it's a fact that many of the people using goose memes never played it at all? where did you come up with this? how many is 'many' - is it so important to the game's success that it overshadows the game's actual sales and playerbase? how do you know an apparently sizable amount of memers never played it?
untitled goose game is basically part of the stealth genre, so in that sense, it might be 'unoriginal' - but the real originality comes from the humor in the low-level chaos caused by a single renegade goose. the design strongly reinforces this in its grounded setting and the unsuspecting normal folks going about their daily lives. this gives room for the mayhem to matter. in terms of presentation, the designers made the right choices in the setting, art style, animation, and music to enhance the quaint life that is being disrupted. the objectives heighten the absurdity of playing as a goose with an even more absurd checklist that culminates in several funny moments. i can't think of another game that is constantly hilarious due to the actions of the player and not because of writing or cutscenes. the player agency in creating these moments is the strongest success of the game, and there's nothing quite like it.
thank you for turning me on to outer wilds. i'll look into it more because the premise is intriguing. to be fair i thought this was 'the outer worlds' at first, which i don't know if i'll play to play because rpgs take up so much time.
(untitled goose game is really great and i recommend that you play it)