Game: Clean Start
Genre: Casual, Simulation, Indie
System: Steam (Windows, macOS, SteamOS + Linux)
Developers | Publishers: Serious Sim | Amplified Games, TrueColor Games
Steam Deck: Playable
Controller Support: Yes
Price: US $TBC | UK £TBC | EU € TBC
Release Date: November 5th, 2026
A review code was provided; many thanks to Noisy Communications.
Clean Start is a cleaning simulation game with visual novel elements, developed by Serious Sim and released by Amplified Games and TrueColor Games.
The Premise of Clean Start
In Clean Start, we start our story in the 1990s, after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the opening of the borders. Many people from Central and Eastern Europe try their luck in the West for a better future. Lena has recently moved as well; she doesn’t know the language well, but she has family there that will help. To make ends meet, Lena starts working as a cleaner, taking cleaning jobs around town. As time passes, she meets new friends and learns to overcome the obstacles in her way.
Gameplay
Clean Start is, at its core, a point-and-click game, so we use the mouse and keyboard, though the game also supports controllers. Each job involves cleaning – picking up trash and dusting mostly and then we have some decluttering to do. As we work, we will move objects around the house and put them in their places or trash them altogether. Some of the clients will ask us to keep certain objects, and we will have to keep an eye out for them.
There’s also a puzzling element, since some of the items we need to keep will not be obvious. Since Lena isn’t fluent in the language, the developers have found an interesting way to translate this confusion for the player by using nonsense words to describe the items. We will need to look around, read, and make connections to decipher what these nonsense words actually mean.
Clean Start is a classic cozy game, with no timers or grades. The game has a very well-working hint system; if you get stuck, it highlights in purple something that needs to be moved. We also have a list of the tasks we need to complete on the right hand-side of the screen. You also don’t need to worry about money. While Lena obviously doesn’t have it easy, Clean Start doesn’t ask us to make any financial decisions. Despite the talk about rent at the beginning of the game, we aren’t asked to set aside money for it or for anything else in the future. The soundtrack is also very pleasant, and the game ends happily.
While fulfilling jobs, we also collect quite a few trinkets from our clients, and we can use them to decorate our living space. The game has no in-game store or upgrade options, so these little gifts are the closest we have to decorations. A lot of items in the game are interactable- we can switch lights on and off, and we can pet animals. The game encourages you to click everything to discover something new.
Gameplay-wise, Clean Start is not especially innovative – the idea of telling a story through the items we sort has already been used from Unpacking to Momento and A Storied Life: Tabitha. What I found unique was the emotional depth of the stories. In this, Clean Start excels. The 1990s were a difficult period for many people in Central and Eastern Europe, and immigration to the West felt like the only viable choice. On top of being separated from family and friends, many of these people were faced with uncertainty over immigration status and unfamiliarity with the languages. And it might sound ridiculous, but many everyday conveniences that people in the West were used to by the 1990s were completely unknown to people from ex-communist countries. In the game, the protagonist, Lena, is amazed by a toaster; this isn’t an exaggeration, but a sad fact for many people from the Soviet bloc. Other Western-made items were either impossibly expensive, hard to find, or simply too dangerous to have at home, such as Western music, jeans, and so on. So, for someone like Lena, coming to the West might’ve felt not unlike going to Mars.
Clean Start offers a brief but true glimpse of the immigrant experience, and while the game is set in the 1990s, it remains relevant to what many people still experience today as immigrants in every corner of the world. It’s never easy to leave home and your family behind. It doesn’t feel as final today because of the technological progress we’ve made – we can talk to family and friends at any moment thanks to the internet. But just 15 years ago, for many people, big data packets that allowed such contacts were too expensive. And about 30 years before that, all we could rely on were weekly phone calls. Clean Start‘s characters and their stories feel true and real. Some topics are a little sensitive, such as tidying up a room after a person’s death, but the developers handle these moments with sensitivity and empathy.
I really like games like Clean Start – games that make you feel things while teaching you about the world and humanity. I really like that it makes us look at a part of history that doesn’t get mentioned enough, and certainly not from the viewpoint of people coming from the ex-communist states – the difficulties they experienced while living behind the Iron Curtain and the obstacles they had to overcome after the borders opened. Still, it’s important to note that while the game mentions those things, it’s not a political game, and it’s not about politics. In fact, it is about whatever you like – it can be just a cleaning game about making human connections.
Some Other Things
Clean Start has the usual audio and video settings. The game has Steam achievements, but no Trading cards. It’s also a relatively short, though very satisfying, experience. It took me about 3 hours to complete the story, and I plan on revisiting it soon.
Conclusion
I admit I had no idea what to expect from Clean Start. I tried the demo, liked the game’s style and easy controls, and that was it, more or less. I certainly wasn’t expecting the way the game would move me emotionally or hook me from the beginning, not unlike a very good book. I dare say it is one of my absolute favorite releases of this year. If you like narrative-rich games and cleaning and tidying up games, Clean Start might just be the game for you.
Final Verdict: Two Thumbs Up: 
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