Comedy has evolved a lot over the centuries and millennia, but one particular comedic mainstay has passed the test of time over and over again: Slapstick. It turns out that civilisation, no matter how advanced, will always appreciate a good pratfall, or even something as simple as a human being moving in a way that human beings aren't supposed to. We're all just complicated upright monkeys, at the end of the day.
And so, in honour of the humble-yet-hilarious form of comedy that is slapstick, we've assembled the very finest physical comedy games that the Nintendo Switch has to offer. "Wacky Physics" is its own genre of games, usually to do with either intentionally frustrating controls, ragdoll characters that feel like piloting a mech made of jelly, or physics simulation dials turned up to 11.
If you're a fan of slapstick — and of course you are, you're an alive human — make sure to check out these games!
Gang Beasts (Switch eShop)
In the Party Game Hall of Fame, Gang Beasts is one of the OG big dogs, alongside Nidhogg, Jackbox, and Overcooked. Gang Beasts is a chaotic, wonky physics brawler that relies on the utter incomp-itude of its players to create mirth and merriment, and much like a massive chocolate cake or a puppy, it's always been a huge success whenever we've pulled it out at parties.
Most matches end because people struggle to keep their jellyboys upright, let alone managing to punch anyone else off a ferris wheel. The winner is often, by default, the only person who didn't trip over their own feet — but that doesn't make it any less fun in Local Play, because the fun is the chaos. It's more about laughing at the ridiculous wiggling bodies and their ineffectual floppy headbutts than it is about the skill required to actually be good at the game, and that's fine by us.
Phogs! (Switch eShop)
What do you get if you take one part Push Me Pull You, one part Noby Noby Boy, one part CatDog and a weirdly large helping of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons? Depending on which parts you take, you'll either end up with a tale of fraternal love and body horror, or you'll end up with Phogs: a game in which you play, simultaneously, as both halves of a two-headed dogsnake.
Phogs is a genuine dose of unbridled joy in a weird, physics-y, dog-tube package. It's hard to play this game without having a huge, goofy smile on your face. The Switch version has some minor to major issues here and there, but it rarely slows down the momentum of the puzzle-solving, dog-wiggling gameplay – this is another brilliant co-op experience for Nintendo's system.
Human: Fall Flat (Switch eShop)
It has been said that the essence of comedy is tragedy plus time. A good-natured pratfall here and there is enough to brighten up anyone's day, but when you play the role of both the audience and the victim of said pratfall, things get a little more complicated.
Developer No Brakes has created an experience where physical comedy is inevitable, where a bumbling idiot is forced to solve complex physics puzzles, and trying to keep control of it all is the real challenge. Human Fall Flat throws away the classic banana peel, insisting on the comedic virtues of cargo ships, wrecking balls, and coal furnaces in its place.
Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.
The Stretchers (Switch eShop)
The Stretchers is hilarious. Tarsier's comedy co-op puzzler is a big, bright blast of ludicrously OTT ragdoll physics-based slapstick that sees you and a friend – you can play solo but two is the sweet spot here – take control of a pair of wibbly-wobbly paramedics and their Crazy Taxi-style ambulance as you race around Greenhorn Island saving dizzies from the nefarious plans of Captain Brain, who's been knocking locals into a state of mental confusion in a bizarre attempt to exact revenge on you and your rescue team.
Totally Accurate Battle Simulator (Switch eShop)
This immensely popular wobbly experience might be something you've never heard of, but you're very much the minority — it has almost 100,000 positive reviews on Steam, and has sold well over 3m units, having become a surprise snowball success back in 2019.
It's a brilliant game for slapstick-appreciating adults, but it's even better with kids. Fling your ragdoll army at enemies and watch as they flippity-flop all over the place, like playing toy soldiers but so, so stupid. With a ton of free updates, TABS is a squillion times better than it was in 2019. You just gotta try it.
