As strange as it may sound, I don’t think that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is for everyone. That’s probably counterintuitive, given that, as of this writing, the game has an “Overwhelmingly Positive” rating on Steam with 96% of more than 2,200 reviews being positive, but I stand by my feeling.
This is because Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a comedy game, and comedy is, by nature, incredibly subjective. Personally, I was sold on the game the moment I found out that it features Matt Berry, since I think Berry is one of the funniest men alive. I have to imagine, however, that for many people, his name means nothing – or else shows like Toast of London and What We Do In The Shadows would be much, much more popular than they are. While I’d like to think that this is simply a sign of superior taste and/or simply not enough people knowing about those shows, it’s much more likely that their respective senses of humour aren’t to everyone’s taste.
(And here I’ll pause to say that everyone needs to check out both Toast of London and What We Do In The Shadows immediately.)
And it’s hard to think of a game that’s more specific in its sense of humour than Thank Goodness You’re Here! It’s not just that it’s British humour – rather, it’s a hyper-specific brand of humour I imagine might be a little off-putting if you’re not into weird jokes mixed with a love of Northern England, with a little bit of Warioware thrown in to really make it especially niche.
Obviously, though, I find Thank Goodness You’re Here! hilarious. The game is set in a fake Northern English town called Barnsworth where everyone is obsessed with meat pies and people are constantly making double entendres and the whole town is asking your character – a tiny little traveling salesman who seems to vary in size depending on the situation to do favours. So is that you find yourself making sure all the fish on display at the fishmonger’s are smoking cigarettes (possibly for the sexual gratification of said fishmonger, if I understood a certain joke correctly?). Or helping the gardener with his various tasks, since he’s exhausted from sucking pipe all day (you read that correctly). Or helping cure a young boy of being milk shy by helping him find genuine milk. Or doing a few tasks at the grocery store, which happens to be called Price Shagger.
I don’t want to give away too much of what happens in the game, since a) it’s not a very long game (2-3 hours), and I don’t want to spoil too much, and b) there’s really no good way to describe humour without sapping it of everything that makes it funny. Though I will say that by the end of the game there are hand puppets and literal sausage dogs, and somehow the game does such a masterful job of building up to them that neither seem out of place.
But again, I can absolutely see why someone might check out of Thank Goodness You’re Here! well before they reach that point. It’s a strange game that’s probably not going to appeal to everyone’s sensibilities – but if it appeals to your sensibilities and sense of humour, there’s a good chance it might be your game of the year.
Panic provided us with a Thank Goodness You’re Here! PC code for review purposes.
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