Press space to honk, mash Circle/B to meow: Species-specific voicing and the non-human animal avatar in Untitled Goose Game and Stray

This piece elucidates modes of embodying non-human animal avatars, experimenting with the alternative vocalities afforded to me as a player by the sound design that enrich my embodied imaginative play as I play as, relate to, and imagine my corporeality as I play characters beyond the human. Drawing from ethnographic gameplay, I use the non-human main characters of two games that I refer to animal avatar games: Untitled Goose Game where you play as a goose and Stray where you play as a stray cat. These novel avatar identities and the treatment of avatar vocality offer the exploration of novel processes of representation, imagining, embodiment and worldmaking.