Good Job! was one of the multiple titles Nintendo surprise-dropped in its Nintendo Direct Mini presentation last week, and it arguably couldn’t have come out at a better time. It’s a lighthearted and chaotic puzzle game set at an office complex that’s a perfect, bite-sized replacement for anyone missing their day-to-day work life.
The brightly animated world appears to be based on road or safety signs, and puts players in the role of a featureless caution sign person who we’re told is the “clumsy” child of the company CEO. You start off — literally — at the bottom, working your way up through the company by completing puzzles in the charming, isometric office environments.
Each level assigns players a simple office task to perform, like sorting packages or setting up a projector. The environments are highly detailed, with plenty of objects scattered throughout the floor plan, nearly all of which can be moved, thrown, or smashed. In theory, the goal is to accomplish your objective as quickly as possible, while causing a minimum amount of property damage to your father’s company.
There was a moment, playing an early level of Good Job!, when I could feel those two gameplay paths diverging. The “right” way to solve the puzzle was to carefully walk the projector I needed down the stairs and plug it in. I had figured out the solution of plugs and cables needed to get all the doors open with a minimal amount of destruction. It would have been simple to complete the level.
But what I actually did was stretch a plug across a doorway and use it to fling the projector through a wall, a plate glass window, and the unsuspecting audience below in a show of rubble. Your co-workers at the company certainly seem to have no preference as to how you achieve the goal, which makes standing in the wreckage of a conference room with scattered couches and shelves somehow even funnier.
The nice part of Good Job! is that the game seems to be equally willing to reward both styles of play. Complete a mission slowly but conscientiously, and it’ll grade you well for avoiding breaking objects and causing a minimal amount of damage. Smash your way through the cartoonish physics to achieve your goal, and it’ll grade you well for speed.
There’s a co-op mode, too, which theoretically lets players speed through the levels more efficiently, with the chance to strategically work together to complete objectives. In practice, this usually tends to just mean twice the slapstick chaos, with two people flinging office furniture through walls instead of one.
It’s a great game for the moment, where many people are stuck at home looking for entertainment. Miss the day-to-day hustle and bustle of your 9-to-5 cubicle or loading dock? Good Job! will scratch that itch — or at least let you take out your frustrations in chaotic fashion by destroying the office complex you can’t get to. Each level is also just a few minutes long, making it a great choice to pick up and play if you need a quick break from working from home.
Good Job! is available now on the Nintendo Switch.
