Not all social deduction games are made equal. Although Goose Goose Duck is almost always loosely compared with its predecessor, Among Us, it is a game that deserves its own limelight. With six game modes and a total of 45 player roles, it’s not as simple as the good Goose versus the bad Ducks. For both new and seasoned players of social deduction games alike, you need these tips to get you set up for victory in Goose Goose Duck.
Related: Goose Goose Duck EXP guide.
Goose Goose Duck: Tips and beginner’s guide
Actually play the Tutorial
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Whether you’re an experienced player of social deduction games or simply eager to start, we promise you the tutorial is actually worth playing at least once or twice. For geese and ducks, you’ll have plenty of tasks which are essentially mini-games that you play to complete. You get a random set of tasks each time, appearing on the top-left corner of your screen, and the game doesn’t necessarily hold your hand through each of them. On top of this, the tutorial helps to familiarize you first with the map so you can efficiently complete tasks as fast as you can.
Start with Classic games
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One of the best tips we can give new Goose Goose Duck players is: do not be too eager with joining your first public lobby and starting a game. Make sure to check out the details of the lobby first, especially its game mode. If you’re new to Goose Goose Duck, the only lobbies you should be joining are either Classic or Hanging Out, with the latter being a place where you only get to interact with other players — hence the name.
Classic games keep the player roles really simple and the mechanics pretty straightforward, letting you master the basics first. Once you get the hang of things, you can begin learning about the other special roles by hosting or joining a Draft game. If you haven’t yet, make sure to learn more about all the game modes in Goose Goose Duck so you don’t accidentally join a lobby clueless and unarmed.
Use the yellow dots on the map
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As a Goose, you would need to complete your tasks as quickly as you can. Use the glowing yellow dots on the map to efficiently do so. Take care of the tasks near your initial position first before heading to those that are further away. Simply click on the map in the top-right corner to expand it so you can strategize accordingly.
Take notes on the other players’ activity
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Oftentimes you can be so caught up in your tasks — or being scared to get killed as a Goose — that you forget to strategize. And when you or the others find a dead body (or in this case, an avian carcass,) and a meeting is called, you have no substantial clues to provide.
This can either make you out to be sus, even though you’re just an innocent Goose, or have everyone vote out the wrong guy. It helps to have map awareness, so if a player wants to prove their “innocence” by saying they were in this part of the map doing tasks when you can clearly remember you just passed by them a few seconds ago on the opposite side of the map, then you already know the evil one who’s traveling through the vents.
Not all killers are made equal
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In the chaotic game that is Goose Goose Duck, it is unwise to lynch every killer you see. There are good roles in this game that lets the player kill freely, as well as guilty Ducks to aid the Goose in winning like the Sheriff, Vigilante, and Avenger. If you catch a killer and they claim to have these roles, it helps to just be wary of them instead of immediately voting them out.
If you end up having one of these roles, make sure to earn the trust of at least one player who you think is innocent to have a credible witness to back you up. If you’re not big on trusting anyone as they may easily be just a deceitful Duck, be careful of when to use your power and be ready with an alibi.
Be familiar with all the special roles
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Aside from a few special geese who can kill the evil ducks, there are also other special roles that you need to be familiar with. You don’t want to waste time pinning blame on other players who may be acting suspicious, but are not necessarily Ducks.
Also, hovering over a dead body does not automatically mean they killed them; it may just mean their role is a Mortician Goose who can figure out a player’s role after they die. This comes in handy if the dead player was playing closely with someone who is still alive. If the one who died turned out to be a Duck, chances are, the one who they did not kill — even as they traveled around the map together — is guilty too.
Do not be the Goose who cried Duck
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By the way, if you’re playing the role of a Goose, be careful not to hastily tag other players as a Duck so often, especially without valid evidence or cause for suspicion. You should want your fellow geese to believe you when you actually catch an evil Duck red-handed. You especially do not want to run the risk of your geese allies thinking you’re not one of them.
Do not waste your vote
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There is a handy “Skip” button during the voting period of every meeting. If everyone does not have strong evidence against someone, it’s better to not vote at all than risk voting out a fellow Goose. Take note that Ducks can happily coerce geese to pin each other as guilty. After all, getting more Geese to be voted out results in their victory.
Be wary of the Dodo Bird
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Ducks need to be careful to not seem suspicious so they can carry out their evil schemes and survive until the end. So if you notice a player who doesn’t seem to be trying to be sneaky, there’s a big chance that they are the pesky Dodo Bird who can be the only winner of the game should they get voted out.
If you end up taking the role of the Dodo Bird, a surefire strategy is to act only a little bit suspicious and try to prove your innocence first. After two or three meetings, use an alibi that you know can easily be proven otherwise by another player to act as if you were caught in a lie. You get voted out, and you walk away as the sole victor of the game.
Stay at the crime scene
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If you’re playing as a Duck, sometimes an effective method of getting away with murder is actually not vacating the crime scene. If you discovered one player nearby, or if they actually caught you in the act, be quick to cry “Duck” and self-report the dead body. You can then pin the crime on that sole witness or that clueless Goose who happened to be nearby to prove your “innocence.”
Be careful, though, as you may not have been caught in the act by the player you’re trying to pin the crime on. This can easily reveal your identity to that one player, and you wouldn’t want their influence to be greater than yours. The safest way to flee the crime scene as a Duck is by using the vents, but if someone else ends up near the scene after the Goose has been killed, crying “Duck” is the best approach.
Use Proximity Chat to your advantage
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It’s fun to use Proximity Chat in Goose Goose Duck, especially when you come across a lobby of players who are just as dedicated as you in the game. If you prefer chatting than speaking, you can opt to mute yourself, but make sure you still have it on for other players so you can pick up on any potentially suspicious conversations of those not in your team in a game.
Just click on the mic button and when it turns red; that means it’s off and you are muted. Ensure that the headphone button stays white and enabled so you can still hear the other players.
These tips for playing Goose Goose Duck are great for both beginners of the game or the genre. As you progress and level up more, your intuition naturally improves and you may also come up with new strategies of your own for every possible role you get to have. Goose Goose Duck is free to play on Steam, so join in on the chaotic fun if you haven’t yet.
