Summary
- Thank Goodness You're Here has awoken the classic English debate about the North/South divide
- The game captures the dialect and atmosphere of Yorkshire perfectly
- However, with Newcastle some 100 miles north of 'the North', it does often feel left out of these depictions of northern England
Everyone in England has a different idea on where the North/South divide is, and for most people, that line is drawn where they live. Londoners think everyone north of them is the North. Birmingham dwellers use themselves as the axis for the split between North and Midlands. Yorkshire considers itself the bookend of northdom. Manchester and Liverpool are close enough allies (if occasional enemies) to include each other, but they also hitch the line at an odd angle to include the edges of Liverpool, but tip up way higher on the east co🀅ast. And me? Well...
I'm from Newcastle, and the fact is no matter where people draw the line, we're always above it because we're the most northerly city in the country. Aside from Scots trying to wade into the argument as the 'true north' (tell it to Greenland, jocks), it's impossible to define the North of England without Newcastle. I don't want to get into any contest about the line today, but I do want to talk about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Thank Goodness You're Here, the indie comedy game set in the ♒(ahem) North of England, all the way down in Yorkshire, 120 miles south of me.
Thank Goodness You're Here Captures The Spirit Of Yorkshire
Okay, ꦦthat was the last one! The ✅North is a cultural identity of cities founded on industry and either agriculture or fishing, left behind by governments of the South to rot in its underfunded council houses, and Newcastle, Yorkshire, Manchester, and Liverpool all belong to that identity, no matter how fun it is to get a rise out of them by drawing the North dividing line through Middlesbrough. We all belong to it. But as a Geordie, when it comes to video games, I want to belong to something deeper.
I've 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:already written about this issue, and not much has changed. Newcastle is home to a large sect of the UK's game developers, including a branch of Ubisoft, and yet when games like 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Pokemon Sword & Shield or 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Assassin's Creed Valhalla were set in England, Newcastle was left off. This was particularly odd in the latter’s case when the Vikings landed at Jarrow, a town just a stone's throw away from Newcastle.
But playing through Thank Goodness You're Here brought those feelings back to the surface. Many of the references in the game will be universal to any Brit, from the parodies of the National Lottery and JML to even mundane set dressing (I have no shame in admitting seeing the yellow Grit containers by the road got a Leo meme point out of me). This celebration of British culture is rare in video games as it is, so it can feel a little greedy to want it to be even more tailored to me personally. On the one hand, my colleague Tessa Kaur has already lamented feeling left out of the humour and wanting a Singaporean flavoured Thank Goodness You're Here. On the other, haddawayanshite man.
Gan On, Giz A Geordie Game
The debate about the North/South line might be tiresome, but part of the reason Newcastle locals take such a hardline (I'm here all week) stance on it is because we do feel cut off from everyone else. The closest round trip Newcastle United fans have next season in the Premier League is 308 miles to Manchester United’s Old Trafford. The second biggest 'closest' gap is a round trip of 64 miles, when Southampton take on Bournemouth.
I'm sure these numbers seem small to the Americans. I direct you, again, to haddawayanshite.
That allyship between Liverpool and Manchester seems to encompass many of the nearby cities that get dragged in, like Burnley, Blackburn, and Leeds, all conjoined in a shared idea that they are the Northᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚ, and so this cultural identity swells. Newcastle is seen less as the North and more like a moon orbiting it, a far flung and out of reach bizarre region, so North that it is not the North but something different entir♓ely.
The numbers don't lie on this. I know the creators of Thank Goodness You're Here, 16﷽8澳洲幸运5开奖网🧜:as they explain in our interview with them, chose a fictionalised version of Barnsley because that's where they're from and they were writing what they know, but it is odd to think that a game set over 100 miles away from you is the closest a video game is going to come to depicting you, despite having one of the UK's most iconic accents and a rich cultural heritage.
I am so glad Thank Goodness You're Here exists and that it's so authentic to the people who made it. I wouldn't really want them to have given it a Michael the Geordie spin, and with Matt Berry struggling to unposhen himself for the Yorkshire twang, I would hate to see him attempt a Gazza impression. But some day, I want a game that really, truly, by anyone's yardstick, is set in the North.
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 Themes, Viol✃ence
- 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.
- Developer
- 🍨 Coalꦍ Supper
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