What Mighty Goose is
Mighty Goose is a side-scrolling run & gun shooter where you play a bounty hunter called Goose. You push through distant worlds, clear out hordes of enemies, and take on screen-filling bosses that test your timing, reflexes and dodging. The core is a tight arcade shooter, and on top of that you get a pile of crazy weapons, war machines, upgrades and secrets to find. The target of your hunt is the Void King, a galaxy-conquering monarch with a huge army of minions and mechanised monsters. The whole thing is wrapped in vibrant pixel art, with a soundtrack of crunchy synth-rock and funky jazz-fusion melodies composed by Dominic Ninmark, who also worked on Moonrider, Blazing Chrome and Gravity Circuit.
Playing it together
The Steam features list Remote Play Together, so a friend can join your session from their own machine while you run through the levels. Tags on the store page also include Local Multiplayer, Local Co-Op and Co-op, which fits the pick-up-and-play arcade feel of the game. Beyond that, the store text describes the experience as a singleplayer run & gun, so the main shape of the game is one player driving the action with others joining in through those listed features. Either way, it's the kind of short, fast session that works well when a group wants something to jump into without a long setup.
Before you start
Expect a game built around skill and repetition: tight controls, demanding boss fights, and enemies that keep the pressure on. You can shape how you play by combining upgrade chips, secondary weapons and assist characters, so there's room to experiment between runs. You'll also pilot war-machine vehicles to wipe out large groups of enemies, which changes the pace from foot combat to vehicular destruction. The action is fast and the difficulty comes from timing and dodging rather than long tutorials, so give yourself a few attempts to get the feel of the controls before judging it.