It's hard to say why cleaning has such a terrible reputation. It's work that nobody really wants to do, putting it off a bit longer always seems like the best option, and actually getting to it requires a heavy exertion of willpower and the bad attitude that goes with it. But it's oddly satisfying, once the process has begun, as gross chaos turns into refreshing order and the feeling of completion makes the work feel worth the effort. For a full overview of the topic see noted philosopher and big-butt afficcionado Robert Crumb's definitive work Mr Natural Does the Dishes, but to experience it first-hand without all the weird smells or exhausting scrubbing, there's the demo for Cleaning Up.
Massive Trash Piles Vs. the Overwhelming Power of an Uncloggable Vaccuum
Cleaning up is a game that plays in the same territory as Viscera Cleanup Detail, PowerWash Simulator, Spilled, etc. The level is trashed and somebody should do something to make it suck less, and in the case of Cleaning Up that someone is you as a brand new cleaning gig worker in the employ of Clyner. The helpful AI mascot Spongy gives useful advice while getting you up to speed with the tools of the trade, which are a vacuum cleaner and push-broom, and then it's off to the first job to turn a garbage-pit back into the apartment it started out as.
The Cleaning Up demo has the first four stages, each one introducing a new mechanic. The apartment is a job for the vacuum, sucking up huge piles of trash comprised of hundreds of individual pieces that bounce everywhere, then blowing it back out again into a bottomless trash can once the vacuum is full. Level two introduces grime, which needs a good scrub with the push-broom to loosen up enough to be vacuumed, while level three has breakable objects th. Finally, the last level introduces a new tool, the sprayer, to hose down green-goo-encrusted furniture. Successfully cleaning up a level, which takes no more than a couple of minutes apiece, earns cash to upgrade the tools, because while Clyner is willing to supply the absolute basics needed to get the job done it's not spending a cent more than necessary to get you started. For gig economy work, supplying anything at all but the contracts feels surprisingly generous.
While there's the usual satisfaction of turning chaos into order, what sets Cleaning Up apart from other work-as-games is its trash system, which sees each level buried in junk, each piece of which is its own object responding to the pull of the vacuum or the player running through the piles. The sheer volume of trash initially looks overwhelming but the vacuum cuts through it quickly, and while that means there's not a lot of challenge to the demo there's plenty of room for that to show up as breakables and other goals (like not spraying down a cat wandering through the coffee shop) show up. Cleaning Up is meant to be more relaxing than challenging, though, and in the demo at least there's no fail state.
The Cleaning Up demo is available on Steam as of today, not particularly long but more than charming enough to be memorable. While the demo is Steam-only, the full game should be available on Switch, Xbox X|S, and PS4 and PS5 as well.
