Thank Goodness You’re Here! (PS5)

Back when I covered Untitled Goose Game, it felt less like the game was about the structured activities and more about being a troublemaker. To call its genre “mischief” doesn’t feel too far off the intended angle for enjoyment, and in some ways, Thank Goodness You’re Here! feels like a more refined version of a mischief game. There’s plenty of interactions to reward curiosity but also a pretty good structure to carry you through your adventure, but most important of all, its very British sense of humor provides consistent amusing responses to your rascally little escapades.

 

Thank Goodness You’re Here! sees you playing as a little yellow fellow, and just how little he is already serves as a good source of comedy. Sometimes he’ll be just about as tall as a kid you run into, then he’ll suddenly be small enough to walk across an already short gentleman’s chest. He can find himself walking across countertops as often as walking around a living room, the nameless protagonist always wearing a mildly pleasant stare that is technically neutral yet feels like a perfect expression for the absurd little things he encounters along his way. Sent to the Northern British town of Barnsworth by the company he works for, technically all the little gentleman needs to do is speak with the mayor, but the wait is long and as you hop out of your seat to look around, you find a silly little town full of residents to interact with. Many of them greet you with an appropriate “Thank goodness you’re here!” as they find themselves in need of a hand for whatever they’re up to, the protagonist roped into more and more little tasks around town that inevitably go off the rails and only get more ridiculous the further in you get.

Despite the many jobs our miniature leading man finds himself involved with, he usually only has two ways he can interact. He can jump, and he can smack things. His quick little slap can be used on most any interactable object, and there are many gags that will only trigger if you decide to run around hitting whatever you can get your tiny mitts on. Some characters will see it just as a way to initiate a conversation, but others might get flustered or make mistakes. Sometimes hitting an object can trigger something, and others you might just start making a mess. Barnsworth is a colorful town, both literally and in terms of its residents, the hand-drawn cartoon style suitable for the silliness but also leading to an interesting contrast. All around town you’ll see plenty of cracked cobbles and insects crawling about, the small town a bit rundown but its citizens can also be a bit rough and crass despite their clean looks too. Thank Goodness You’re Here has a very reserved approach to how its people view the strange sights around them, most people taking absurdity in stride, but the wacky sights are definitely presented with a humorous bent so you’re not going to have the jokes whizz past you. A lot of people are rather raunchy, there are double entendres abound, yet it doesn’t feel so crass because of the sometimes understated or straightforward delivery.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is all about triggering the next weird situation, the player often given a little space to walk around in first to prod at whatever might interest them. Once you’ve been pulled into someone’s business though, things do gradually get stranger and stranger. At first a kind fellow just wants help getting his hand free of a gutter, but later down the line you’ll be in situations like guiding a sick man’s long extending arm all around town or entering a strange meat space where you hear about the troubled children of the butcher’s family from some talking meat. Even when it goes far outside of realism, it will also snap back and start looking at the mundane silliness of life in a small British town shortly after. Your activities send you walking the full length of the town a few times and getting to check on characters you met earlier, and seeing how things progress with them also gives you an extra little reward for taking the time to look around instead of running to do whatever duty was just foisted upon you. Many a good running joke arises or evolves over time, something that may not work on first encounter earning a good laugh once its pay off is eventually revealed. Little laughs of surprise or sensible chuckles feel like most of what the game will inspire with its comedy, but even if it is not necessarily cracking you up, it’s delightful to see what the next little joke setup will be and how it might end up twisted into something a bit surreal before it settles back to simple small town life.

 

The voice acting definitely adds a lot to even the smallest characters, and surprisingly, there can be a few simple human moments that don’t exactly break away from comedy but do make the characters a bit more memorable. Whether its a pair of dorky teenagers crushing on each other or a man having to be comforted over his big head, the moments do include little jokes or set things up later, but they also feel like an appreciated extra ingredient to make the town feel more connected so you’re getting to know a cast rather than a bunch of joke telling vehicles. Thank Goodness You’re Here! isn’t a very long game so even the retreading of old ground doesn’t wear out its welcome, and if you do give most nearby things a good smack you won’t miss out on much. There is very little that could count as a challenge present, this is almost an adventure game and the writing and visuals are what’s meant to carry the experience almost wholly. You get to do a few little more involved actions yet they aren’t really possible to fail or get stuck on. You’re just there to walk around Barnsworth, see what trouble you can trigger, and get pulled into something nonsensical yet delightful to give you a good laugh, and Thank Goodness You’re Here! knows how to make that simple process a jolly good time.

THE VERDICT: Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a silly little romp where you never know if the next thing you smack will cause a little mischief or trigger some great gag. The daily life of the people around town is fun to witness as you end up made to help out with more and more strange activities, the pleasant cartoon look a fun contrast with little bits of surprise ribaldry. Your actions are meant to provoke reactions primarily so you’re mostly along for the ride, but the Northern British town you find yourself in is filled with curious characters who are good for providing quick laughs on top of slow burns.

 

And so, I give Thank Goodness You’re Here! for PlayStation 5…

A GOOD rating. As with many a comedy game it’s a bit hard to say why Thank Goodness You’re Here! is as funny as it is without giving away its best moments. When you enter a new area or end up helping with some new job though, there’s always that anticipation as you wonder how this might go wrong. The first time you visit the fishmonger you might not be too impressed with the gags, only to realize his repeated appearances after help prep you for a good payoff later down the line. You might not think much of a pair of people bickering over the garbage bins, only for next time you see them things have escalated in an amusing way and now you want to see every new step in their ongoing squabble. Even when it’s not producing laughs, it is still making you eager to press forward because you know it can be working its way up to a well delivered gag that needed that set up first. That’s also why it feels important the game never lingers overly long on its greater bits of absurdity. Yes, the little hero at the heart of the story tends to be fluctuating in size to an already silly degree early on, but that’s not quite the same level of wackiness as some of the antics later down the line. There are usually a good bit of jokes along the main path as well as nearby if you bother to poke around, the game’s sense of humor easy enough to figure out early on yet it doesn’t make you immune since the game is as willing to go with an anticlimax at one point or some sudden naughty twist at another. It does feel like at times it teases the idea of more involved gameplay only for there not to be much to it after all, and not every little moment that encourages you to smack things is really working up to a good payoff, so perhaps opening up the player’s interaction options some more could have provided a new avenue for some quality humor.

 

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is an interactive little space for comedy, the narrative not exactly telling much of a story but allowing some moments to have more room to set up their silly situations. Between those moments you can look about for visual gags or hit things to see if something funny falls out, and while your role to play is never demanding, making this a video game does mean you get that little surge of excitement that comes from uncovering the joke yourself rather than just sitting back and letting it be told. Perhaps it is not as fully a mischief making game as Untitled Goose Game, but by taking more time to set up its jokes and pay them off, that extra bit of direction at times ensures you get a good deal of amusement out of this little package.