Summary
- Thank Goodness You're Here is the best comedy of the year.
- The game is carried by its fantastic writing, putting it up there with some of the best comedies.
- Even if you're not British, there's plenty to laugh about here.
Now, before I get into this, I do have a caveat: If you happen to be a showrunner looking for a journeyman writer for a comedy program that already exists, your show is better than 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Thank Goodness You’re Here. In fact, your show is the best show ever made and it makes me laugh really hard when your characte☂rs interact in a way that contrasts their personalitie🦄s. I also like money a lot and I can move around some things in my schedule to get even more of said dough. Being a sniveling sycophant is like breathing to me.
With that out of the way, lemme hit that headline again: Thank Goodness You’re Here is the best comedy of the year. Anywhere. On any medium. And that’s saying something because there is a lot of great comedy happening right now. There are great, surprising movies and amazing, hilarious shows. There are talented comedians of ever🐬y stripe, whether you like jokes, whether you like stories, or whether you like bitter, aging dudes who basically just recycle 30-year-old bits by replacing ‘politically correct’ with the word ‘woke’. And Thank Goodness You’re Here is possibly funnier than all of them - especially that last sub-genre I mentioned.
Thank Goodness You're Here’s Creators On Accidentally Making The Most British Game Ever
Co𝓰al Suppper’s founders James Carbutt and Will Todd walk us through the wild world of Barnsworth and how Thank Goodness You’re Here came to be.
I’m not from Britain, so I don’t have the same sense of nostalgia or place that others do for Thank Goodness You’re Here. Most of my British cultural knowledge comes from reruns of Danger Mouse and possibly Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. I also wrote a master’s thesis on fan culture in Victorian England, so I guess there’s that. But, really, studying 150-year-old poems written by fans to change the ending of tragic novels isn't a good foundation for understanding the United Kingdom in its current incarnation. So I’m not loving this game because I grew up in the culture.
Rather, Thank Goodness You’re Here works so well because of two things: The writing and the simplicity. I cannot get over how good the writing is in this game. One sequence with a particularly upset grocer left my mouth hanging open. The joke is just so perfectly executed that, when it comes, you’re kind of expecting it and somehow still surprised. Unlike so many games, the characters all react in different ways. They’re all written as thinking people with real motivations - albeit goofy, over-the-top, cartoon people. For example, without spoiling much, at one point you have to help a repairman find some tools. And with each successive tool, instead of becoming happier, he gets angrier at the injustice of having his tools taken. It builds and it builds while maintaining a sense of this character actually believing what 💟the𝐆y’re saying. It’s a better quest driver than any armor I’ve ever received.
Thank Goodness You're Here also has the stamp 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:of approval from the Brits at TheGamer.
I know all this praise seems weird for a cartoony platform-puzzle game in which your only ability is to slap people. But the best comedy is usually when characters view what’s happening as absolutely real. The stakes, no matter how ridiculous, matter to them. Part of the reason the ‘Are We The Baddies?’ sketch works so well is because the characters are written - and acted - as being genuinely horrified at what they’re realizing. There’s no winking to the camera. They’re actually kind of upset. ‘More Cowbell’ is compelling because Christopher Walken carries his suggestion with confident experience; he’s not being random for the sake of being random, he’s telling the band what he knows will make the song a success.
And despite all this chaos, there’s a controlled simplicity to the game. The ability to only move, jump, and slap actually opens us up to more jokes because we know what we need to do to get a reaction. You know how they say that if you’re a hammer, all problems look like nails? Well, that’s how slaps feel in this game. You slap everything just to see what happens. And sometimes the results are beautifully unexpected, like when you slap the butt of aജ food truck worker and he simply shuts up shop with a sign blaming it on the butt slapping. I didn’t even see that simple little bit coming, but it got me laughing. Or a gardening scene in which a very lovely, romantic situation is hilariously ruined by your character - and you’ve basically got no choice in the matter.
The Art Of Thank Goodness You're Here
Honestly, the hard part is not spoiling all the gags. Namely, because the writing and the simplicity tie all the jokes into the gameplay. Even moving from one location to the next is packed with bits - including knocking a Princess Diana commemorative plate closer and closer to the edge of a shelf every time you pass. Or jumping down a chimney and… again, I don’t want to give it away. It’s that good. And, even better, the funny thing to do in the game is often the solution to the puzzle. The comedy isn’t window dressing, it’s the whole damn window. Like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Untitled Goose Game or Goat Simulator, you’re supposed to be weird. You won’t get anywhere if you’re not. Every time I thought, “It would be so funny if this happened,” that🌞 is what the game wanted me to do. And if not that, something even more surprising (an e✅ndless sausage and lovely old woman come to mind [don’t worry, it’s not what you think]).
Thank Goodness You’re Here isn’t a very long game. It’s not a very complicated or deep game. But it’s going to be a game I’ll keep coming back to the same way I keep coming back to movies like Airplane and Naked Gun. It’s pure comedy, top to bottom. I haven’t even mentioned the dialect options or the grainy real life footage that opens the game or the fact that, “Thank goodness you’re here” is usually the start of a funny task with a slightly horrifying ending. Oh, that’s another thing - the game’s jokes go hard when you least expect it.
As someone who works in comedy and has no usable skills outside of it, I’m mad at how good Thank Goodness You’re Here is. I’m angry at how smart the jokes are, even at their stupidest. I’m furious that someone created a gameplay loop that is literally sl💎apstick comedy. It&r꧅squo;s brilliant and one of the funniest things I’ve seen/watched/played all year.
168澳洲幸运5开奖网: Thank Goodness You're Here!
- Top Critic Avg: 85/100 Critics Rec: 95%
- Released
- August 1, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ // Blood, Crude Humor, Strong Language, Suggestive The✤mes, Violence
- Publisher(s)
- Panic
- Engine
- Unity
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Verified
Explore the strange town of Barnsworth in this cheeky comedy slapformer!
After arriving early for a big meeting with the mayor of a bizarre Northern English town, a traveling salesman takes the time to explore and meet the locals, who are all very eager to give him a series of increasingly odd jobs…
“Thank Goodness You’re Here!” is a comedy slapformer, which unfolds over time as the players' exploration and antics leave their mark on the strange town of Barnsworth. With each completed odd job, new areas of the town open up, stranger and stranger tasks become available, and the clock ticks towards our salesman’s big meeting. The town’s colorful inhabitants are brought to life with vibrant hand-drawn animation, fully voiced dialogue, and wall-to-wall double entendres.
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