As a British particular person, only a few video games come alongside which I really feel signify a real imaginative and prescient of what it means to be British. British characters normally have a really generic accent, the entire of the UK might as effectively be London, and the humor is simply misplaced. Then a recreation like Thank Goodness You’re Right here! comes alongside.

Thank Goodness You’re Right here! is the second recreation created by Coal Supper, a duo of builders made up of James Carbutt and Will Todd from Barnsley, Yorkshire. Their love for his or her residence county shines via on this good show of all issues British, together with delicate nods to issues anybody who grew up in Britain will know, to the inescapable Yorkshire accents all through the sport. 

In Thank Goodness You’re Right here!, you play as a small and really yellow businessman despatched to the fictional city of Barnsworth (which is certainly not primarily based on Barnsley in any approach) to have a gathering with the Mayor. As an alternative of instantly going into this assembly, nevertheless, you enterprise exterior and find yourself performing some very weird odd jobs for the locals. That is presumably as a result of Bobby Odd Jobs has sadly handed away. RIP Bobby.

By some means, Thank Goodness You’re Right here! manages to seize the sensation of rising up in Yorkshire, or any small city in Britain for that matter, completely. You simply get the sensation that everybody within the city is aware of everybody else, and that’s so true to my very own upbringing that I can’t assist however really feel an enormous wave of nostalgia whereas taking part in. 

It’s not simply the primary quests that make Thank Goodness You’re Right here! really feel so alive. There are small touches that resonate with my inside youngster, such because the neighbors squabbling over a bin, just for one after which each of them to finish up inside it as you revisit the realm after progressing a little bit. Ultimately, you’ll discover them taking part in playing cards collectively whereas wedged inside a wheelie bin. It’s each an extremely weird and surprisingly heartwarming second.

Then there’s the woman who’s taking what’s greater than seemingly her first driving lesson and her exceptional capability to get the automobile caught in small areas acts as a approach to level you in the precise path. It’s truly an extremely helpful function as a result of there aren’t any quest hints in Thank Goodness You’re Right here!, you’re by yourself to determine the place you’re presupposed to go. 

At one level, you get absorbed by a chunk of meat and must ‘collect’ smaller items of meat inside in order that the native pie-maker could make an enormous pie. It will get a little bit darkish throughout these moments, with the meat telling you tales of how they have been killed, and each single story ends with “and I wept.” It is a clear throwback to Coal Supper’s first recreation launched in 2023, The Good Time Backyard, which is only a weird mind-trip on each stage.  

The quests themselves, all of these odd jobs that you just’re doing for the locals, by no means as soon as really feel monotonous or arduous. Even supposing I spent extra time misplaced than I did on observe, there was at all times one thing to find and one thing to make me smile. I spent extra time studying the entire graffiti on the partitions or slapping the locals (don’t take a look at me like that, it’s the way you discuss to them) than I did actively attempting to determine the following step, and I by no means as soon as received bored. 

Though the overwhelming majority of Thank Goodness You’re Right here! is introduced in what’s now Coal Supper’s trademark type, there are glimpses into the true world upon which the sport is predicated in each the opening credit and the pause menu. Throughout the opening scenes, there are clips of Yorkshire within the Nineteen Sixties and Nineteen Seventies, when coal mines have been nonetheless operational. The pause display, then again, is the view down a again alley in what may very well be any city within the north of England. Or the South, for that matter. 

I can’t consider another recreation that captures this specific slice of life. I even did some analysis into the topic, and the closest recreation I discovered was the 2000 PlayStation 1 launch Rooster Run, which is solely primarily based round a bunch of freedom-hungry speaking chickens, so I feel we will all agree that it’s lacking the realism I’m speaking about right here. 

And that’s the factor, despite the fact that Thank Goodness You’re Right here! is a weird and ceaselessly disgusting (in the very best approach) cartoon, it feels actual regardless of the moments of utter surrealism, because of the characters who make it really feel so alive. Taking part in Thank Goodness You’re Right here! feels just like the homecoming I didn’t know I wanted, however it’s additionally a superb show of small city life in Britain for anybody who by no means had the enjoyment of experiencing it first-hand. 

If, then again, you wish to fully skip over your entire expertise, you possibly can at all times sit in reception for quarter-hour and do completely nothing till the Mayor calls you in on your assembly. You’ll be able to truly end Thank Goodness You’re Right here! this manner, however the place’s the enjoyable in that?