Thank Goodness You’re Here! is an incredibly whimsical, funny, and lovely adventure puzzle game, and we’re here for all of its quirks and fantastic writing.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a little hard to describe. I guess it’s like a 2D platformer, but it’s also a very casual game. I would almost call it close to a walking simulator, but I then would say it’s almost like a cartoon simulator. Whatever it is, it’s sublime enough to suck us right in.
There’s no real challenge at all in the game, but it was constantly surprising me with what it was doing. The premise is pretty straightforward: as this little yellow guy we just go around the world as things are happening around us and people are in need in various ways. And we just coincidentally help people out by just going around and talking to them. And that’s basically it.
Hence the title, Thank Goodness You’re Here!
There are different areas of town, and they’re connected by passageways that are gated off. Because there’s a sort of loop, we can go from one area to the next and then back again. When we do enough, well, stuff in one area a path will open to allow us into another. And then another, and another. But getting to these areas isn’t as simple as just walking. Nope, TGYH revels in the offbeat because each time we go to a different area, we have to go through this convoluted way of doing it. There’s one where we’re going through a pipe and our head’s big, and it deforms the pipe. In another we go underneath the house, and there’s a Princess Diana commemorative plate there, and it knocks it a little bit each time we go by. There’s even a chimney that we have to go through several times that gets progressively funnier.
I’m really surprised at how funny it all is. Doing comedy in games is generally extremely hard, but this really nails it. It’s excellent from that standpoint, it’s all very British; even the excellent Matt Berry handles voices in it, and he’s the most British person on the planet.
And it also has just a lovely art style with wonderful animation. The characterization of things is great, from the conversations to the bizarre way we affect the world and it affects us. The animation allows the developers to take chances with what they’re trying to tell, and it comes off as joyful, which is almost a genre in and of itself.
If you want a hardcore platformer, this is not going to be it. It’s a brisk little game, like four or five hours, I think, but it’s all about helping everyone around town and having some laughs. Comedy is difficult in general, but especially so in games. Panic & Coal Supper’s Thank Goodness You’re Here! manages to succeed in both the casual, joyful nature and the wonderful writing, and I can’t recommend it highly enough.
This review is based on a Steam code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. It originally appeared on The SideQuest Live! for August 2, 2024. Images and video courtesy Panic and Coal Supper.
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