism. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, anthropomorphism is the attribution of human traits, emotions, or intentions to non-human entities. It is considered to be an innate tendency of human psychology (Huston 165). And people have routinely attributed human emotions and behavioral traits to wild as well as domesticated animals (Moss, “What you see in this picture says more about you than the kangaroo”). This is one advantage of using animal characters in video games. Players seldom judge if the animal behaves like a human. I have seen this similar treatment in plenty of fiction and films, so I was not surprised to see that the player character reflects a few human traits in Untitled Goose Game, instead, it narrows the gap between his identity and my identity in real life. When I was a child, I also loved to do harmless little tricks to my family. I was drawn to the unique animal character immediately and accepted his behaviors and desires without much hesitation. So my internal identity gradually shifted into the player character, a smart badass goose who looks innocent and clumsy.

          Besides the internal identity, NPCs' feedback contributes a lot to my external identity. Their attitude changed dramatically after my moves. When I showed up in a new area, most people just did not care. They looked at me for a second then continued to do their work. I entered the small grocery stall, the shopkeeper instantly hurried to grab a broom and shoved me away. Another example is a boy. Hearing my honk, he dropped his toy and ran off — he was so scared that he did not even bother to pick the toy up. After I fulfilled my goals of a particular area, there would always be one angry NPC hanging up a big "No Geese Allowed" sign in front of me. Clearly, the player character is a huge nuisance, he is mean and a bully, disliked by almost everyone. But people in the village ignore and underrate his power at first. Gradually, I began to learn about my external identity through the villagers. The more dramatic and fun their reactions were, the less I identified with them.

          As a result, I had the illusion that I truly was the player character in the game and acted like him. We became a meaningful unity: He moved as I moved controller joysticks; I saw what he saw in the village. Whenever an NPC took back his item from my beak, I no longer shouted words in front of the computer screen, I smashed the honk button to express my disappointment directly to the NPC. And when I spotted an empty glass bottle on the ground, I would pick it up, have my beak stuck at the bottleneck, and show off everywhere even though it was not on the to-do list. Because I thought the player character would do the same in the context of narrative structure, and if I were him, that would be a reasonable move.

The Game as Performance

During my replay, I began to examine the game from a different perspective. Apart from the mimicry play, I found out that we can also consider this game as a performance. When interviewed by Gamasutra, Nico Disseldorp from House House explained that when designing Untitled Goose Game, they wanted the player felt performative controlling the goose; as though the player was controlling a puppet for an audience, even if that audience was just players themselves. I think they do achieve that goal. Some good designs in this game lead the player towards that direction.

          The game takes place in five areas: a garden, a street corner, two adjacent backyards, a restaurant, and a model village. Locked doors, tall wooden fences, and stone walls make up the boundary, in this way, each playable area stands out from the buildings in the background as a carefully arranged stage. And every space is full of small interactable props such as flowerpots, toys, statues, tables, and chairs that enhance the setting. With the pre-set camera, the game presents the player a perfect angle to view the scene seamlessly, and where the conflict between the player character and others will happen is highlighted and clear.

          All NPCs' reactions and behaviors are pre-scripted as well. However, unlike other games where NPCs' behaviors usually change according to the player's significant gameplay choices and actions, in this game NPCs repeat most of their behaviors even after the player accomplishes the goals from the to-do list. For example, I successfully tricked the burly man from the restaurant into bending down and putting a tomato back to a box, then I dropped a bucket on his head. He fell into the tomato box and soiled his clothes. He finally removed the bucket and returned to his work, but I was not done with him yet. I continued to trick him, again and again, in the same location using the same technique. He acted as he never learned the lesson from the previous humiliation. On one hand, the treatment of the NPC is hilarious and satisfying; on the other hand, it takes away something realistic from the NPC, making him more like a robot and an actor. In this sense, the scene is not a live glimpse of people's daily life but a comedy with the aid of a script beforehand.

          The music of Untitled Goose Game is adapted from Claude Debussy’s Prélude No. 12, and the way it is played also adds up the cinematic feeling. During the interview, Disseldorp mentioned that Debussy’s original composition was used and played normally in an early trailer, while people commented it felt like reactive to the goose's behaviors. The team liked that idea and decided to make a reactive music system eventually, which plays all the new versions of Debussy in a stop-start style. The system has lots of room to change suddenly, making it very responsive to the player. When the player character steals an item or is chased by an NPC, the music will jump to a higher volume. It also jumps down to a lower intensity or even pauses for a while in complete silence when the player character is in stealth. The music reaches the climax at the exact right moment every time, identical to that in a well-plotted and twisted drama.

          If the game does have the vibe of performance, then what is the role of the player in this show? What is the player identity? If you ask me, it reminds me of the spectator of simultaneous dramaturgy from Augusto Boal’s Theatre of the Oppressed. Boal's theatre techniques require a certain degree of direct participation of the spectator in the performance. In simultaneous dramaturgy, actors on the stage begin the scene with a prepared script, then develop it to the point where the main problem reaches a crisis and needs a solution. The actors ask the audience to offer solutions. They reveal the solution immediately, and the audience can intervene or change it (Boal 109). The game shares some similarities to simultaneous dramaturgy. The player character and all the NPCs are actors, while the player takes the role of the spectator. The goals on the to-do list are the problems raised by the player character, he cannot progress until the player provides solutions. Once the player comes up with a plan, he gives keyboard or controller inputs. The player character and NPCs act out the solution simultaneously without protest, and the player can see if it works from the screen. If not, the player gives a new one.

          Consequently, when I replayed the game as a spectator, I did not identify as the player character that much. It felt that the player character and I were two separate entities. I was not playing the player character, rather, I was creating new scripts for him to interpret and act out. I did not mimicry him or become him, nor think like him or behave like him. We were two contributors working closely to present a live performance. However, because the perfect solutions are restricted within the structure of the game, the player has little room to improvise a solution that remarkably reflects personal interests, beliefs, or values, all of which contribute to an individual's identity. What Boal's theatre inspires me most is that it aims to represent a large variety of people, who do not often get reflected in media. The gameplay in Untitled Goose Game resembles the basic formation of simultaneous dramaturgy, but it fails to reflect the player's identity in real life during the problem-solution-act process.

Conclusion

This paper used the single-player game Untitled Goose Game as a case to study player identity and relationship between the player and player character. Based on Burke and Boudreau's definition of identity, two analyze perspectives were proposed and verified. With different ways of thinking about the game, I identified what the player identity was, how the player related to the player character, as well as how the player character's identity and particular game design decisions lead to that result. In this game, the player can identify as and with the player character through the form of mimicry paly, and it is also possible that the player would feel like a spectator if considering the game as a performance, thus the player identity is separate from the player character’s identity. While both paths bring enjoyment to the player, it is also important for us not to ignore that players also have their own identities outside the game world. How to encourage them to bring personal identities through the player character is also worthwhile for designers to take into account.

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Burke, Peter J. “Relationships among Multiple Identities.” Advances in Identity Theory and Research, edited by Burke, Peter J., et al., Springer, Boston, MA, 2003, pp. 195-214.

Caillois, Roger. Man, Play, and Games. University of Illinois Press, 2001.

Carboneras, Carles. “Family Anatidae (Ducks, Geese, and Swans).” Handbook of Birds of the World. Volume 1: Ostrich to Ducks, edited by Hoyo, Josep del, et al., Lynx Edicions, 1992, pp. 536-629.

Hutson, Matthew. The 7 Laws of Magical Thinking: How Irrational Beliefs Keep Us Happy, Healthy, and Sane. Hudson Street, 2012.