CLEANING.INC

[H1]When a brand new soap goes in the trash but a carton of milk gets boxed, confusion wins[/H1] Marketed as a “super cozy” cleaning game, this one somehow manages to be the opposite. You play as a cleaner scrubbing dirt, tossing trash, and boxing items across 25 rooms using click-and-hold mouse controls that quickly hurt the wrist, even for a game that only lasts about 30 minutes. The mechanics are simple, with a sticker collection and a small office to decorate, but the reasoning is a mess. Item categories make no sense: some items randomly switch between trash and box with no explanation while others are strangely considered useful or trash against all logic. The sponge disappears if you miss the dirt by a pixel, and many rooms still look dirty after completion, which feels awful in a cleaning game. Instead of relaxing, the game piles on stress with upbeat music that you can only turn off in the main menu, flashy colors with no brightness option, a performance timer, and money penalties for mistakes. Language support is also broken: even when English is selected, most menus, explanations, and credits stay in French, and the game resets to French every time you relaunch it. T…

This does NOT fall under cozy. Between the extremely loud incorrect buzzer, and the items randomly switching between 'keep' or 'trash,' this has by far been one of the least satisfying games. It feels nostalgic like my mother yelling at 6 year old me to clean my room.