Styled as a 90s nostalgic stealth game, Serial Cleaners is, at its heart, a puzzle game. One steeped in streaks of thick blood, dismembered body parts, and tension, but a puzzle game nonetheless, each crime scene a complex jumble of moving parts waiting to be made spick-and-span.
Set in the closing hours of the 90s with Y2K fast approaching, you play as a crew of four crime scene cleaners led by a raspy Marc Maron impersonator, swooping in to tidy up the viscera strewn by trigger-happy mafioso to ensure they get off scot-free. Each level is framed as a memory, an episodic tale woven by this oddly cohesive gang of diverse misfits, reminiscing about their most daring and momentous cleans from a decade rapidly coming to a close.
Serial Cleaners Sets the Tone
Armed with a vacuum cleaner, the game takes you to diverse locations, ranging from a park rave gone awry to an art gallery by way of any crime film worth its salt’s go-to setting, a junkyard. Each one features bodies and evidence that need disposing of, with a few unique interactables like hacking consoles, jumpable walls, and vents, depending on which character is drafted in for the job.
There’s Bob, the crew’s experienced leader, who can slide precariously across pools of blood. Vip3r, a hacker-sort and spewer of late 90s acronyms; Lati, a nimble artist who can hop over obstacles; and Psycho, a chainsaw-wielding goon more than happy to fling body parts to get out of a tight spot. Hopping from one to another transforms the playstyle thanks to their unique skill set. They are far more than a simple a visual reskin of what is essentially the same character. Aside from their cleaning perks, these are well-fleshed-out characters, voice-acted to perfection, with humor and gravity on equal footing in the game’s delightful interludes, steeped in 90s nostalgia and moody shots of NYC’s seedier side.
Get Cleaning
Police and detectives patrol the levels, perking up and investigating whenever you pass too close, make a noise, or move evidence. Serial Cleaners is at its most enjoyable when trying to avoid the fuzz while disposing of evidence. And, you have options. You can take a stealthy approach, using hiding spots and distractions to sneak through the clean undetected. Or, you can take a more conspicuous approach, outmaneuvering officers by weaving between furniture, vaulting low walls, or sending them to sleep at the sight of you cutting up a body.
Either way, besting this ever-shifting puzzle builds a thrilling tension. Figuring out each level and optimizing routes is a lot of fun, though this subsides somewhat when you grasp that the AI powering these patrols isn’t all that refined and easily duped. Nevertheless, difficulty shifts upwards as you progress through Serial Cleaners’ 8-10 hour story, with more cops, more bodies, and larger playing areas, the later levels offering a decent challenge for most.
Souring Bugs
A heft of bugs sour the experience, something the developers seem aware of, with a self-deprecating and self-aware ‘this is a feature, not a bug moment’ moment. Evidence falls through walls, enemies turn to zombies indifferent to your presence, and music cuts out mid way through an interlude; these a small slice of the issues plaguing Serial Cleaners. None are game-breaking per our time with Serial Cleaners, but there’s an odd irony to a game about cleaning lacking polish.
If you played the original, Serial Cleaners improves and refines in almost every way, not least a graphical leveling up and art style that takes a few light cues from the likes of Disco Elysium. For a game about vacuuming up blood and chainsawing body parts, Serial Cleaners has a lot of heart. At worst, it’s a nostalgic and buggy palate cleanser. At best, Serial Cleaners has enough going for it to please players that find their fill in unconventional indie games.