World of Goo (Switch eShop)
At its squishy centre, World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle game with an unusual amount of heart. In each of its nearly 50 levels you'll have some sentient goo balls and a goal to reach — usually a pipe that needs to suck up a certain amount of the little blobs — with free reign over how to get there. Dragging goos in range of their friends will see them auto-connect and then harden, allowing you to create extensive — and often slightly off-kilter — goo structures with the little guys.
This game is a true classic, and it's revered for good reason. It's instantly accessible but with plenty of depth; it's paced out perfectly, with a steady stream of new tricks and techniques to learn; and its puzzles can be solved with forward-thinking, quick reflexes or a mixture of both.
Octodad: Dadliest Catch (Switch eShop)
You are an octopus stuffed into a suit, and your family — wife and two kids, somehow — have no idea. And you want to keep it that way, which means manoeuvring yourself around your daily tasks in a way that is as un-octopedal as possible.
While some tasks such as weeding the garden or making coffee might sound easy enough, performing these tasks in your octopine form is very far from straightforward, because controlling your character is one of the most unique but also divisive aspects of Octodad. Operating each limb independently, you'll use a combination of the left and right trigger to raise or lower your 'legs', the sticks to move your arms and R to grab / let go of highlighted objects. It's janky, chaotic, and unpredictable, much like trying to wrestle an actual octopus into an actual suit — but that's where the humour comes from.
Surgeon Simulator CPR (Switch eShop)
This operation isn’t going well. It was meant to be a ‘simple’ heart transplant. Take the old ticker out, pop in the new one. Easy. This isn’t brain surgery after all (well, not yet, at least). Unfortunately, we’ve smashed the patient’s ribcage open with a hammer and pulled their lungs right out their chest like fleshy luggage. Unfortunately, we’ve knocked the new heart on the floor, so we’ve popped in a nearby bottle of fizzy pop instead and casually flipped the rapidly perishing subject the bird with our gore-soaked fingers.
This is Surgeon Simulator CPR in a bloody, self-contained nutshell; it's a gore-soaked combination of unwieldy motion controls, sharp implements and a series of unfortunate patients too drugged to really put up much protest. With an extra helping of local co-op shenanigans, this isn't an easy game to play, but it sure is a hilarious one.
Goat Simulator: The GOATY (Switch eShop)
Goat Simulator: The GOATY is the kind of game you'll either get or you won't. It's either a hilarious way to kill time and affect some form of skill amid the chaos, or it's just a jumped up joke that's outlived the laughter.
So what exactly is Goat Simulator? Well, you control a goat (shock horror) that runs around various locales causing as much wanton destruction as it's possible for one four-legged beast to unleash. You can build up speed and headbutt scenery and people by holding 'ZR', jump with 'B', flip your body by holding 'ZL' and moving the left analog stick and grab onto things with your tongue via 'Y'. Yes, it sounds stupid, and it is stupid, but that's kind of the point.
Untitled Goose Game (Switch eShop)
For a game that sees you controlling waterfowl and doesn't feature any robots, guns or tortured subplots, it's incredible how much attention Untitled Goose Game has garnered since it was revealed way back in October 2017. Thanks to its unique visual style, whimsical setting and instantly relatable protagonist, House House's sophomore title captured the hearts and minds of all that saw it.
Oh, in case you somehow missed it — you're a goose. A very naughty goose. And you're here to cause chaos in the tiny village, of course. HONK.
As you tick off tasks, Untitled Goose Game's sublime interface and fully-realised world really come to the forefront; your pesky winged avatar is a real joy to control, and thanks to some convincing and robust physics, objects react just as you'd expect them to – balls roll down gentle inclines, while solid items stack upon one another fairly reliably (ideal when a challenge which requires you to weigh down a set of scales, for example).
