Welcome to Barnsworth. The sun is shining - a red flag in itself, given we're in a fictional Northern English town - and according to the man peddling leaflets outside his local pub, asbestos is about to make a big comeback. Unfortunately, we've got bigger problems: the chippy is shut, Big Ron's Big Pies has stopped making pies, and okay, yes, someone passionately advocating to bring back asbestos isn't great either. In Thank Goodness You're Here, a delightfully silly slapstick comedy platformer from Coal Supper, the title speaks for itself.
Tasked with solving all of this is a small, lemon-colored traveling salesman who's only stopped by for a meeting with Barnsworth's mayor. When the mayor is delayed by 15 minutes, we're encouraged (see: ignored by the receptionist playing solitaire) to go for a wander and take in the hand-drawn sights of Barnsworth. And oh, what sights there are.
Not from around here
As I step out of the town hall, I immediately take note of several pressing issues. Local eccentric Charlie, for starters, has his arm stuck in a storm drain. Skeevy handyman Herbert, played wonderfully by What We Do In The Shadows' Matt Berry, wants someone to help cut the grass. Mother Megg's Buttery Goods hasn't opened because its teenage employee has lost the keys – "mi mam's got me back on the mercury again," he says, by way of apology.
This gentle, calming gardening life sim is just what I need to decompress and relax
Solving all of this is like pulling at a jumper's loose thread, only to have the whole thing unravel spectacularly. Though Thank Goodness You're Here is technically a platformer, most of the game is played by slapping everything in sight or falling through holes that nobody else can fit through. I nip into Barnsworth's pub - which proudly displays a license to serve minors - where an inebriated citizen has Mother Megg's keys, but won't leave before starting his day with a pint. Unfortunately, the taps are blocked up, so to get everything rolling I jump down the pub's sink to reach its beer cellar and slap every keg until they're shuddering with fizz. Mission accomplished: I'm sucked upstairs through the beer lines and poured out in a pint glass, while our satisfied regular goes off to open Mother Megg's Buttery Goods. Now that it's open, I nip in and grab a particularly sloppy-looking chunk of butter for Charles, who frees himself by taking a good chunk of the pavement with him.
The whole of Thank Goodness You're Here - which plays out across a punchy two or three hours - is about trying to keep up with the ensuing chain reaction. Barnsworth is a deeply broken town, and everyone there has a favor to ask, which in turn usually means indebting yourself to two or three more people along the way. Luckily, its citizens are as funny as they are needy. I can count on one hand the amount of games I've laughed out loud at, but Thank Goodness You're Here is packed with one killer gag after another. Every street is caked in graffiti - "Graham shags moss" and "Lester packs lunches" are personal favorites - and there are a few brilliant running jokes, like the man who gets progressively more broken every time you cover his living room in soot, or the rats that slowly take over a corner shop. Brilliant writing makes every scrawled message or throwaway line a banger, while the cast's larger-than-life performances bring it all to a sizzle.
Things get progressively more absurdist and surreal as the game unspools, but Thank Goodness You're Here's northern charm never slips. As someone who lives just two hours north from Barnsley, the South Yorkshire town that Barnsworth derives from, I love the sense of familiarity that Coal Supper has painstakingly created. It feels like someone has taken a slice out of North-Eastern England, (mostly) brushed off the pie crumbs, and examined its contents through a kaleidoscope. It may seem silly to take a genuine message from a game where the most serious issue is a chippy's broken fryer, but I do adore how quickly our strange yellow hero is adopted by Barnsworth's community, and the almost-homely way that everyone goes out of their way to help each other through the day.
I rolled credits the day before writing this, but I'm still giggling at the thought of Matt Berry's deathmatch with a mole, a number of characters' cartoonish facial animations, and the poor soot-stained man whose living room I kept wrecking. Whether you're from Up Norf or not, Thank Goodness You're Here is a wildly funny misadventure that's well worth the few hours of your life it asks for - just, er, don't believe everything you hear about asbestos.
Thank Goodness You're Here is out now on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, and PS5. Check out the rest of our Indie Spotlight series to catch up on other gems you may have missed.
