Monster Mop Up

Full disclosure: while we usually finish games before reviewing them here at So Many Games, I could not complete Monster Mop Up. This was partly my own fault: I kept struggling with motion sickness from the game – I’m famously terrible at first-person games because of this – even when I toggled the mouse sensitivity settings. This means I got way fewer hours in than I had hoped, so I won’t be able to rate the game at the end of this review.

I’m quite sad at not being able to play more of the game. Monster Mop Up is a cosier version of something like PowerWash Simulator or House Flipper, with the houses you are supposed to clean having been disturbed by actual monsters. At times, one of the first things you’ll have to do is capture said creatures before they can dirty the place up even more. Luckily, the Ragamuffins aren’t scary; rather, they’re adorable little creatures who just can’t help but poop all over the place. They’re quite lost in the human world, so capturing them is actually helping them return home.

After you’ve captured them in your traps – or just by using your hands – you can get around to cleaning up the place. At first, you’ll have nothing but a pair of gloves and a mop, but by mopping stains on the floors, walls and ceilings, and burning or flushing poop, you’ll quickly earn gear that will help make your life a bit easier. I’m pretty sure there are plenty of handy tools to use, but I never made it far enough in the game to write about those.

Aside from cleaning up the place, you also get to tidy things up. While cleaning, you’ll often have to move furniture out of the way, so it’s up to you to put those back to the best of your ability. You can even get creative with it, which is good exercise for when you want to decorate your own little place.

The buildings you get to clean range from tiny houses to hotels, and that’s where I met my first issue with the game, aside from the motion sickness. These levels can be enjoyed in solo play, but they seem like they were made for co-op fun, and I was playing by myself. If you really want to spend your time with the game solo, you can, and it’ll be a very relaxing and satisfying time indeed. But Monster Mop Up feels like it should be enjoyed with friends rather than on your own.

You could think of the game like PowerWash Simulator meets friend slop, where you’re just doing your thing together, teasing each other and having fun with the jank. Because yes, there is some jank to be found here too. It’s actually part of the charm of the game in some ways because you and your friends will cuss from time to time. But when you’re playing by yourself, there’s no sharing your frustrations, so the game can actually get a little, well, frustrating.

One of the major issues for that is the amount of bugs that are still left in the game. With some of them being game-breaking, it can get a little annoying at times. Then there’s the fact that none of the items in the house seem to bear any weight to them. Whenever you run into something, it will move along with you, without providing any kind of friction. This can be funny, but when you’ve spilt your bucket of water for the umpteenth time, you’re just left sighing and going back for yet another refill.

That said, there is a lot of fun to be had with Monster Mop Up. The spaces you get to clean are beautifully designed, and seeing a clean room after all of your hard work feels very rewarding. I can imagine the cleaning getting even more satisfying when you unlock your upgrades, as your mop does get dirty really quickly (and when it has collected enough dirt, it will spread that back onto the surface you’re trying to clean, undoing some of your hard work).

The Ragamuffins themselves are adorable, and catching them adds a small extra layer to the gameplay, although the cleaning will take up far more of your time. Decorating your own tiny space is also much fun, given the limited amount of experience I had with it.

It’s just a shame that the game doesn’t feel finished. Optimisation could be better, and the number of bugs I and many others experience keeps this from being the PowerWash Simulator competitor it could be. Had this been an early access release, I could’ve swept some of these shortcomings under the rug, but as it isn’t, it’s hard to look beyond these faults. I’d suggest keeping an eye on this game and seeing if it gets any updates to improve on the great base that’s already there. Or if you’re up for some janky times with your friends, jump in right now and see what the game is all about!

There is a gem of a game hiding beneath Monster Mop Up’s current version. Ironically, it could do with a bit of a polish to scrape away the dirt. When this game reaches its potential, it could be another hit for those who just like to do household chores and get satisfaction from a job well done. It’s just not quite there yet, sadly.