Part Time UFO (Switch eShop)
In Part Time UFO, you are a little sentient UFO who finds itself on Earth looking for work. After it helps a farmer load some crates onto the back of a truck, the farmer gives it a magazine with a bunch of part-time job ads in it. These form the game’s stages, and it’s up to Jobski (that's you) to take on each of the jobs and carry out the tasks required in each one. Conveniently, all of the jobs available take advantage of Jobski’s unique skill: the ability to lower a large claw that can grab onto things.
Naturally, everything is physics-based, leading to a sort of cross between the brilliant Nintendo Badge Arcade app on the 3DS and something like World of Goo, the latter comparison especially coming into play when stages get more elaborate and you find yourself trying to stack multiple objects on top of each other or trying to place them on a seesaw-like area where you have to make sure weight is distributed evenly.
Comments 17
Part Time UFO is really good and super cute. My kids loved it!
Some more honorable mentions:
Red Faction Guerilla: Re-Marstered - Open world GTA-style sandbox game with all buildings being completely destructible. You have vehicles, mech suits, guns, and explosives, but your hammer really is the best to destroy most things. Later in the game, you unlock black hole grenade and a gun that makes materials and people disintegrate, which makes destruction even more fun. You also unlock the ability to rebuild all structures in the map so you can destroy them infinitely.
Destroy All Humans 1 + 2: Similar to above, but more focus on psychic powers and weapons, and you can fling around ragdoll people like they were ... well, ragdolls. I still need to play the remasters, but they were great on PS2.
Sniper Elite 4: I'm reaching a little with this one, but the game feature semi-destructible environments and each human has a fully detailed skeleton with organs that can get rekt in all the ways you can imagine.
Part Time UFO is one of the best games on the eShop, full stop.
It's a complete idea, and a game that sets out to do one thing and do it well, and it absolutely succeeds.
Brilliant for co-op too!
I didn’t realize that there were so many wacky physics games.
Katamari Damacy, Lonely Mountains: Downhill, Bridge Constructor Portal, Donut County, Trials Rising / Urban Trial Playground.
Also joining the chorus of others praising Part-Time UFO. The game is absolutely fantastic, one of the best games on the Switch, a must-have for practically anyone.
Always been sort of interested in picking up Good Job!
I can split most of this list into two categories: games I bought years ago to play with other people, and games I thought about buying but didn't because I've still never touched the other ones. The one entry I have finished is Snake Pass, which is worth a recommendation just for its cheerful and relaxing vibes, though I'm still not sure I understand the controls.
I have a lot of love for part time ufo and the stretchers. Good job I have in my wishlist and would like to try. Another one I’d mention is wrestling empire. It has a lot of customization options and a lot of really odd yet fluid physics. It’s like if you were wrestling in space. It’s just a notch below ultimate muscle in zaniness.
I used to scoff at games like this but then they grew on me. I own most of the games on this list.
I'd also highly recommend Spiderheck!
The two games I wanted to be on this list were what the golf and Fall Guys, both of which snuck in near the end of the article. Both are fun and super silly games with crazy ragdoll physics in Fall Guys and sort of simple but also sort of indescribable behavior in what the golf.
Woot for Fight Crab!
There's also DEEEER Simulator: Your Average Everyday Deer Game, which is what happens when Goat Simulator has too much to drink.
It can be fun to watch, but I tend to dislike games where you don’t have perfect control over your character. Like Fall guys, death stranding and ice levels in platformers.
Nippon Marathon
Snake Pass was one of those highly talked about games that I ended up getting on release way-back-when. I have never felt rage towards a game like I did with snake pass. It's possibly the most frustrating game with a story that's just 'meh' to go with it. 'Wacky' Ooft no.
This article is where the Best Of guide type article meets the Back Page satire type article.
What the Golf is just brilliant, all the different ideas, I especially love the First Person Golf, where you are the ball!
Rubber bandits is a hell of fun too didn’t see it in your list , maybe it’s not out on switch yet but 4 players coop mayhem had me and my daughter laughing out loud many times.
Tap here to load 17 comments
Leave A Comment
Hold on there, you need to login to post a comment...