Thank Goodness You’re Here opens with an advert for Peans (“Not quite peas, not quite beans, but something delicious in betweens”) and finishes with a song. But developer Coal Supper’s absurdist comedy adventure is so relentlessly, gleefully unpredictable throughout – so improbably overstuffed with impeccable gags and surreal detours – it’s hard to know where to begin.
Thank Goodness You’re Here! reviewDeveloper: Coal SupperPublisher: PanicPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 1st August on PC (Steam), Switch, PS4 and PS5.
So let’s play it safe and start at the beginning. You are the hero of the piece – a nameless man of indeterminate age and wilfully inconsistent height – who, as the adventure opens, is sent on a work trip to the fictitious Northern England town of Barnsworth for reasons never entirely clear. At which point, Thank Goodness You’re Here immediately lets you know what kind of game it is by insisting you exit the boss’ office by jumping out the ten-storey window instead of the door. Cue a note-perfect montage of mid-20th-century archival footage – all coal mines, red brick houses, and dour-faced ladies scouring busy market stalls – as bawdy ditty The Marrow Song plinks out, and away we go.
Without wanting to get ahead of myself, Thank Goodness You’re Here is, I think, – a bold bit of masterfully orchestrated comedy that confounds expectations at every conceivable turn. Its very specific brand of surreal, anything-for-a-gag whimsy won’t be to everyone’s taste, but the way it merrily manipulates form to heighten its impeccable comedic rhythms is a true delight to behold – even if it takes a bit of time to show the method in its mayhem.
This is a silly game, and from the moment you step outside Barnsworth’s town hall – to the first of many “Thank goodness you’re here!”s from a citizen in need – it doesn’t let up. Barnsworth itself is a wonderful creation, and there’s not an inch of its vibrantly grimy cartoon expanse – from its fag-strewn market square to its oozing riverbank – that doesn’t find room for a sight gag or two. As a world, it’s irresistible, pulling your attention in all directions at once with its overwhelming movement and detail; spiders boing jovially on lampposts, ants shimmy up walls, scruffy pigeons flutter and fuss, while children gaily beat each other with sticks, and a man champions asbestos on the street nearby. Coal Supper was founded by Barnsley locals and its portrayal of the post-industrial North is an affectionate one, playfully reimagining archetypal small-town spaces in something like picture book form – think Where’s Wally by way of Royston Vasey, if Wally got his willy out and was prone to the odd swear.