The Nerdy Type

Over the last couple of years, there has been a huge number of fun, less-than-serious multiplayer indie games entering the fray, offering a chance for people to get together despite distances that divide them and make some memories. Think PEAK, R.E.P.O., and now one of the best yet, Good Boy. 

Developed by Terrible Posture Games (a name which feels like a personal attack, considering how hunched over my desk I was before reading it made me check my own posture), Good Boy is a comedy horror co-op game about bumbling thievery and survival against biological monstrosities. There’s a demo available to play now, and it’s a hilarious time for all involved. 

In the interests of full disclosure, I did not see a single mutated pet during my playthrough of the demo, but more on that later. 

Burglary made interesting

In Good Boy, your first task is to pick a head for the round – literally. On the table at headquarters, there are a variety of household items laid out before each round. Whichever item you choose will become your actual head and give you bonuses in the upcoming round. Each item in the game has tags associated with it, such as “Furniture” or “Music”, and the heads give you a double value bonus for specific tags. 

Once you’ve got your head on your shoulders, whether it’s a sewing machine or a teddy bear, you select your target house and then get into the truck to begin the round. You then run in and out of the house, stealing one item at a time and depositing it into the truck to increase your monetary score for the round. 

Each round has a required objective, such as a target amount of money earned through the items you steal or a time limit within which you need to leave, but there are also secondary, optional objectives. These optional objectives provide Rep Points, which increase your Burglar Rank and unlock new houses to burglarise. It’s all pretty simple, which is part of what makes it so fun.

I would make a terrible burglar

Let’s be honest, there are some pretty vital skills that all burglars must possess to be successful in their chosen illegal specialty: stealth, speed, quick decision-making, and an understanding of what is worth stealing. I possess none of these things, and it has never been more obvious than when playing Good Boy. 

As evidence, let me tell you a story. In the second house of the demo, you have a 300-second time limit. Instead of focusing on my objectives or items that would provide a double money bonus, I zeroed in on the grand piano in the hallway and spent the full 300 seconds trying to forcibly drag it through the house and into the van. It quickly fell over, too, so it wasn’t even on its wheels; it was just being dragged through the literal mud and scratched to all hell. 

Like I said, I’d make a terrible burglar. 

However, there are no rules in Good Boy, and it’s not meant to be taken seriously, so even though I decimated the value of the piano with all the scratches on the surfaces and mud clogging up the keys, I did at least manage to get it in the van and make some money. Plus, I had fun, and that’s pretty much all that matters.

I was promised a dog

Don’t get me wrong, it was nice to step into the shoes of a bumbling burglar to half-inch the computers out of a seemingly abandoned high-end office suite without having to worry about a dog biting me on the backside, but I was promised at least one dog, and I have yet to encounter it. Or any animals at all, for that matter. 

Maybe I just got lucky, but I’ve never been that lucky before, so I can’t help but wonder where these attacking creatures were while I played. I’ve been through all the updates on the Steam page and on social media, but I cannot find any mention of animals not being a part of the demo, at least not specifically stated. I have seen some videos of where they’re supposed to be, but I haven’t encountered them thus far. 

Edit: It turns out that I was wrong and there are actually animals in the game, but because I was playing alone and not making enough noise, they weren’t seeking me out. Upon dragging my long-suffering fiancé into the game to play with me, we quickly discovered that we drew the attention of some bizarre red fish on legs that were intent on killing us for stealing property that wasn’t ours. Disregard what I wrote above, they do exist.

Good Boy is still in development and there’s no fixed date for the early access release just yet. However, there is a demo available to try as part of October’s Steam Next Fest, and also a playtest to sign up for if you want the chance to play new builds before they go live for everyone else. There’s no guarantee you’ll get chosen for the test, but it’s worth a shot.