This Week I Have Been Mostly Playing…
Good Job! on Nintendo Switch
I think this must be the first game I’ve played with a sarcastic title. Well maybe aside from Alien Isolation at the moment…. I dwell on the title as this is the screen that greets you regardless of how well you do at your task. Triumphant trumpets, party poppers and a giant Good Job splashes the screen! You did it right?
Er nope! This is a physics game designed to let you go crazy in the work environment. The premise is you are following in your Father's corporate footsteps but must work across all areas of the company to get the experience to take his job. Each floor is a different department with 3 levels and an extra bonus one to unlock. This bonus one takes all you have learned on that floor and ramps it up with a much harder challenge.
It really reminds me of Human Fall Flat but that is only as the characters look very similar. Movement, game play and design are all completely different. Particularly for your character who roams around each floor smoothly grabbing whatever items they need. Don’t get me wrong I love Human Fall Flat but this is a far sharper and snappier game. All actions feel deliberate and only occasionally finickity (fuck you swimming pool).
What actions? Well this game has a lovely physics engine best portrayed with the ‘cable delivery method’ as I shall call it. Power cables for machines can be pulled across rooms and plugged in to wall socket to give power. But they also serve as a catapult, letting you pull a projector back and sling it through several walls to get to it's intended destination. It’s messy and expensive, negatively impacting your score. But it is also far quicker and way more fun. Who wouldn't want to do this at work?!
On each level you are given a task, like gather all the workers, mop up the sludge or move some boxes in the warehouse. The idea is you do this quickly and gracefully but more often than not it all tends to go wrong very quickly! That is part of the charm and with each level being pretty short its allows a bit of replay value to get the top score.
Additionally there are also four clothing items to grab in each level, with the player immediately putting them on as you get them. At least this way you actually try out most clothes rather than them just being chucked away but I liked to stick with the Red Hard Hard and Red Hi Vis jacket. I am taking this role seriously as I fling people into the company pool…..
For all those with friends there is co-op for 2 people and I can see this being a real blast as long as neither of you knows the level solution. It’s no fun if the other person runs straight to the solution, you both want to fuck around a bit. Single player was great and I stand by it.
There is a score system for each level based upon time, number of items destroyed and the combined value of all those items. The score seems a bit arbitrary and heavily tied to the time which I assume the developers want you to smash your way through levels. It’s not real life after all. And hell, as I work from home at the moment what better what to live out my work life dreams!
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