Thank Goodness You’re Here is undeniably British off-the-wall humour. But is it a good game?
There aren’t many genuinely funny video games out there, so it’s always worth highlighting those that make you actually laugh out loud like Thank Goodness You’re Here does. With brilliant voice acting, charming art style, and visual humour in spades, I found myself ugly laughing on more than a few occasions. The gameplay itself is a bit of a letdown, but it’s worth playing through just to see what the next absurd moment will be.
You play as a small yellow person sent to meet with the mayor of the northern British town of Barnsworth. You’re told that the mayor is quite busy and will see you once he’s ready, at which point you leave the waiting room and go wandering around town. In real terms, this is Side-Quest: The Game, a concept that Thank Goodness You’re Here has a lot of fun with.
Whilst waiting for the mayor to free himself up, you’ll do all sorts of odd jobs for the bizarre locals, from helping them with their shopping to clearing out a snail infestation. The only way you can really interact with the world is by slapping things, so the puzzles that surround these menial tasks are arguably very simple — as you just have to punch things until you hit on the correct solution. There’s very little challenge in Thank Goodness You’re Here, but challenging gameplay isn’t really the point, as this is a classic PC point & click puzzle game in only the faintest sense.
The real point of the game is to enjoy the absolutely absurd town and its locals. As you explore you’ll come across all sorts of odd citizens, from business rivals Tiny Tom and Big Ron locking horns over whether big or tiny pies are better, to an allotment manager — brilliantly voiced by the legendary Matt Berry — who can’t seem to get anything done without someone else’s help. Everyone is a bonkers caricature, often with a slew of amusing voice lines when you give them a quick slap.
It’s worth pointing out that a lot of the humour is very British, and frequently from the Monty Python school of odd comedy. If that isn’t up your street, then you probably won’t get a lot out of Thank Goodness You’re Here. For those who enjoy that brand of silliness, then you’ll be giggling throughout thanks to weird situations, funny lines, and a swathe of visual gags in the background. I don’t know what it was about seeing graffiti referencing a local store keeper saying “Roger is a nonce”, but I burst out laughing. Maybe it’s because I just didn’t expect some of the weird stuff that I saw, or maybe it’s because some of these are things you might actually see in a small northern town.
As you travel around town solving puzzles, you’ll frequently engage in mini games, such as chasing down seagulls, or exploring a meat dimension — an interesting nod to Coal Supper’s previous game — but these are all pretty simple. Interestingly, you sometimes have to complete a little mini game when heading from one area to another. This was fun the first time, but as you progress through the game and need to revisit areas, it becomes a touch irritating to have to meander my way through pipes or hop up ladders over and over again. It felt a little like artificial game lengthening, which is almost understandable as Thank Goodness You’re Here clocks in at under three hours. Considering there’s not a huge amount to go back to for a second playthrough beyond a couple of secrets, that combined with the £15 price tag might be a little off putting to some.
Then again, there’s a lot to love for the time that it lasts. The quirky visuals and soundtrack really add to the overall presentation, and I really liked the way the menus would be written in northern dialects for those that understand it. More releases should have “New game” replaced with “Gu on then”. Then there’s the brilliant way the game ends, almost poking fun at everything it’s done to you for the past couple of hours. Thank Goodness You’re Here feels like a labour of love from a team that just wanted to release a game for themselves and people like them. Odds are you won’t see another release like this for a long time, so if you need something funny in your life you should absolutely pick this up. You’ll thank goodness you did.
Thank Goodness You’re Here is available on PC, Playstation, and Nintendo Switch.
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