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Matt Buxton screenshot
In Thank Goodness You’re Here, you play as a tiny traveling salesman who has to find something to do while waiting for a meeting with the mayor of Barnsworth, a fictional town inspired by working-class towns in northern England. Let loose with an indeterminate amount of time to kill, you’ll encounter townsfolk with increasingly bizarre sets of odd jobs and requests for you to tackle.
Matt Buxton screenshot
In Thank Goodness You’re Here, you play as a tiny traveling salesman who has to find something to do while waiting for a meeting with the mayor of Barnsworth, a fictional town inspired by working-class towns in northern England. Let loose with an indeterminate amount of time to kill, you’ll encounter townsfolk with increasingly bizarre sets of odd jobs and requests for you to tackle.
Matt Buxton screenshot
In Thank Goodness You’re Here, you play as a tiny traveling salesman who has to find something to do while waiting for a meeting with the mayor of Barnsworth, a fictional town inspired by working-class towns in northern England. Let loose with an indeterminate amount of time to kill, you’ll encounter townsfolk with increasingly bizarre sets of odd jobs and requests for you to tackle.
Matt Buxton screenshot
In Thank Goodness You’re Here, you play as a tiny traveling salesman who has to find something to do while waiting for a meeting with the mayor of Barnsworth, a fictional town inspired by working-class towns in northern England. Let loose with an indeterminate amount of time to kill, you’ll encounter townsfolk with increasingly bizarre sets of odd jobs and requests for you to tackle.
It’s hard to know where to start with a game like “Thank Goodness You’re Here!”
Part platformer, part toy box and part cartoon, “Thank Goodness You’re Here!” doesn’t neatly fit into any mold, and that’s what makes it great. Steeped in extremely British, Monty Python-esque humor, it’s a simple game with a charm that flourishes brilliantly in the roughly three hours it takes to complete it.
You play as a tiny traveling salesman who has to find something to do while waiting for a meeting with the mayor of Barnsworth, a fictional town inspired by working-class towns in northern England. Let loose with an indeterminate amount of time to kill, you’ll encounter townsfolk with increasingly bizarre sets of odd jobs and requests for you to tackle.
The gameplay is dead simple, with your controls boiling down to moving, jumping and slapping. Yes, slapping, hence the label of “slapformer.”
While the game is ultimately linear, each scene is a playground filled with clever little gags that can be slapped into action. You’ll climb over fences, through unlocked doors and down chimneys to help with clogged taps at the bar, a fish fryer on the fritz and a garden filled with pesky snails. Other tasks are bizarre, like securing enough butter to help a man free his arm from a drain or helping Brigadier Bean Tin retrieve his beans.
Your day will also loop you through the town, allowing you to revisit places that change throughout the day with new characters, scenes and businesses to check out—and slap.
What really makes “Thank Goodness You’re Here!” work so well is the absolutely gorgeous hand-drawn animations and excellent voice-acting throughout the game. It’s sometimes hard to remember you’re playing an interactive game because the art is just that good.
That said, don’t let the cartoonish looks fool you because, as British humor tends to do, the game frequently strays into the bawdy and indecent. This game has moments that definitely earn its Mature rating, so player beware.
But for fans of British humor, that’s probably a selling point.
“Thank Goodness You’re Here!” is one of those rare games that feels like a complete creative vision executed to the highest degree. It’s extremely British, extremely charming and an extremely welcome breath of fresh air in the video game space.
If You Play
Game: Thank Goodness You’re Here
Rating: 5 stars
Platforms: PC (reviewed), Mac, PlayStation, Switch
Price: $20
Release Date: August 1, 2024
Rating: Mature
Matt Buxton is a freelance writer and gamer. He can be reached at matt.a.buxton@gmail.com.
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