Powerwashing gets gruesome in Crime Scene Cleaner
And it's bloody good.
I always find it difficult to pick out which demos are worth my limited time whenever Steam Next Fest rolls around again. The process is made a lot easier when I find something which promises the zen-like quality of PowerWash Simulator.
It may not seem like it at first, but somehow Crime Scene Cleaner manages to deliver on that promise. Despite the lack of cats and the abundance of dead bodies and blood.
You take on the role of a single dad who's a school caretaker (or janitor, seeing as the game takes place in the US) by day, and a mob cleanup crew by night. The mob pays much better than the regular day job, and we need the money to pay for our sick daughter's healthcare. Ah, the good old American healthcare system.
Crime Scene Cleaner's demo gives you one level - a fancy villa where the mob boss went on a rampage because the man who lived there slept with his wife. Yes, there's a lot of cynicism and cliche with the story, but the actual process of cleaning up the bloodbath is... very engaging.
The blood spatters can be cleaned with a variety of tools. There's a mop which is quite standard, it takes longer to clean but you don't need to keep running back and forth between a water source. You also have a small sponge for moments where you need to clean with delicacy, or you risk smashing some plates and making more mess to clean up. The quickest cleaner is by far the small powerwasher - though it doesn't have different nozzles like PowerWash Simulator, only a vertical or a horizontal option - which will blast bloodstains off in a jiffy.
Unfortunately it also runs out of water quickly too, so you'll have to keep making trips back to a tap in order to keep it topped up. The mop and sponge can be rinsed out with water from a bucket, but annoyingly I kept accidentally walking into my bucket a bit too enthusiastically. This caused it to spill everywhere, meaning I had to go and get more water and clean up a new bloody stain on the floor.
Cleaning up the scene isn't just about mopping up blood. Evidence, like weapons, needs to be removed from the scene. Anything damaged or incriminating - like broken glass, or stray bullet casings - needs to be put into bin bags and carried back to your truck, to then be ferried away and disposed off.
Dead bodies also need to be carried to your truck, and there's a very comical moment when you throw it into the back and watch it ragdoll around for a bit, before it's automatically bundled into a body bag and neatly arranged in the bed.
Any furniture that's been knocked out of place will also need to be put back, which means you can also nosey about and see whether there's anything interesting hidden. To make an extra buck you can steal valuable items or cash left lying around at the scene, but stealing too much will raise people's suspicion. If that gets too high, you'll fail.
I really enjoyed the larger number of tasks you're given and how you need to pay attention to what you're doing. Don't take a mop to a wall that has a hanging rack of dishes in front of it. I learnt that the hard way.
My absolute favourite detail in Crime Scene Cleaner is how you can make things worse. Throwing a body around will cause more blood splatter that you have to clean up. Breaking objects means more bits you need to pick up and throw away. If you walk over blood, you leave behind bloody footprints that need to be wiped up.
Crime Scene Cleaner is listed on Steam as a release for next year, and I'm looking forward to what else it'll task me with cleaning up.
