“Your da sells Avon.”
“Tom got bumfingered here.”
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“Your ma loves scotch eggs.”
I was reminded of these pearls of wisdom recently while playingThank Goodness You’re Here!.The new “comedy slapformer” from indie studio Coal Supper expertly captures that wonderfully, deeply puerile sense of humour that is so uniquely specific to small English towns you’ve never heard of. It’s comfortably one of the funniest games I’ve played in years, and a love letter to the eccentricities of life beyond the UK’s cities.
Thank Goodness You’re Here!puts us in the shoes of a diminutive mute travelling salesman (it’s never explained what, exactly you’re selling) who is dispatched from the city to the fictional Northern town of Barnsworth, where we must meet with the mayor and help the various residents with their issues.
It soon becomes clear that we’re dealing with a real cast of crackpots. There’s the “milk-shy” boy who needs you to help him make a cup of tea in a haunting sequence that involves a cow and a hot tub. There’s the owner of Big Ron’s Big Pies, and his ongoing feud with a rival baker who insists pies must be as tiny as possible. We meet a shopkeeper with an enormous head and learn how his freakish dome has ruined his life. We embrace full-on body horror as we step inside the local butchers in a harrowing scene ripped fromThe League Of Gentlemen.
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Thank Goodness You’re Here!gleefully pokes fun at the kinds of local characters and mundane stakes anyone who grew up in a small English town is probably already familiar with, but crucially it never does so in a way that feels meanor condescending.
One of my only real concerns is how this uncompromisingly British sense of humour will translate to a wider audience. There are some gags, like a piece of graffiti that reads “Gary shags moss” that had me doubled up with laughter in a way I’m not sure I could ever explain to someone who wasn’t born and raised in a town like Barnsworth. I also can’t believe there are many Americans who will chuckle at a sign that reads “closed due to smacky bum bum”.
Then again, Monty Python - a clear influence onThank Goodness You’re Here!- is beloved around the world,so perhaps my fear is unfounded. Complete and utter silliness is a universal language.
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If you think it’s odd we’ve gotten this far without talking about howThank Goodness You’re Here!plays, that’s because there’s not really a whole lot of playing involved. Gameplay essentially consists of running around and slapping things to interact with them, be they people, objects, or animals. There’s a delightfully sadistic slapstick joy to be had in kicking open postboxes or smashing over pint glasses, or otherwise causing carnage just to see what happens.
There’s someverylight puzzle solving, in that you’ll be told to go somewhere and fetch something for someone else, but every solution ultimately boils down to wandering into the right place and slapping the right object to initiate a chain reaction of increasingly unlikely events.
I would have liked to see some more traditional puzzle solving and platforming integrated into the game, especially since I rolled credits at just under 90 minutes. I was never expectingThank Goodness You’re Here!to be a terribly long game, but I’d gladly have spent at least double that exploring Barnsworth.
Fortunately it does look like a game that rewards replayability, not least because it’s so packed with jokes it’s literally impossible to take them all in the first time around. From the graffiti and shop signs (Price Shaggers is still making me laugh two days after finishing) to running gags involving the town’s residents and their feuds, the laughs come at an almost brutal rate.
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Thank Goodness You’re Here!is light on traditional gameplay and criminally brief, but if Coal Supper’s goal was to make me laugh until my sides hurt for nearly two hours, I’d say mission very much accomplished.
Pros:One of the funniest games I’ve ever played, brilliant voice acting, consistently barmy
Cons:Far too short
For fans of:Monkey Island, Monty Python, Untitled Goose Game
