General News
27 February, 2026
Videogame exhibition waddles into Maryborough
Maryborough's art gallery has welcomed a touring exhibition for award-winning Australian video game 'Untitled Goose Game'.
A free hands-on videogame exhibition arrives at Maryborough’s art gallery this weekend revealing how the award-winning Untitled Goose Game was made.
The ACMI exhibition promises to reveal how a game of stealth and slapstick, where you play a malevolent goose run-a-muck in a sleepy village, went on to become a global hit.
Untitled Goose Game was created by a small independent Melbourne team known as House House. Following its 2019 release it would receive numerous awards including the D.I.C.E. Game of the Year and BAFTA Games Award for Best Family and Social Game in 2020.
Locals are invited to discover the world of comedy and chaos in Honk! Untitled Goose Exhibition which explores the game’s creative development through previously unseen concept art, sketches and design material alongside playable versions of the game.
Director and CEO of ACMI Seb Chan said, as a museum of screen culture, video games are at the heart of what they do.
“We’re honoured to give the goose the exhibition it deserves, revealing to audiences how it was made, and the wider cultural context it has come from,” he said.
Having previously said that anyone’s day is improved by playing the game the exhibition’s curator Jini Maxwell said the showcase was a celebration of the beloved title.
“Videogames are the most popular entertainment medium on the planet today — but how they are actually made is often shrouded in mystery,” they said.
Its a sentiment echoed by journalist and developer James O’Connor who wrote a book on how the indie megahit came to be.
“If you show it to someone who doesn’t usually play a game immediately they understand it ... which is very very rare,” he said.
“Sometimes somebody will make an observation about something and everybody will realise at the same time that they have always felt the same way but nobody has ever vocalised it.
“That might sound like a fairly grand statement to put to a game like this but really the inherent success of this game is that geese are funny — fundamentally.”
Players take control of a goose set on mischief, which may sound simple at first, but Mr O’Connor said it has been polished until it’s “inherently satisfying in a way that is visceral and speaks to people straight away”.
While videogames may have previously been dismissed as for children Mr O’Connor said that’s an outdated idea now as it may have been in the past.
“If you can wrap your head around the inherent value of media and art in our lives you have to include games in that,” he said.
Central Goldfields Shire Council mayor Ben Green said the exhibition was one for the whole family.
“This is another example of the versatility of Central Goldfields Art Gallery, and we greatly appreciate the quality of HONK!, with sincere thanks to ACMI for bringing it to our shire,” he said.
The exhibition’s launch will be midday this Sunday, March 1, at the Central Goldfields Art Gallery while the exhibition will run from February 28 to June 14.