Good Job! Rapid Review

Reading Time: 4 minutes

Fast Facts

Title: Good Job!
Developer: Paladin Studios
Publisher: Nintendo
Website: Good Job!
Genre: Simulation, Puzzle
Platform: Nintendo Switch
Age Rating: PEGI 3
Release Date: 26/03/2020
Price: £17.99 – Rapid Reviews was very kindly provided with a review code for this title.

The Bosses Son

Nintendo Direct, even in its mini format is a truly wonderful way of introducing the world to what’s coming to Switch for the year ahead. Every now and then they throw a surprise launch in for good measure. I’m pleased to share they certainly didn’t buck this trend for March 2020!

Good Job! is a cutesy puzzler from the team at Paladin Studios based in Den Haag, Netherlands. The team here pride themselves with their tagline ‘We are Paladin. We create games that make you smile.’ This couldn’t be more true for Good Job, with its beautiful colourful design, personality infused stick-men and slapstick (pun intended) humour. Despite its indie game status, it’s been published by Nintendo. It really couldn’t feel anymore like a first-party Nintendo title if it tried yet it retains a dutch charm that feels authentic to its roots. 

To set the theme for Good Job, you are a stick man, the CEO’s son, keen to prove yourself and work your way through the ranks at your father’s company. Each floor of this skyscraper offers you tasks to complete to progress upwards through the tower. These tasks vary significantly across the departments, whether it’s delivering parcels, moving the projector from one meeting room to another, right up to adjusting the angle of lasers to power a generator. 

These puzzles or tasks may sound simple but they are wildly complex, at least sometimes it feels like that. Until you have that eureka moment and realise the level you’ve finally completed in 40 minutes could have been solved in a fraction of the time. This for me is the true craft of a great puzzle game, anticipating the players approach and challenging them to think differently. 

Each floor gets larger and more cluttered through each ascension, and the tools at your disposal get wackier and wackier. It puts the player in control of manoeuvring conveyor belts, robots and controlling a crane, loads of variety on display here and each level feels fresh and dynamic.

There is no linear or formulaic approach required to complete your tasks. For example, if you need to move that projector across the office but the doorway is too small, what do you do? You could look for an alternative path perhaps, or with its fully destructive environments, you could use an elasticated power cable to catapult a photocopier through the concrete walls and glass doors. The level of detail is staggering and stupidly fun. There are lots of quirks along the way such as a vacuum cleaner that can suck up almost anything. Well, anything in the environment such as office chairs, photo frames, computers etc. Suck too much though and the vacuum cleaner explodes, regurgitating these office supplies back across the landscape. 

The execution across the whole game is excellent, the musical score is superb with a sound somewhere between elevator music and Left Bank Two, it always feels fresh and inviting and serves as a therapeutic escape with every play. 

Playing Your Part

There are around 32 levels to complete in total across the game, with each level taking as long as 20-30 minutes, or as quickly as 5-8 minutes with practice. With around 10 hours sunk into the game across the last two days, I’m sure you can tell this is an addictive one for sure. 

There were a few moments within the game where the destructive environment and sheer level of artefacts lying around left me stuck behind a presumably immovable bookshelf. However this can be quickly rectified with a reset character option, that lifts your stick-man out and back to the start of the level. Even better there is also a reset level option which I used once or twice when stuck, and it allows you to approach the level with a fresh perspective and hopefully a new strategy. It worked for me anyhow. 

Good Job does this wonderful job of scaling and lovingly crafting a small indie game, onto a global platform. With a publisher in Nintendo that throws all of the marketing power behind putting a game like this on the big stage, it truly deserves its plaudits, it’s cute, taxing, comical and a hoot for the whole family. It tells an underlying and wholesome story of earning your way in life (even if your dad is a CEO) and I’d encourage everyone that owns a Switch to absolutely give this one a try!

One final addition I must add. A bonus level that helps to remind all gamers that even the smallest of small independent games often has 50+ people working behind the scenes, in incredibly talented ways. It’s more than credits, It’s the lifeblood of the gaming industry and for this, we gamers should applaud. 

Rapid Reviews Rating

You can purchase Good Job! from the following link: eShop