Duck Game
Play it on: PS4, Switch, Windows (Steam Deck OK)
Current goal: Get good
Buy it from: Amazon
Duck Game, a 2014 action game published by Adult Swim, is stupid… but brain-meltingly fun. Once you commit to playing, you’re a duck in 1984, shooting and slicing other ducks with absurd weaponry—like shotguns, magnet guns, all kinds of explosives, and about 50 other options—you find across 2D maps.
I am so bad at this stupid, fun game. I’m not very good at shooters in general, and Duck Game’s tricky stages—its platforms riddled with transportive portals and sudden drops—make my eyes cross. But that’s why I like playing it. It quiets my brain for at least 20 minutes, like Kirby does, or half a shot of vodka. But my misplaced competitiveness makes it so that I’d rather become suddenly and inhumanly good at a 2014 multiplayer shooter than do something easy for me, like drink a half shot of vodka, which gives me indigestion anyway.
So, this weekend, I’m going to get good at Duck Game. I like to win where the stakes are low. — Ashley Bardhan
