Thank Goodness You’re Here! Review

thesixthaxis.com:

It’s not often that I watch the entire credits for a game, but as Thank Goodness You’re Here! finished I sat on my sofa for a good five minutes thinking “What the hell did I just play?” while the PS5 sang ‘On Ilkley Moor Bar t’At‘ at me.

It is probably the easiest game in the world to describe, at least mechanically. You can run about, jump, and punch things – a ‘slapformer’ as the developers like to call it – but you can’t pick things up, there’s no quest markers, and so you just scamper about and the story unfolds. Describing that story is rather more difficult: take a dash of The Fast Show, a pinch of The League of Gentlemen, a smidgen of Monty Python, and mix vigorously with a heap of saucy British seaside  postcards from the 1980’s and you might be close.

You play an unnamed travelling salesman who is sent by his boss to the town of Barnsworth, a thinly veiled version of Barnsley in Yorkshire, to sell something to the Mayor. Sadly the Mayor is busy and our salesman must complete a series of bizarre tasks to help the townsfolk. These include helping a bedridden man get his shopping, finding some tools, and getting a cow some nice hot chips. That last mission may seem odd, but even the most straightforward of quests have bizarre solutions.

Of course, all you can do is wander about and punch things, so you’ll mainly be scampering around and looking for new pathways which are gradually revealed as you progress the story. The downside is that while your dialogue gives clues to solve tasks, there’s nothing more that, so if you take a break and forget what task was in hand you are going to be completely lost for a while. That said there’s always some new characters or dialogue to keep you amused. For example, two householders are arguing because one of them has put their wheelie bin in the other’s wheelie bin. As the game progresses they continue their argument taking it to ridiculous heights and end up playing cards… in the bin.

To explain any more would really spoil the