Duck Duck Goose is a free reaction time game you play by ear, inspired by the classic playground game. Real ducks quack and a real goose honks. Your job is to ignore the ducks and react the instant you hear the goose.
The rules
- Turn your sound on. Headphones help.
- Each round, a few ducks quack at random moments. Don't press on a duck: that's a false start.
- Then the goose honks. Press Space or Enter, or tap the pond, as fast as you can.
- Your time runs from the moment the honk reaches your speakers to your press, so a slow internet connection doesn't count against you.
Not sure which is which? The Quack, Honk and Others buttons on the homepage play every sound in the game.
Solo: how far can you get?
Solo is one endless run. Each level is one goose, and a single miss ends the run: press on anything else, or be too slow, and it's game over. Your score is the number of levels you clear.
- You get 2 seconds to react on level 1. That shrinks steadily to 0.4 seconds by level 250, while the sounds come faster and more ducks join in.
- Decoy birds arrive as you climb: songbirds from level 15, water birds from level 60, and other kinds of geese, the real traps, from level 120.
- Background sounds build up too: a stream from level 30, rustling leaves from 70 and wind from 130.
- After level 250 the difficulty holds, so the run lasts as long as you do.
Your best run goes on the global high score table on the homepage, and you can share a picture of your result when the run ends.
Playing with friends
- Press New room to get a four-letter code. Share the invite link or show the QR code, and friends go straight into the room.
- A room holds up to 128 players. The host picks 3, 5 or 10 rounds and can switch on visual cues.
- The host can list the room on the homepage so anyone can join.
- The game starts when the host presses Start, or by itself five minutes after the room was made.
- Each round goes to the fastest honk. Press on a duck and you're out for that round. The most round wins takes the game, with average reaction time as the tie-breaker.
Tips for faster times
- Use wired headphones or your device's speaker. Bluetooth can add a noticeable delay.
- Don't guess. The goose can come first, or after a long run of ducks, so wait until you actually hear the honk.
- Learn the honk. A goose honk is louder and brassier than a quack. Listen out for the other geese on later levels: they're close, but not the same.
- Keep a finger ready. Rest it on the key or just above the screen.
The sounds
Every bird in the game is a real recording shared freely by wildlife recordists on iNaturalist, and the background sounds come from Wikimedia Commons. Each clip is trimmed so the call starts almost instantly, keeping reaction times fair. See who recorded what on the credits page.