One of my favorite things to do after a long, busy day at work is to do… more work, but in video game form. There is something deeply fascinating and entertaining about the simple act of taking a mess and making things neat. It’s why, despite the fact I don’t love actually cleaning my apartment, I gravitate towards the satisfaction of games like Powerwash Simulator and House Flipper, which feel like zen exercises after a long day’s work. Cleaning Up is the new kid on the block in this pedigree of cleaning games, and you do what it says on the tin – you clean up! Across a series of levels you have to use various cleaning tools to deal with what feels like mountains of garbage and gunk, upgrading items as you go.
One thing I love is that there is some variety to the levels. You are still doing the same activities in each level (vacuuming, mopping floors, etc.) but there are some very rewarding optional tasks that I enjoyed discovering throughout. For example, early on there is a level set in an art museum, so you have to be especially careful you don’t knock any vases over. There are some puzzles to solve in a haunted mansion level, too. I do wish there were a bit more of these, but I liked figuring out things to discover. The level variety was definitely one of the standout parts of this game. I also enjoyed the unlockable hats and costumes. The game is very cute, and being able to play in a frog hat and overalls certainly isn’t something I’ll turn down. I also enjoyed the writing for the most part, though the AI criticism got to be a bit much. I’m not a fan of generative AI at all, but even I got to the point where I was like “OK, I get it.”
That all being said, for the most part this is a pretty standard cleaning game, for all that might appeal to you or not. At the end of the day, it’s largely about the satisfaction of taking a space that is filled to the brim with trash and making it clean. This is very satisfying, but with a few caveats. The first is that the controls are rough and take a long while to get used to. You control your character from an angled top-down perspective and use the right stick to adjust where the character is looking, almost acting like a twin stick shooter, which is a control scheme I never expected from this genre. I took quite a bit of time to get used to this, and even at the end of the game when I was fully used to the controls I don’t think they ever felt particularly good. There were also a number of physics issues (once some stuff I was trying to suck up in my vacuum just flew up into space) and bugs that just don’t make Cleaning Up! feel polished.
Cleaning Up! is a game I think that will really depend on what you want out of it. If you (like me) have already played dozens and dozens of hours of games like Powerwash Simulator, this is another game in the genre and I liked its attempts to distinguish itself with puzzles and fun costumes. But if you haven’t played games in this genre, I’d probably tell you to try something else, because the controls and bugs don’t leave a great impression.
