Given that the Switch was literally made to play local multiplayer games with its unique design, it isn’t a big surprise that there have been quite a lot of them on the system. While most of them have been competitive in nature, there have also been quite a number of them with a focus on working together cooperatively towards some goal. In the case of the Overcooked series, and some others, these can be a blast, but generally require strong communication skills and an ability to coordinate. What has become clear though is that not all games in this cooperative vein are made equally well, and Trash is Fun does a fair job of showing what can happen at the lower end of the quality spectrum.

Weirdly enough, while other games in the space have you working together to prepare dishes, work on cars, or process packages, one of your objectives in Trash is Fun is to try to stop attacking zombies? It makes for an unusual, and usually quite disconnected set of objectives, with traditional industrial machinery needed to refine trash into various forms, but then another section where you collect resources to operate your defensive turrets or rebuild your humble wall of sandbags. Of course, you’re also armed with a flamethrower that works in bursts, so you do have some options to intervene directly in defense, but on the whole these concepts and tasks simply don’t feel cohesive.

I suppose there are at least some small details in spots that can be amusing, like your ability to catch your allies on fire if you aren’t careful, but when compared to the other games in this space, Trash is Fun simply doesn’t feel well thought out. While you’re given some direction to get started, as you move to new stages it doesn’t always feel clear precisely what you should be doing in all cases, to the point that sometimes you feel like you need to repeat stages just because of general confusion over everything you’re supposed to do and where. Situations where you have to keep people busy recycling in order to keep the air quality high enough, but someone else needs to be focused on dealing with zombies, really detract from there being a clear sense of teamwork, and in general these concepts feel like they go together like oil and water for the most part. I suppose there’s some credit to be had for daring to be different, but this really never comes together.