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Cleaning Up! is a humorous game about tidying various filthy areas by using physics-based tools to clear away trash.
Now, as much as I do not like cleaning in real life, I will always clean in a video game! There is just something more fun and more satisfying about seeing something go from messy to clean when it’s done in pixels on your screen. This is one of those games where you find yourself in massively dirty places and have to clear away the garbage using tools that you have.
Cleaning Up! is really simple in concept: you enter a level and then start cleaning. At first, this is primarily done through using your vacuum to gobble up any items then spit them out in the trash. Your vacuum has a capacity, so you will need to make sure that you are dumping it into the trash from time to time, but otherwise you’re good.
Over time, however, you will unlock more items. A broom is used to get piles of black goo into chunks to vacuum up, a mop can wipe up a wet mess the floor, a power washer (yes, a power washer!) can wash gross furniture along with watering plants for a bonus, and some sort of smelly spray can that will…make the rooms smell better? That last one really doesn’t feel like a proper cleaning tool and is the most challenging to use, but it is there, I guess. There isn’t a time limit in this game (something I prefer). Instead, you are cleaning at your own pace. Each tool has a bar at the top of the screen to show how much cleaning with that item needs to be done until you are finished.
The levels that you take on are where the real interest happens. Not only is it extremely satisfying to tackle these stages, but there are also other little challenges and puzzles. In levels with ghosts, you might need to avoid them. Cats don’t like being sprayed with a power washer and zombies need to be pushed back into their tombs. One of the first levels that had this extra challenge was around not vacuuming up dangerous packages. I sucked at this and was happy it wasn’t in all of the future levels.
With that said, Cleaning Up! does frequently present you with a new item or a challenge and then never show it to you again. I do find this to be so odd as it could stack these elements and get more challenging, but maybe it’s about the cleaning along the way. Also, you can spend your money on upgrades to make your tools more efficient or you can purchase frog hats (and other accessories) for your character in between levels. The choice is yours!
There is a lot of humor thrown into the game as well. Between your sponge AI-chat-bot-side-kick (who is always making jokes at themselves and reminds me a lot of a paperclip of years past), but the characters are just like “this is a CAFE full of TRASH!” and such before you take on a job. It’s just a silly little game. I found it joyful and well worth my time to keep making those clean, satisfying rooms.
Cleaning Up! is available now on the Nintendo eShop and Steam.
About The Author
Jupiter Hadley
Jupiter is a prolific indie game journalist, writing for Metro UK, Big Boss Battle, AlphaBetaGamer, and many more, all with a focus on smaller indie gems. She covers thousands of game jams and indie games on her YouTube channel, letting every game have a moment in the spotlight. She runs indiegamejams.com, a calendar of all of the game jams going on in the world, judges many jams and events.
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