I couldn't tell you what it is about games where you do seemingly mundane tasks or chores that appeals to people. But I'm one of those fiends who went gaga for PowerWash Simulator -- it's the perfect "turn your brain off and collect dopamine" experience. But of course, a new cleaning simulator fell into my lap: Cleaning Up! by Unbound Creations. If I'm honest, I booted it up with fairly neutral expectations. Then, I was pleasantly surprised by how much Cleaning Up! matched my freak. To a scary degree.

'Cleaning Up!' Is 'PowerWash Simulator' For Chaos Gremlins

Cleaning Up! wastes no time telling you what you're here for. There's a dirty-ass apartment, here's a broom and vacuum: get to cleaning. My first job was sucking up the deluge of debris in someone's apartment and dumping it in the trash. But what I didn't expect was a twin-stick shooter (cleaner?). You move with the left stick, but you aim with the right. You can jump to get to hard-to-reach objects, and switching between tools is as easy as tapping one button.

The adorable aesthetics will bring you in, but the relaxing music will keep you sucking and sweeping to your heart's content! With each completed job, you receive money for upgrades (and cosmetics -- at one point, I was a mime/witch hybrid). Now, all of this sounds par for the course in the genre on the surface. But what I've been keeping from you is the fact Cleaning Up! has two things that let me know it was targeting me.

1. A Star Rating System. Yes, you're being quietly graded on how well you do!
2. Level-Specific Challenges.

I had to clean a museum, but the twist was: I had to be careful not to break any of the institution's priceless vases. This means that the broom actually has a function where you need it to strategically sweep-'n-suck or risk losing money. And stars. Yes, I take those challenges very seriously.

Something, Something -- We Live In A Dystopia!

Cleaning Up! has a great sense of humor, too. But that's for you to discover -- jokes are hardly fun when you repeat them in articles. But I will give credit where it's due. Every tool matters. In similar games, you get a roster of tools and use, like, three of them. That was my fear when I started sucking willy-nilly while the broom collected dust. Silly me, though! There's grime you have to smack with the broom so that you can suck up the aftermath. In the demo, I also received a water spray, which allowed me to take care of dirty furniture that dared to enter my line of sight.

The spaces you clean are a little hot-in-the-crannies when you complete a job, too? No, I'm not going to explain. Play the Cleaning Up! demo and find out for yourself! The demo activated my obsessive cleaning demon, and that bodes well for the game's full release on April 15! The vibes? Great. We're eating (cleaning) well in this house! Wait, what the--

A Surprise 'Forbidden Solitaire' Enters The Fray!

Oh! An end-of-article boon! Yeah, I also had the chance to check out the demo for Forbidden Solitaire, an upcoming horror title where the main attraction is the classic card game, Solitaire. And it's a '90s-era dungeon crawler, complete with gloriously cheesy narration and cutscenes. Until something horrific appears onscreen and sends cold shivers down your spine, that is.

Forbidden Solitaire is published by Night Signal Entertainment, developed by Grey Alien Games, and has a deceptively simple hook: you decided to take a trip down memory lane and bought a 1995 CD-ROM game from a thrift store. There are very few remaining copies, so good for you! You boot up your computer, install Forbidden Solitaire, and begin! What starts as a goofy throwback becomes an unsettling, high-quality ode to early-internet creepypastas. Here, check out the opening cutscene:

This is from the Home Safety Hotline devs, and it's just as gloriously unhinged. Plus, the boss fight in the demo was somehow one of the most tense, nail-biting encounters I've had in quite some time. Go on, embrace the forbidden!