Developer: WALLRIDE
Publisher: Super Rare Originals
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Grandma, No! – Review
We’ve been very vocal about our appreciation for bizarre and humorous games like Thank Goodness You’re Here or Lil’ Guardsman, so when the opportunity presented itself to take a look at Grandma, No!, we eagerly accepted it. A game where you play a frail old lady who gets up to bizarre shenanigans seemed right up our alley after all. Having paid a visit to the elderly protagonist, we’re happy to tell you whether or not Grandma, No! was a Grandma, Yes! for us.
Story
The premise of Grandma, No! is simple but effective: we follow a day in the life of the titular octogenarian. Today isn’t just any day though, as Grandma receives a phone call from her son. He’s taking his wife to the nudist beach, and they need Grandma to babysit their infant son, on account of the babysitter being dead. And that’s on top of Grandma’s already busy to-do list! What follows is a number of increasingly absurd and disgusting situations as Grandma tries to get everything done. We’ll admit that we did chuckle at a few of the jokes, but as a whole, Grandma, No!’s brand of humor fell flat to us. The game goes for the lowest common denominator and more often than not replaces an actual punchline with gross-out value.
Graphics
The cartoonish art style goes hand-in-hand with Grandma, No!’s brand of humor. The exaggerated expressions of the characters do a lot of the heavy lifting here. The aesthetics are akin to something you’d see on Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon in the early 2000s, especially when it comes to the minigames, which are rendered in 2D instead of 3D. The visuals deliberately avoid realism, as this creates more leeway when depicting the over-the-top violence. The added benefit of this is that Grandma, No!’s performance is fantastic, with no lag or stutter in sight.
Sound
While Grandma herself never speaks, there is a wide range of supporting characters that do. The performances are competent, adding some much-needed depth to some of the dialogue. The soundtrack is surprisingly good, with the upbeat instrumental tunes taking inspiration from 1950s-style elevator music and commercials. Of course, a game like this wouldn’t be complete without a good set of over-the-top sound effects, and the game does deliver on this front, whether it’s Grandma’s farts or the shattering sounds of glass.
Gameplay
In terms of pure gameplay, Grandma, No! doesn’t bring anything new to the table. It’s a physics-based puzzle game in the same vein as Octodad or Goat Simulator, where you need to complete seemingly simple tasks through a very convoluted control scheme. In the case of Grandma, No!, those tasks include such lofty chores as doing the laundry or mowing the lawn. Sounds easy and straightforward enough, right? The issue is that Grandma isn’t exactly a spring chicken anymore, and you’ll have to work around her frailty and clumsiness. It’s never difficult to know what you’re supposed to do, with the challenge coming from how you do it. Fortunately, Grandma has a couple of tricks up her sleeve, including explosive flatulence and projectile vomiting, which she can use to put out any fires she accidentally causes. No, really.
There are three different locations where Grandma can inadvertently wreak havoc: the backyard, the kitchen, and the living room. You can tackle these in any order, with each area taking around half an hour to complete if your aim is to check off everything there is to do, although some objectives are completely optional. The majority of the game is an uphill struggle against the deliberately janky control scheme, but Grandma, No! also incorporates minigames for specific tasks. Furthermore, there are different outfits for Grandma to unlock, and these are more than just cosmetics. Switching to a different Grandma variant lets her use different powers, like laser eyes. This adds another layer of absurdity to the already chaotic situations.
Much of the enjoyment comes from the game’s gross-out humor and absurd situations. As such, whether or not you’ll find the game entertaining depends on whether or not it tickles your funny bone. While Grandma, No! is essentially a single-player game, it does feel like it was made with an audience in mind. To put it more bluntly: Grandma, No! is a prime candidate for streaming, but it falls flat when it comes to having actual gameplay substance. Add to this that Grandma, No! is a very short game, clocking in at under two hours, and it becomes difficult to justify the modest price tag of €14.79 to anyone whose sense of humor has evolved beyond middle school or who isn’t a streamer catering to their viewers. The game probably has some replay value for completionists or speedrunners, but in all honesty, this is a game that reveals all of its tricks in a single playthrough.
Conclusion
Unfortunately, our dear old Granny is a bit of a one-trick pony. The game is overly reliant on low-brow humor, but doesn’t have anything substantial to offer when it comes to its gameplay. Grandma, No! overstays its welcome while simultaneously being too short to justify its price tag. This is the kind of novelty game that you’ll play once and then never touch again. If fart jokes and elderly abuse are your idea of a fun time, then you might find something of merit here, but for anyone else, this is going to be a tough sell. We’ll stick to Later Daters instead.
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