Search for a mysterious heavenly artifact in this hilarious Groundhog Day-inspired adventure.

The Holy Gosh Darn is the latest adventure game from Perfectly Paranormal, the developers behind Manual Samuel and Helheim Hassle, published by Yogscast Games. This quirky game is hilarious from start to finish and evokes memories of some of my favorite adventure games and films, all while managing to remain fresh and original instead of feeling derivative or predictable.

Cassiel, an angel in heaven, has fallen out of grace and lives a humdrum life. She spends her days sitting on a bench by heaven’s gates, guessing what kind of dog will pass through next. One of those days, at precisely 6 p.m., heaven and all reality are destroyed. With God nowhere to be found, Death tasks Cassiel to save the universe and gifts her a magic stopwatch with the power to rewind time. The problem is that she can only travel back to noon, and six hours isn’t a very long time to save all of reality. She’s got to find the Holy Gosh Darn, whatever that is, and quick.

The game is a Groundhog Day scenario. Cassiel starts over from scratch when she travels back in time. No one remembers what she did or how she convinced them to help. She also loses all the items she’s picked up, though she can eventually upgrade the stopwatch to let her keep a limited number of them. Your challenge is figuring out what you have to do in the short time you have to get the results you need. Of course, you’ll hit plenty of dead ends, and heaven will be destroyed, but each time, you’ll gain a bit of information on what to try next.

Rather than using point-and-click controls, this adventure lets you control Cassiel in real time with directional buttons. Aside from the usual puzzle solving, there's some platforming, and you earn new traversal abilities such as a dash or double jump after completing certain goals. None of the platforming is especially challenging; it makes the environments more varied and serves as a nice break from pure puzzling.

The Holy Gosh Darn is consistently funny, whether in its dialogue or visual gags. The game features some humor that’s a bit juvenile—for example, a character that speaks in farts—but it’s not in the majority. I loved the writing. Conversations with the various NPCs are delightful, thanks also to the excellent voicework in the game, and often go in unexpected directions. You’ll meet absurd characters frequently—arguably, everyone falls into this category. I appreciated the creativity in their personalities and designs. The game’s sense of humor extends to the puzzles as well.

The game cleverly makes its dialogue-skipping feature an element of the gameplay, since Cassiel has to listen to the same conversations repeatedly as she repeats encounters. Instead of just skipping the dialogue, the feature tells the NPC to “shut up” in various ways, and when you do, it can create a new outcome, such as the character believing you’re rude and refusing to help you. Time continues ticking as NPCs talk to you, so sometimes, it’s important to make them get on with it.

The game’s 2D graphics are excellent. Everything is rendered in a vibrant, cartoony visual style, and the animation is smooth, lively, and full of character. Playing the game often feels like watching an adult animated TV show in the tradition of South Park or Family Guy. The environments have plenty of detail, and there are lots of funny bits to discover in the background.

The Holy Gosh Darn is hilarious and a great time, another example of what made 2024 a fantastic year for adventure games. I highly recommend this one; I still chuckle when I think of some bits from it.

The Holy Gosh Darn is available now for PC (Steam), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4/5, and Xbox One / Series X|S.

Overall Score: 8/10

Played on: Steam Deck