| Quick Verdict: Thank Goodness You’re Here! takes every weird thought you’ve ever had and makes it seem normal by comparison. It’s an experience more than anything and I would play this again time and time again. |
| Game: | Thank Goodness You’re Here! |
| Developer(s): | Coal Supper |
| Publisher: | Panic |
| Review Score: | 10 |
| Cozy Score: | 10 |
| Price: | $19.99 |
| Pros: | It’s hilarious, the voice acting is top-notch, the graphics are amazing… It really is a very well-rounded gaming experience that I’m sad to have finished. |
| Cons: | The only con is that you haven’t yet experienced this gem of a game. |
| Platforms: | PC |
| Genres: | Adventure, Walking Sim |
I don’t even know how to open this review if I’m honest. Where do you even start with a mindfuck of a game like ‘Thank Goodness You’re Here!’? I’m pretty upset that I didn’t go with the Steam route because I have an insatiable need to have the achievements attached to this game.
I’m not kidding. Give them to me. Now. Maybe I’ll get this game again and stream it. It’s just… everyone should experience this work of confounding absurdity. Thank Goodness You’re Here! sits on the blade of being too stupid to exist and sheer genius.
Let’s see if I can put this game into words, shall we?
Thank Goodness You’re Here!
It’s easy to forget at the start of the game, you’re just a silly little guy waiting for your opening to talk with the Mayor. He’s a very busy Mayor behind a very sturdy door, so you have no choice but to head out into the city where the populous shared one singular thought: “Thank goodness you’re here!”
You are put on the rails – literally, this game is linear and there’s no deviation that I found – and recruited by fellow townies to help them with their day-to-day needs. In essence, you are a glorified errand boy.
You’ll notice right off the bat that you are quite literally a tiny man in a big world, but the perspective is one of convenience. Sometimes you’re a small lad in a big world and sometimes you’re an even smaller lad in an even bigger world. All that to say you shouldn’t think about perspective too much or your head will hurt.
As you run around the town of Barnsworth, you’ll pop into shops, climb through back gardens, drop down into wells, and walk across a roof once or twice… In doing so, you’re not only meeting the wide variety of townsfolk but you’re getting handed quests as well.
These quests aren’t quantifiable in any way. You have no inventory system, no quest log, and certainly no rewards. Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a glorified walking sim with the illusion of choice, but I think it does it in a very clever way.
You’ll find quickly that you tend to loop back around through areas, but somehow the game keeps the atmosphere fresh with changing people and gimmicks. You may walk through the marketplace three times, but each time has different paths blocked, different people about, or even different businesses open.
I’m begging for more games like this, I really am.
So, even though you’re likely going to revisit the main thoroughways, you’re not feeling the monotony of too much sameness.
I really don’t know how to explain this game better because that’s really it. You hit things and you jump. And yet, I haven’t had such a good time in quite a while.
It all comes down to the vibes, if I’m honest. Thank Goodness You’re Here! feels like a cross between a game and a TV show. It’s highly steeped in British humor and even has the ever-loved Matt Berry lending his voice to the cast. It’s packed full of humor and impossibly illogical situations that really make your ‘what the fuck?’ meter go off the charts.
It’s got everything you need, really. The voice acting is superb, the visuals are chef’s kiss, the dick jokes are plentiful, and the humor had me giggling at the stupidest things. I loved seeing how something so mundane and banal could be twisted into the most whimsical bullshit scenario.
Gotta get to the basement in the pub? Well, might as well go down the beer line. Need to get around a dead end? Why not climb the telephone poles and have a chimney sweep shove you down the chimney into someone’s living room?
Weirdly, this is one of my shortest reviews and it’s because there’s no amount of extra words that’s going to prepare you for this game. It’s an experience that I highly, HIGHLY encourage everyone to sink into. I had the best time and you’d be remiss to deny yourself the joy that Thank Goodness You’re Here! brought me.
If you’d like to try out Thank Goodness You’re Here! for yourself, you can get it for $19.99 and I promise that it’s worth every single penny. I played on Nintendo Switch, but if I had to do it again, I’d play on Steam for those achievements. It’s, also, available on the PlayStation.
All I can do is leave you a gallery of screenshots that I feel might best encapsulate my experience. They will be weird and out of context. If a picture is worth a thousand words… then here are several thousand “words” to understand the experience of Thank Goodness You’re Here!
If, by some absurdity, this isn’t your cup of tea, you can look at the review we did on Été.
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