Your first task in Thank Goodness You’re Here! is to answer the question, “A’tha from Tarn?” Depending on your response, the game’s menus and subtitles will either display in English or the local dialect, changing words like “Options” to “Faff” and “Continue game” to “Keep gu’in.” If this rather odd choice hasn’t already given it away, Thank Goodness You’re Here! is possibly the most quintessentially British game ever made–specifically, northern England and the town of Barnsworth, a fictional town right near the very real town of Barnsley. Developed by Coal Supper–a two-person team who grew up in the post-industrial town–this absurdist comedy “slapformer” is a genuinely hilarious romp. It won’t appeal to everyone and can be finished over a few cups of tea, but there aren’t many games that have managed to plaster such a huge smile on my face.
The game’s mouthful of a title is uttered by a few of the game’s characters, including a young fan of Barnsworth’s local football club. “Thank Goodness You’re Here!” he exclaims as you leap through an open window and into a kitchen adorned with red and white scarves and framed pictures of the team’s players. Sitting at the dining table with a cup of dark tea, he pleads with you to procure him some milk. He’d go himself, but he’s terribly “milk shy.” So off you pop to the local farm, where Bessie the cow requires a bag of chips–wrapped in newspaper, of course–to perk her up before she can produce any milky goodness. The local chip shop, Marge’s Chippo, is the place to go, but after recently fixing the deep fat fryer, the queue is far too long and you don’t have time to wait. This leads to another trek across town, with more whimsical hijinks abound before you eventually get your hands on that precious, precious milk.
This is the general gist of Thank Goodness You’re Here! If it sounds like you’re simply running around performing a series of fetch quests, it’s actually much more involved than that. You play as a tiny traveling salesman who’s arrived in town for a meeting with the mayor. Instead of sitting in the waiting room until they’re ready to see you, you decide to venture out into town where the locals are all too eager to give you a series of increasingly odd jobs. As you explore the streets of Barnsworth and help out its wacky denizens, your antics leave an indelible mark on the place, opening up new areas to probe as you’re given more and more zany tasks to complete.
There’s some light 2D platforming involved, and this is mixed with larger 3D environments that you’re free to wander around as you literally slap everything and everyone in sight. The term “slapformer” quickly makes sense, then, since slapping and jumping are the only ways to interact with the world. Hitting someone upside the head usually gets them talking, but there are also postboxes, pigeons, doors, vegetables, and traffic bollards to slap as well. Sometimes you’ll simply destroy whatever you’re slapping. Other times you might reveal a gag or the path forward. It’s a bit like Untitled Goose Game in this regard, albeit more structured with specific quests to undertake as you cause chaos on Barnsworth’s streets.
Getting from one area to another does feel a little clumsy at first. Progression is always achieved by moving to the right, but this also puts you in a circle so that you wrap back around the town. Essentially, you have to move forward in order to also go backward. This initially feels unintuitive but eventually begins to click into place through repetition (like jumping down a well to reach the fish shop), especially once you start noticing how each location changes on repeat visits. I do, however, wish there were a couple more areas just to flesh out the town even further and increase the game’s longevity a tad.
It’s hard to argue with the game’s structure when it’s as funny as it is, though. Absurdism and surrealism are common avenues for its humor, whether you’re swimming through beer while a drunken bottle talks about downing a morning pint before getting out of bed, or going shopping at the local Price Shaggers supermarket with a talking hand that’s stretched out for miles because its owner is bedbound. It’s ridiculous, but it works because all of it starts somewhere grounded: a small Yorkshire town.
A lot of British comedy transcends borders. A lot of it doesn’t. Thank Goodness You’re Here! exists somewhere in the middle. If you’re not from the UK or have never lived in the UK, some of its jokes are going to go over your head as it delves into common facts of British life and even Yorkshire-specific folklore. Yet for every specialized gag, there are dozens more that will tickle your funny bone regardless of your background. It’s a game filled with outlandish euphemisms, drawing from Wallace and Gromit’s cheeky approach to humor with a decidedly more adult spin. It can be gross, but also unabashedly silly and dark. And it’s all brought to life with a vibrant art style that resembles a mashup between Adventure Time and classic British comics like The Beano, The Dandy, and Viz. The game’s character designs are often just as comical as its writing, not to mention all of the visual gags.
The entire voice cast is also excellent, breathing further life into each of Barnsworth’s residents. There’s Herbert, a hapless gardener voiced by the ever-brilliant Matt Berry. “I’ve been sucking this pipe for days,” he shares with you when you walk in on him fiddling with a hose. “Almost done, then I can get home to my puzzles,” says a litter picker in a hi-viz jacket. “I love puzzles,” he adds. There’s also Jasper the Scottish handyman, who’s always losing his tools and claiming they’re stolen. You’re witness to an awkward romance between Florence, the meat-counter girl at Big Ron’s Big Pie shop, and the delivery boy from Mother Megg’s Buttery Goods. After seeing the pub owner struggling to think of what to put on the “today’s special” sign, you come back later and see that he eventually settled on “Drinks.” From the voice acting to the writing to the characters and environmental designs, Coal Supper has crafted an incredible sense of place that persists even when things go off the rails.
It might be on the short side at around two hours in length, but Thank Goodness You’re Here! barely wastes a single second of its absurd adventure. Not only is it consistently funny, but it also made me feel incredibly warm and nostalgic for the era of cartoons and comics I grew up with, even if it feels quite singular in its approach to both surreal and intimately familiar humor. It’s not a game everyone will vibe with–such is the divisiveness of comedy in particular. But those who click with it are unlikely to find another game this year anywhere near as joyous.
