Cleaning Up! Review (Switch & PC)

Cleaning Up! scratches an itch that I can temporarily gauge out in short bouts, but never fully remediate. Like any good graft that promises pocket-sized perks and brief moments of satisfaction in all the smallest of places, it gives me something to do, whether it’s a new goal to chase, or somewhere in the vicinity of twenty hoarder homes to vacuum and polish. The dopamine hits like a freight train, if only for a short period of time. But then, once the final clusters of trash finally disappear and the squeaky clean aroma vanishes into thin air, I quickly begin to feel at a loss. The clock turns back, and before long I’m back at the locker again, digging for yet another bandaid to curb my boredom. I want something with substance, yet it feels as if there are no long-term solutions for the insatiable cravings. Cleaning Up! helps a little I’ll admit, but not to the point where I feel truly satisfied, and that my quest for substance is finally over.

On the surface, Cleaning Up! has all of the qualities that I go searching for in an incremental game: a small collection of stages, a simple hook, and a board that proudly illustrates my progress as I carefully mull over the grime and scrub each and every crag and crevice until there’s little left to clean. Fortunately, it contains all of that, including the oh-so-wholesome aesthetic and charming character models. But what it doesn’t contain, sadly, is enough meat on its bones to satisfy a craving. With just twenty areas to complete (five minutes per job, usually), Cleaning Up! quickly meets an abrupt end long before it finds its place in the world. Again, I want more, but Cleaning Up! prefers to keep to the mantra that a smaller vessel means a bigger heart. Maybe it’s right, maybe it’s not.

Don’t get me wrong, I adore just about everything that makes up this cozy indie jewel. From a gameplay standpoint, it’s as simple as they come, and it does just enough to keep you venturing back and forth between allotments for the sake of earning your stars. More to the point, it offers a good variety of benefits for sticking it out, with better equipment to unlock, more challenges to overcome, and little details like hats and skins to keep you happy during your short stint behind the vacuum nozzle. Again, it’s a short game that you could quite easily sweep beneath the rug in a couple of hours — but it has heart, and that counts for a lot in this case, truly.

In regards to the gameplay, what you essentially have here is a simple point-and-vacuum experience that involves cleaning cluttered spaces with almighty tools, and gradually witnessing your actions reflect a tidier, more elegant workspace that glistens when you waltz through. In each level, be it your first and your second stint, you earn an in-game currency from completing chores, which can be used to acquire better cleaning tools for future visits. For instance, if you feel that you have left certain jobs unfinished in the first chapter, then you can return to complete said jobs once you have more tools to work with. And that more or less applies to all of the stages in Cleaning Up. You clean, earn rewards and tools, and venture back to earlier stages to mop up any leftover challenges.

It might not come as much of a surprise, but Cleaning Up! is a pretty self-explanatory game, in that it doesn’t require any sort of skill to beat. Simply, you target an area, toggle the vacuum, and move from room to room whilst watching various clutter float into the nozzle. After that, you equip different tools to remove dust and grime, and then add a slither of spray to make old trinkets sparkle. It’s an incredibly simple process, and one that, frankly, doesn’t take a genius to figure out.

While the game does feature a couple of curveballs—environmental puzzles and whatnot—at no point does it make the act of sweeping through the chapters an uphill struggle. With a built-in toggle function that allows you to remove the puzzles, you can gracefully shovel through the entire procedure without needing to lift a finger. That might not appeal to everyone, but then, for what it’s worth, it certainly makes for a meditative experience. And I suppose that’s all that you want from a game like this: an easy-going affair that doesn’t demand much more than your time and patience.

With a cozy atmosphere and a lovingly crafted world design, Cleaning Up! feels like an easy one to put into your back pocket. Again, it might not boast the most mesmerizing campaign in the world, or even one that has the capacity to keep you venturing back time and time again. But, I can appreciate a bashful chore core gig when I see one, and this one happens to be one of the jolliest of the bunch, warts and all.

Verdict

Cleaning Up! might lack the clutter and grit of a fully-fledged chore core simulator, though it does provide a clean and effortlessly wholesome indie experience that will likely keep you thoroughly hooked over the course of its twenty-something chapters. Although a lot shorter than your average indie, its inclusion of fresh tools and challenges, cosmetics and themes will, if only just, provide you with enough material to keep you busy for the short term.

While it’s no secret that cleaning games are a dime-a-dozen concept in this day and age, Cleaning Up! does manage to stay afloat as a worthy contributor to the sphere. To that end, I’d say that it’s worth your time and hard-earned coin, especially if you’re a fan of games like House Flipper and PowerWash Simulator. It might not be the best cleaning game you’ll pick up this quarter, but it will be one of the coziest. Or at least, it will be one of the easiest solutions for curbing your cravings for simple, stress-free excursions.