Serial Cleaner Early Access Preview

Serial Cleaner is a unique original indie title where you take the role of a cleaner hired to clean up crime scenes by disposing of evidence and cleaning up blood. The game is currently in early access on Steam with more levels coming soon.

Serial Cleaner Early Access Review

Introduction

Serial Cleaner is a game developed by indie studio iFun4All and is currently in early access on Steam. The game is a fast-paced stealth game with a 1970's theme. The aim of the game is to clean up murder scenes by disposing of bodies, cleaning up blood and hiding evidence while evading the police.

The game is currently available on Steam for £6.99.

Graphics and sound

Serial Cleaner has a unique 70's art style that matches the atmosphere of the game. The developers said that they want Serial Cleaner to take a humoristic, slightly macabre approach to its subject matter. The art style matches this atmosphere that the developers wanted to create with their game.

Serial Cleaner's 70's art style
The characters and objects are basic with not too many parts. However, this helps to add to the mood of the game and an indie game like this doesn't need detailed and realistic graphics.

The music of the game is well picked for the game and also helps to add to the atmosphere that the developers are trying to create.

Gameplay

The gameplay in Serial Cleaner is basic. The aim of the game is to dispose of all the evidence (for example blood and bodies) without getting caught by the police. The game plays like many other stealth games and you can walk freely around the levels. There are also police patrolling the levels and the player can see their field of view. While moving around the level, the player has to avoid getting in the view of the police or the officer will chase and arrest them (there is no way to fight back against the police). It is also possible to stand behind obstacles such as cars and walls to avoid the officer's view. The player can also interact with movable objects to reach new areas or trap the police officers.

Serial Cleaner: Cleaning up blood
In order to clear a crime scene, the player will have to dispose of all bodies, pick up all items and clean-up a certain percentage of all the blood. In order to dispose of bodies, the player has to reach the body and pick it up. After picking up the body, you have to get get the body to a designated place (usually your car) in order to dispose or hide it. While holding a body, you can't interact with other items which adds to the difficulty of the situation. In order to dispose of items, all you have to do is press a button when you are near them to pick them up. You don't need to transport them anywhere. Finally, you have to walk over blood with your hoover out to clean it up. This gameplay is fun, challenging and unique which makes the game memorable.

It is possible to zoom the camera out. When zoomed out, the player can see where all the bodies and items are. It also allows them to observe all the cop's behaviour so they can make a plan to sneak past them without getting caught. While zoomed out, you can also see where all the hiding posts are. If the character is in a hiding spot then the cop's can not get to them, even if they saw the player enter.

Serial Cleaner: Zooming out.
The concept behind the gameplay sounds fun and interesting but the actual execution hasn't been done too well. Firstly, there is only one movement speed and no sneak button which often makes dodging police more difficult than it should be. Also, when you are behind walls, the camera doesn't move and so it is hard to know where obstacles and doors are especially when inside buildings.

The control scheme in the game is badly thought out and takes time to get used to. There is also no option to map your own controls to make controlling your character easier.

Serial Cleaner: Pause Menu

Menus

When I first loaded up Serial Cleaner, I had to restart the game a couple of times because I thought it was broken. The reason for me thinking this was because when I moved my mouse around on the main menu, nothing happened as the menu is designed to be navigated using the arrow keys and enter key. This makes the menus hard to navigate which provided me with a bad first impression of the game.

Serial Cleaner Main Menu
On the menu, there are options to view all the levels, edit options and view the credits. When viewing the levels, you can scroll through them using the arrow keys. It will give you details on the levels such as the narrative behind the level (who hired you to clean the murder scene) and how much you need to clean up to complete the level. It also tells you your fastest time in completing the level.

A menu option that is missing is to resume the game. You have to find the level you got to last in the level browser and you can't automatically start again where you got to.

As I said above, the level browser tells you the basic story behind the level. However, you can only view this information if you go to the main menu and then to the level browser. You can't view this information if you complete a level and go straight to the next one. This is a bad design choice from the developers and the story information should be available between levels. This is especially important as the game's website calls it a 'story-driven' game but each level only has a sentence of backstory behind it and you have to go out of your way to find this backstory. There are also no cinematic which makes me believe that the game is not story driven at all.

Level design

This is one of the better points of the game. Most of the levels are designed well with obstacles, bodies and items all well placed around the map. There are 15 levels in total in the game and each one is designed differently and will require the player to use their brain to work out how to navigate the level without getting caught by the police.

Serial Cleaner's level design
My only problem with the level design is that a couple of the levels feel very linear with a set path compared to the openness of most of the levels. The developer also promise that 'the game uses Real-World Data to modify levels accordingly with the current time of day in the player's whereabouts.' I have personally failed to notice anything change when I play the game at different times.

Difficulty and progression

The game feels challenging but not too difficult that the player will get annoyed. In my opinion, most of the levels are of the right difficulty but it would be nice to have a couple more easy levels at the start of the game to get used to the controls and a couple more hard levels at the end for players who have completed the rest.

Progression in games makes it rewarding when players reach parts of the game. Serial Cleaner, however, doesn't have much progression. All the levels are unlocked at the start of the game and so there is nothing for the player to unlock. After completing a level, all that happens is that your time gets put in the top right corner of the level in the level browser. The lack of progression means that you don't feel a need to keep playing the game.

There are currently 15 levels in Serial Cleaner and each level can be completed in a short amount of time. Because of this, the game only has at most a couple of hours of content. The game is in early access though so more levels will hopefully be added in future updates.

Conclusion

Serial Cleaner is a fun, fast-paced, puzzle game that feels unique compared to many other games in the genre. The graphics are beautiful with a 70's art style and the game feels challenging but not frustrating. However, the menus and control scheme are not well thought out and the game needs extra gameplay mechanics such as sneaking as the game feels basic at the minute. I would recommend the game to anyone who lives stealth games with a twist and don't get impatient quickly.

PROS CONS
+ Unique 70's art style – Bad control scheme
+ Challenging but not frustrating – Hard to navigate menus
+ Fun gameplay – Only an hour or two of content
+ Good level design – Story behind the levels aren't clear
+ Music matches the mood

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