Serial cleaner was a game i picked up as I thought it looked fun and weird, and was also very cheap. When i started playing, my expectations were realised as the gameplay was super fun and unique, with while paired with the well done level design made it a great game to play.

Serial cleaner's story is that you are hired to clean up crime scenes, while the police are there. This story isn't all that interesting, but it's a good enough idea to make what you're doing realistic. The gameplay is where the game shines, as the stressful work of attempting to clean up all the blood, body's and evidence all while avoiding cops is very well done and addicting.

Not too much else to say, except that the art style is pretty cool as well. All in all, I enjoyed my time with serial cleaners, and apart from one level that made me quit (It wasn't too bad it just made me want to do something else and i forgot about the game lol), it was a great game with fun gameplay and a simple story that isn't too interesting but doesn't need to be.

Serial Cleaner has the honor of being the first game I've played, let alone beaten, on the Twitch game launcher. I got this game for free through Twitch Prime's free game thing at some point, and I was in the mood for something a bit less committal than the RPG's I'm slowly making my way through, so I put like 5 or 6 hours into this to beat it today. I beat all 20 normal missions as well as the 10 bonus ones on a 360 gamepad.

This is another 2D stealth game in the vein of Party Hard, but it does add a neat spin to Party Hard's formula. You don't do killing, you're just a cleaner for the mob in the early 1970's. A lot of the time period and setting really just add to the visual style, as the story itself is fairly throwaway (it treats itself pretty seriously, but it's fairly minimal and easily ignored). The art style is a kind of art-deco look, with tons of garish colors and no real outlines, but while this does give the game a neat style, it also makes the visuals fairly confusing. There was more than one time I didn't even realize that I could walk between two sections because it looked like there was a wall where there wasn't or vice versa. Luckily, you can hold LT to have "Cleaner Vision" appear, which shows you the enemies on the map, movable objects, hiding spots, as well as your objectives, and that helps a lot with any confusion on where to go (although not entirely).

As previously stated, you aren't the killer but the guy who comes in later, so the gameplay involves finding evidence and picking it up, but also picking up bodies and bringing them to disposal points (sometimes it's the back of a car, sometimes its a fireplace/window/etc.). There are also some slightly hidden magazines and film reels on each level, which unlock more costumes or movie-themed extra stages respectively. You also need to clean up a certain amount of blood in each level by holding RT to pull out a vacuum cleaner, and that's just one more thing to do in each stage while avoiding detection from the cops' large, conical line-of-sight indicators (which work very well and are very consistent, from what I played).

If a cop sees you they'll give chase and you'll need to hop into a hiding place for safety. This isn't Clock Tower though. You can hop into a plant right in front of a cop and he'll just stand next to it angrily staring at it even though he clearly saw you enter it. Each level also has slight randomization features where bodies, evidence, and hiding places will be shuffled around slightly. This is still fairly annoying, quite frankly, but it's nowhere near as bad as in Party Hard. Party Hard will wholesale remove entire elements of a map between deaths, but Serial Cleaner just shuffles them around a bit, so all the tools you need to complete each level are there every time, just perhaps in a slightly less convenient spot. I still dislike this design gimmick, but at least this game does it less annoyingly.

Really, the worst thing about the game are the things endemic to this type of game, and they're the same ones Party Hard had. Other than the randomization annoyance, the other big bugbear is levels that are too long with no save points. Some levels can take 15-ish minutes, particularly in the later game, and it's really difficult to try and learn them when things keep changing. Given that you only get one chance to make it before you're just dead and need to start the whole level over, this leads to some levels dragging on FOREVER just because of one really annoying part in them. A quicksave feature, even if it needed to be unlocked with a cheat, would be a really nice ease-of-play option for games like this.

Verdict: Recommended. If you want a 2D top-down stealth game a bit like Party Hard but a bit more polished, then this is a good one to choose. It's not exactly reinventing the wheel for the genre or a stand-out stealth game on PC, but it's a fine entry even if it doesn't set the world on fire.

I love a good arcadey stealth puzzle game, it reminded me of Party Hard in a way but it wasn't quite as in depth (or frustrating). You have to sneak by guards and clean up blood, remove bodies, and remove evidence without a way to defend yourself. You can interact with the environment to move some objects or hide in certain spots to avoid them, and it is pretty forgiving which keeps you from getting annoyed when you fail as you use trial and error to solve the puzzle of each level. There is also a simple, but interesting, story told in between missions that doesn't overstay it's welcome. I also love the art style and music in the game, it has a great unique vibe.

The thing about this game is, it tries to be style over substance.
And although it harbours a fantastic presentation, it falls short where any game worth its salt should not fall short - being fun.

The game design at its core is very simple.
You find the bodies, clean up the blood and try not to get caught by the police patrolling the map.
This concept is good on paper, not so much in its execution.

The gameplay has a feel akin to a 2000's flash game.
What I mean by this is, the controls feel borderline clunky and the gameplay loop itself is very repetitive and although the game tries to change things up by introducing new mechanics, it never manages to change the formula enough to really capture and entrance.

There are also technical problems with the policemen's line of sight being twitchy and unpredicatable (in a stealth game, you need to telegraph these things properly to players!) as well as the hiding mechanic being straight up overpowered.
You can hide even if the police is right behind you and they will ignore it like they have no idea where you went one second ago.

Another problem is, the artstyle is very pretty, but it hinders the readability of the map as the colours make everything blend together and it's sometimes hard to see what is a passage, a movable object, etc.

Aside from these glaring problems, Serial Cleaner has a fantastic, pop-y artstyle and a jazzy, funky soundtrack that made the missions a lot more enjoyable to complete.