The horrible goose can now live on your desktop and steal your cursor

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Experimental game developer Samperson brings Untitled Goose Game's antihero to your Windows desktop.

A goose has never done anything mischievous in my presence, but I've heard stories of cousins up north bawling over the thieving head-jabs of Canada Geese, who can remove a cracker from between a toddler's fingers with Iko Uwais-like speed. 

Now a goose can steal your cousin's mouse cursor, too, thanks to a VR developer who goes by Samperson. Inspired by the avian rascals of Untitled Goose Game and SkateBird, he put together a small program that adds an animated goose foe to your Windows desktop. The orange-beaked criminal waddles around your screen, steals your mouse cursor, drags Untitled Goose Game memes into view, and gets mad when you close them.

(Image credit: Samperson)

Desktop Goose is available on itch.io on a pay-what-you-want basis. After downloading it, Chrome warned me that the file is not common and so may be dangerous, as it automatically does for any archive or executable that isn't widely downloaded—though, in this case, the warning is apt. The goose hates you.

I don't think I'll ever reintroduce this feathered villain to my desktop—it is hard to work around goose attacks—but Desktop Goose did make me feel a little nostalgic for virtual desktop pets, which used to be a bigger thing. The Bad Dog screensaver from After Dark comes to mind, along with the various shareware pets that could inhabit Windows desktops throughout the '90s and 2000s. I miss those anti-efficiency programs.

You can see more of Samperson's work on Twitter, and he also has a Pateron page where he shares early builds of projects with subscribers.

Tyler Wilde
Tyler Wilde
Editor-in-Chief, US

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.