Thank Goodness You're Here!
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 Visit Barnsworth. It's REYT good!
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Thank Goodness You're Here! is a surreal comedy "slapformer" developed by British indie two-man game studio Coal Supper and published by American indie software developer and game publisher Panic, Inc. It was released worldwide on August 1, 2024, as Coal Supper's second game and Panic's fourth published game.
Why It's REYT Good
- While the premise of a salesman having to visit a quiet town for a meeting with its mayor may sound boring, it winds up being very interesting as while you can wait for said mayor to be available for you at the town hall's reception, you can leave the building to explore the town and help the numerous eccentric denizens with their errands or issues.
- Speaking of the denizens, they are all fully voiced with unique personalities from one another, even those that do not contribute to the main story and only communicate in grunts.
- They also have unique bizarre non-interactive storylines that slowly progress as you complete the main story and progress through the game, some blocking your path and requiring you to find detours to get to other parts of town. One example is the driving school student getting herself, her driving teacher and their car stuck in very unlikely places like alleyways.
- The voice actors did a good job giving every Barnsworthian unique voices and personalities, with Matt Berry (famous for his role as Leslie "Laszlo" Cravensworth in the What We Do in the Shadows TV series) voicing Herbert the Groundskeeper and giving him a hilarious personality despite the game being his very first voice acting role.
- You can literally slap everything in the game. In fact, moving, jumping and slapping are the only controls used in the game and you need to slap objects and people to interact with them.
- The main story errands are hilarious as their progression is full of plot twists and absurdist methods of solving them, with some actually overlapping with one another very smoothly. An example of this is the "Breakfast in Bed" shut-in who needs to stick his extendable hand into the Price Shaggers' skylight but is unable to. To open it, you have to catch a spirit level bubble with the butterfly net provided while flying up to the ceiling and out of the skylight as part of "Still at Large".
- Even though Barnsworth is a small town, it is very well detailed with objects receiving different types of damage from the Salesman slapping or jumping on them (the Price Shaggers supermarket being examples of both) and large liquid stains having human-sized dry spots due to him being in them too.
- The game is chock full of hilarious innuendos and sexually absurd moments that can deliver laughs to players who understand the references.
- On your final visit to Bish the Fishmonger, there looks to be a limp pink fish with its tail sticking out of the ice. Slapping it causes it to be erect and if Bish's reaction is to be believed, it's his erection as slapping it further gives him a dry orgasm and the player the "Done Up Like a Kipper" achievement for giving him a "happy ending".
- Near the construction site, you can encounter a birdwatcher who is searching for tits (the birds, not breasts) or finches.
- When you first see Bobby the Copper polishing his truncheon in his police box, it looks as if he is masturbating.
- The Yorkshire accent used in the game and its subtitles are accurate and easy to understand for British players.
- The story flows very smoothly and segues into one another very easily with no interruptions in between.
- The cartoony art style is nice to look at despite being made in Unity, making the game suitable for low-end computers.
- The game boosted the popularity of the Joey Kaye cover of "The Marrow Song (Oh! What A Beauty)" from the 1969 British coming-of-age drama film Kes.
"Sorry, What?" Qualities
- Due to the game being chock full of sexual innuendos, it can be extremely NSFW at times, especially when you encounter Brigadier Bean Tin and see him on his toilet in his dumpster home. Of note, he literally never wears pants and you can explicitly see his penis when he moves his waist at the right angle.
- Some of the jokes can easily fly over non-British players' heads at times due to the characters' thick Yorkshire accents.
- The game is extremely short, being easily completed in about 3 hours (or 20 minutes if you patiently wait for the mayor).
- As every errand is unmarked, it can be very difficult to know where you need to go to complete them and/or fetch the necessary items, causing you to backtrack a lot. Thankfully, some of the story-important characters at least do give you hints on where to go.
- The non-story achievements' descriptions are vague just like in Sonic the Hedgehog (2006), requiring you to explore Barnsworth and slap everything to see what will trigger the achievements.
Reception
Thank Goodness You're Here! received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics and players alike.
On Metacritic, the game received a critical score of 90/100 ("Universal Acclaim") and an audience score of 8.0/10 ("Generally Favourable").[1]
Video Game Chronicles gave the game 5/5 stars, praising its humour, voice acting and creativity while noting that some jokes can fly over non-British players' heads.[2]
Nintendo Life gave the game a 9/10 ("Excellent"), praising its humour, graphics, voice acting, and innuendos while criticising the minor performance dips and how some jokes can fly over non-British players' heads.[3]
Push Square gave the game an 8/10 ("Grand"), praising its surrealism, humour and detailed background while criticising its lack of chapter selection and the main story missions' vagueness.[4]
Trivia
- Barnsworth, the setting of the game, is inspired by Coal Supper's childhood town of Barnsley.
Videos
Official trailer
Reviews
Let's Play videos
External Links
References
Comments
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