Following up from The Good Time Garden, a short and experimental title released for free on itch.io and Steam in 2019, the creative duo Will Todd and James Carbutt, operating under the developer name Coal Supper, moved to London from their hometown in Yorkshire, Northern England, to finish work on Thank Goodness You’re Here!, a project which they describe as being a “comedic slapformer.” Thank Goodness You’re Here! has since been picked up for publishing by Panic, the maker of the Playdate and publisher of Firewatch and Untitled Goose Game, amongst some select others.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! first grabbed the attention of gamers, mine included, with a trailer that debuted at Geoff Keighley’s gamescom Opening Night Live 2023. Then, at the show itself, I got the chance to go hands-on with the game, which, in my round-up article, impressed me more with its “cartoon-like presentation and delightful sense of humour” than the simple gameplay mechanics.
Having presently rolled credits at around three hours of total playtime, this impression very much still holds true because the game is exactly what it seems – an often hilarious, two-button platformer which looks like an inspired mix of modern British comics such as Beano and Cartoon Network cartoons like Chowder or Regular Show and in which you play as a travelling salesman slapping his way through the fictional town of Barnsworth one weird task after the other as he waits to finally be granted an audience with the mayor.
“Thank Goodness You’re Here! is an often hilarious, two-button platformer which looks like an inspired mix of modern British comics and Cartoon Network cartoons.”
In fact, Thank Goodness You’re Here!, which was initially called mealworm, got its final title after the developers noticed a phrase that “kept coming up in the writing,” specifically just before receiving the next odd job from one of Bansworth’s many zany citizens. These odd jobs, put together, form the larger narrative of the game in the same way a series of loosely connected episodes of a Sunday morning cartoon show make up a season.
For example, in one instance, the gardener, voiced by the legendary Matt Berry (The IT Crowd, What We Do In The Shadows), needs the salesman for a problem with his hose, whereas in another, the handyman, Spencer, has him find a handful of his stolen tools. Each of these missions roughly takes around 15 minutes to complete and is full of amusing gags: some crass, some incisive, and some even overtly sexual.
To give just an indication of the kind of tone you should expect, there is a mission in which the salesman has to ask for meat from the butcher on behalf of Ron, the owner of a pie store called ‘Big Ron’s Big Pies’, who laments having to rely for another man’s “meat” for his pies. Comedy, as such, is an integral part of the game and I’m personally of the opinion that the wry sense of humour hits more often than it does not.
“Comedy is an integral part of the game, and the wry sense of humour hits more often than it does not.”
But, then again, I’ve lived the vast majority of my 20s in the UK, so I do happen to have a fondness for nearly everything that Thank Goodness You’re Here! threw at me. I’m curious to hear about what people from outside the UK make of its comedic sensibilities, but I think that those who don’t get the jokes might still find the tone to be quaint and, in a gaming landscape that is increasingly generic by the minute, that’s as important a quality as any.
Moving on, I’d also like to mention that I truly appreciate that the story of Thank Goodness You’re Here! is based on traditional Yorkshire folklore and that it fully embraces the regional dialect. What’s more, Coal Supper even included a “dialect” subtitle option in addition to the languages we’ve come to expect of a global release, which makes for a lovely subtle touch. In the same vein, it adds a lot of charm that the game is fully voiced and that the English voice talent has been expertly cast and utilized. I’ve previously brought up Matt Berry, who, as expected, does a phenomenal job, but Jon Blyth and David Ferguson are both excellent in their own right.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! impresses in the visual department just as much, with beautiful hand-drawn animation that makes for a bold and vibrant visual identity. For immersion purposes, Coal Supper has likewise added old-timey footage of (presumably) Yorkshire, which works wonders in contrast with the warm colours of the game itself. Overall, the graphics are a real crowd-pleaser, and I suspect that a lot of people will be drawn to the title because of them—and with very good reason.
“Thank Goodness You’re Here! impresses in the visual department just as much, with beautiful hand-drawn animation that makes for a bold and vibrant visual identity.”
Nevertheless, what’s likely to divide opinion is the gameplay of Thank Goodness You’re Here! which, even with tempered expectations, is rather stale. This is because the simple mechanics allow for little depth: the salesman can only jump or slap, and that’s never inherently engaging, like other platformers. Nor are the puzzles present more interesting either, as virtually all of them can be solved using brute-force. With this being the case, it is clear to me that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is more concerned with its joke-telling and presentation—something like Celeste, this is very much not.
Also rather disappointing is Thank Goodness You’re Here!’s length. I wrote earlier that I finished the game in just about three hours, which, due to the rather abrupt ending, would have totally blindsided me if I hadn’t been previously clued in regarding the duration of a full playthrough. As for some replay value, Coal Supper told Rock Paper Shotgun in August of last year that “the world responds in a slightly different way, and things unlock for different reasons.”
From my time with Thank Goodness You’re Here!, nothing truly significant changed when interacting with the world in a distinct way or order, but you may appreciate the diminishing returns—a new line here and there—more than I would. Besides, there are no secondary objectives or other indications that there is something extra worth replaying for. This all makes the 27.29 CAD price of admission a bit too steep, especially when compared to similar indies, some of which do more for less.
Before issuing my verdict, I’m happy to report that Thank Goodness You’re Here! has performed impeccably on my launch model Switch, having encountered no technical issues whatsoever. Otherwise, those with a Steam Deck will be happy to know that Thank Goodness You’re Here! is deck verified, which also reinforces my belief that it will perform as expected across other platforms.
To cap things off, I’ll suffice to write that Thank Goodness You’re Here is an oddity of a title with a vision so singular and a comparatively steep full price (27.29 CAD) that it will undoubtedly dissuade a significant amount of people. However, those open to and intrigued by the title’s colourful presentation, wry sense of humour and surreal yet authentic depiction of life in an industrial northern English town will find that the sum is greater than its parts and that the brilliance ultimately outweighs the lacklustre.
