I don’t really get too excited over a narrative game, but here I am this week with a game that I really REALLY wanted to play ever since I played the demo a month ago. A quirky, hilarious game about a traveling salesman and what it takes to help literally every person in a rural English town. This week is Thank Goodness You’re Here!

Thank Goodness You’re Here (TGYH) is a narrative game from Coal Supper and Panic. The game will be released at the beginning of August for the PC, Mac, PlayStation 4/5, and Switch.

You play as a traveling salesman who has arrived early to an appointment with the mayor and is shoved out the door to wander the rural English town of Barnsworth. Lucky for you, the townspeople of Barnsworth are all outside waiting to ask you for favors that apparently only a stranger from out of town can do. You will do a bunch of different fetch quests for the people, some may involve getting them some meat for their pies, collecting seagulls for their army, or catching a lifelong criminal. All of these favors end up connecting to the overarching story of passing time until the Mayor of Barnsworth is free.

You will meet people who own shops, who have real issues whether they be just having to clean up the messes you’ve made or coping with failure. They are real issues shrouded in a comedy, in a Saturday morning cartoon kinda way.

Thank Goodness You’re Here!’s pacing is also done really quite well. As you are meeting a literally ton of new people all of the time, a majority of them are not giving you something to do, but there are enough that may or may not have you running around going “Oh! This person wants this, maybe I should go over and do that while I’m here” essentially making getting distracted fun.

the humor is just the thing that I need during this time. It just aligns so well with what I think I funny.

Gameplay really does still just boil down to smacking stuff to interact with them, doing a bunch of side quests, and platforming. There is some platforming in Thank Goodness You’re Here! but it is very very light. Most of the time it will be just climbing a few steps to get to your objective.

I love the look of Thank Goodness You’re Here! and even after it first caught my eye and amazed me, it continued to persist even towards the end of the game. The colors are so vibrant and no two people are visually alike. The game has so much love put into just the visuals alone and coupled with the humor and voice acting make Thank Goodness You’re Here! top tier.

I really just like to look at this video game.

I think Thank Goodness You’re Here! has some of the best, most consistent voice acting that I have ever come across in a video game. Matt Berry, Jon Blyth and pretty much everyone does such a great job creating such a fun, humorous atmosphere for this game. It is truly enjoyable to listen to people in the town talk.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is such a fun narrative game. I really don’t play narrative games because they stretch themselves so far and become boring, but this game nails everything and still lasts only about three hours. It is a nice pallet cleanser that will make you laugh and cry, maybe both at the same time.

Thank Goodness You’re Here! is a true wonder of a narrative game.

9/10