Grandma, No!

Babysitting chaos with a Ren and Stimpy sensibility

Grandma, No!, released 23 May 2025 by developer WALLRIDE and published by Super Rare Originals, puts players in the slippers of an elderly grandmother tasked with babysitting a grandchild and completing household chores across three small rooms, all while a deliberately unruly ragdoll physics system ensures nothing ever quite goes according to plan. It's explicitly built around crude, slapstick, gross-out comedy, heavy on fart and vomit jokes, and reviewers consistently place it alongside games like Octodad and Goat Simulator as a spiritual sibling in the "deliberately janky physics comedy" genre.

That comparison lands well with a clear majority of the review sample, who describe the resulting experience as genuinely, memorably funny despite, or because of, its crude sensibility. One reviewer opens enthusiastically, "this game is like none other that I have played, its witty, fun and whimsical! Dare I say game of the year," specifically noting they "laughed the whole time" across a roughly three-hour playthrough. Another reviewer frames the appeal in more measured, craft-focused terms, praising it as "an indie physics game created by a small team with a lot of heart and huge influence from Ren and Stimpy," while candidly acknowledging "is it immature? For sure. Is it rough around the edges? Definitely."

Well-paced silliness that knows when to end

A specific, recurring point of praise within the positive review sample concerns the game's pacing, with multiple reviewers explicitly crediting its short runtime as a deliberate strength rather than a shortcoming, at least from a pure design standpoint. One reviewer notes it "was the perfect length before it overstayed its welcome," while a separate reviewer independently echoes the identical sentiment, stating "the game does not overstay it's welcome" despite acknowledging "the controls are a bit janky" and rough presentation elsewhere. That same reviewer describes a specific, positive shared-play experience, noting they "played this with my kid, and we had a great time for 2-3 hours."

Other reviewers frame the experience specifically as a successful comedic vehicle rather than a mechanically ambitious game in its own right, treating that focus as the correct priority for what the game is trying to be. One reviewer states directly, "this game is ridiculously silly. I have had a blast playing it and could not stop laughing while I learned the controls," while another, despite finding the humor "a little forced and perhaps not entirely for my taste," still concludes "I genuinely had a blast playing through it. It's a truly different experience, for better or worse, and that uniqueness kept me hooked."

A short runtime becomes a real, corroborated price complaint

Despite that praise for pacing as a design choice, the review sample converges heavily on a related but distinct complaint: the same brevity that some reviewers treat as tasteful restraint, others treat as poor value for a roughly NZ$25 asking price. One reviewer states this tension explicitly, writing "great, but overpriced... paying 15 bucks for only three hours of content is not okay, they either need to lower the price, or add more content." A separate reviewer corroborates the underlying complaint about length even more starkly, reporting "I beat the game in an hour" including side content, estimating "probably another 2 hours of content tops that I didn't do," and citing that thinness as a core reason for their overall disappointment.

A third reviewer echoes the same basic math with a blunter framing, stating simply "extremely short game: I finished it in about an hour," treating the runtime itself, independent of humor or gameplay quality, as a standalone reason for hesitation at full price.

Genuinely divisive humor, not merely a matter of taste

A second, equally corroborated complaint concerns the game's humor landing as actively unfunny for a meaningful share of players, rather than simply being a style some found less appealing. One reviewer states plainly, "I hate leaving bad reviews for indie games that clearly had passion behind them but I just did not think that was a good game," specifically criticizing writing that "sounded like the actors were having a better time than I was," and comparing the comedic style unfavourably to prolonged, directionless improvisation. A separate reviewer reaches an almost identical conclusion independently, stating "I did not laugh once. It is trying too hard to be funny and failing," despite self-identifying as someone with a generally low bar for crude humor.

A third reviewer connects the humor complaint directly to the game's scope limitations, noting the experience "feels a bit limited compared to other 'go in a room and just do stuff' sandbox games," specifically citing "only 3 rooms" that are "pretty small," and describing item-grabbing controls that "can feel annoying" when attempting specific interactions, a friction that compounds when the jokes themselves aren't landing for a given player.

Verdict

Grandma, No! is a short, silly, and evidently heartfelt physics comedy that earns genuine laughs and real affection from a clear majority of its review sample, who consistently praise its Octodad-adjacent charm and well-judged pacing. But a heavily corroborated complaint about its two-to-three-hour length relative to its asking price, combined with humor that a real, vocal minority found actively unfunny rather than merely not-for-them, leaves a meaningful share of its audience disappointed. Fans of crude, physics-driven comedy sandboxes willing to treat it as a short, silly diversion should find plenty to enjoy; anyone wanting substantial content for the price, or sensitive to gross-out humor that may not land, should wait for a discount.