Thank Goodness You're Here! - Review by SariaSlays

For validation, comfort or a sense of belonging, humans have an innate tendency to seek ourselves in the media we consume. As a gamer reigning from Scotland, it's kind of a rarity to see the cultural nuances of my country, or those of the UK being represented (at least somewhat accurately!) within the current video games zeitgeist. So thank goodness for Thank Goodness You're Here! – one of my favourite and most memorable short-form indie games to date.

The vivid and cartoonish art style initially piqued my interest, but it was the gritty Yorkshire dialect and subtitling that assured me I was in for an authentic gameplay experience - albeit, one more unpredictable and hysterical than I could’ve imagined. From bad puns to surreal musical numbers, to quirky cultural references (for better or worse), this game wreaks hilarious havoc in the most inherently “Bri’ish” way. The devs don’t hold back, concocting a ludicrous blend of deadpan delivery, chaotic colloquialisms, satirical easter eggs, and sheer slapstick comedy to showcase life through a British lens. I could spend this review talking about everything I loved in immense detail, but you truly need to see it to believe it, and I can guarantee that the only dry element of this game is the humour.

The fondest memory of my gameplay experience was sharing my escapade through the fictional village of Barnsworth (referential to Barnsley in Yorkshire) live on stream with my Twitch community, experiencing each chapter together. For the Brits in tow, there was a collective understanding; a shared cultural context to the absurdities we were witnessing. For other viewers across the world, there was a deep intrigue - what the hell is going on? topped with an element of FOMO. They wanted in on the joke, no matter how cheesy it was! This led to us deep-diving into the various references which the game offered us, answering questions from those fortunate enough not to be from the UK; is Price Shaggers a real store? Why don’t they accept Scottish notes? Why does everything cost 10 bob? And where can I actually find these bloody Spirit Level Bubbles?

Between the far-fetched eccentricities which cannot (and perhaps, should not) be explained, I felt a strong sense of connection and togetherness between my community and I as we explored and unpicked the obscurities of this game. Whilst it’s bizarre and niche enough to require local knowledge to fully understand, this game's message transcended borders and enabled a universal shared human experience, right there in my Twitch chat, between humans hundreds and thousand miles apart. For me, that is the magic of this game.

Cockney rhyming and Thatcherisms aside – in a nutshell, Thank Goodness You're Here! is a masterclass in authenticity, as well as an incredible success story for all aspiring indie devs out there. Despite being a two-person indie studio, Coal Supper have achieved widespread success and award recognition with a simplistic and short-form “slapformer" game. In our fast-paced world, there’s a resurgence in popularity of games which favour nostalgia and storytelling, with deeper appreciation for compact narratives which still elicit significant emotion in the player. This game scratches all those itches, whilst also balancing representation of British cultural perspectives in a genuinely interesting way. Coal Supper truly nailed this game, and Reggie's wife could learn a thing or two.

So will I be playing this again in January with Slow Game Club? Dead Reyt! By furthering Slow Game Club’s goal to improve opportunities for UK youth and reduce socio-economic barriers to entry into the games industry, I hope we will get to experience more future love-letters to the UK in the form of bonkers indie gems like this one.