Untitled Goose Game was the most British of games. And, as I once said in a national newspaper “the ultimate arsehole simulator”. Naturally, I was interested in what the team behind could muster next. As it turns out, Coal Supper, half the team behind Untitled Goose Game, has doubled down on the British theme big time with Thank Goodness You’re Here!.
Read More: Endless Ocean Luminous review – Lacking Depth
Thank Goodness You’re Here! delivers more of an interactive cartoon than game, but the dose of Yorkshire injected into proceedings carries it a long way.
Straight Out of Barnsworth
You play a voiceless and unknown junior salesman at a large firm. The game begins as you embark on a seemingly mundane trip to a sleepy dull Yorkshire town. However, in a classic British comedy caper fashion, it’s not long until chaos ensues.
This is, more or less, the game’s plot. You wander the streets of the (mostly) fictitious northern English town of Barnsworth. If you glance between the lines, it’s a grim reincarnation of about 90% of northern English towns in the darkest days of the 1980s.
Read More: Paper Mario The Thousand-Year Door review – Traced to Perfection
Thank Goodness You’re Here! is more about its story than its gameplay. And this is mirrored in the controls. You can move around, jump, slap things to interact with them, and that’s it. You’ll slap people, objects, building, cows and practically everything you’ll see on your journey and solve extremely light puzzle elements.
The gameplay on offer is a little overly simplistic, and is mostly just a means to an end. However, the writing is top tier and offers a sharp flow of saucy British seaside postcard humour. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is full of sexual innuendos and risqué eyebrow raisers befitting its origins.
Slapping About
The game starts with you helping locals to find their keys, or cut the grass at the park. However, things start to take a more bizarre and twisted tone as you dive deeper into Barnsworth. The weirdness is a mix of the surrealism of Monty Python and the ‘lol random!’ of Mighty Boosh.
And things kick off big time later in the game. Thank Goodness You’re Here! descends briefly into a bizarre, drug-infused power trip.
Read More: Sand Land review – Vehicular Exploration and Explosion
It’s worth noting that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a short undertaking. You’ll see the credits rolling in about two to three hours depending on how much you explore, or how much you get lost.
To Wander and Wonder
And being lost will be an issue as Thank Goodness You’re Here! does a poor job at telling you where, to go or what to do, next. The game is happy leaving you walk around slapping everything to force the story along. Which is not a huge issue given the size of the game, but a pain if you stop for the night. An eventuality that will leave you even more lost when it happens.
Also, with a game forged primarily around humour, it’s a fair point to say that while some of the jokes land and land hard. Moments like the sausage man at the fence, or “that’s not a watering can, it’s a watering can’t”, for example, will have the average player guffaw, chortle or chuckle. But, others miss the mark. And, if enough of the humour is lost on you, then Thank Goodness You’re Here! will be tedious.
Nailing the Look and Sound of Northern England
Thank Goodness You’re Here! is visually akin to an interactive cartoon. There is a Rick and Morty or Koala Man vibe to it at times. The game never misses a beat on the Switch, running buttery smooth with only a few loading transitions taking a little longer than you’d want.
The soundtrack is light hearted and whimsical, and never forgets its Yorkshire roots. There are more than a few tunes from the region popping up here and there.
And, with Thank Goodness You’re Here! being a comedy title, the voice talent needed to be up to snuff. Thankfully, the vox work is outstanding. There’s a real mix of accents to breathe life into the colourful cast of characters. Matt Berry, of IT Crowd, Fallout and Absolute 80s fame, also puts in a shift.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! is brilliant, but, sadly, it’s a one and done adventure. And when coupled with its brief run time, some might be be off. However, if you’re looking for a game that will have you laughing out loud from title screen to credits, Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a perfect slice of Yorkshire fun for a wet Sunday afternoon and beats going down pit as well, no question.