Videogames often make it easy to murder someone, but can the same be said for the clean-up process? That’s what developer iFun4All has set out to explain with the retro-hued Serial Cleaner, which is coming to the PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Steam this summer.
Taking place in the glorious 1970s, Serial Cleaner places gamers into the shoes of the ultimate crime scene cleaner. With police always on the prowl, you’ll need to work fast in order to mop up copious amounts of blood, dispose of bodies and hide incriminating evidence.
One unique feature is that the title uses real-world data in order to alter the experience based around where you’re playing. Night and day will alter noise levels and “sneakability,” so you’ll want to think about what time it is before you boot the game up. To ultimately succeed in the cover-up, players will need to think fast and learn how to experiment with alternate solutions.
Borrowing from both the real and fictional world, Serial Cleaner will feature crime scenes based around gruesome true crimes and bloody movie-based events. Macabre, yes, but iFun4All is promising that the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, despite how things may look.
Krzysztof Zieba, designer and writer at iFun4All, offered up a more detailed explanation for what the title is all about.
Serial Cleaner was inspired by lose-fast/reload-fast games that demand players retry a level several times to learn how enemies react and figure out which zones of the map are the safest. If caught, the level generates the crime scene with the bodies moved, ensuring that players can’t rely on just muscle memory to get through a stage. The game is tough, but fair, so players need to plan their moves accordingly, or just get in there and improvise: both approaches work.
Serial Cleaner is a drastic change of pace from the previous output of developer iFun4All. Their previous two efforts, Red Game Without a Great Name and Green Game: TimeSwapper, are two brutally challenging platformers. While their latest may be equally difficult, it’s a completely different type of game.
If you’re headed to PAX East or EGX Rezzed this year, you get a hands-on taste of Serial Cleaner, if you wish. The rest of us, though, will have to wait until later this year.
