Moldwasher is a meditative arcade-style game where I played as a very small creature cleaning a regular home. The cleaning mechanic is addictive and so satisfying!
The Backstory of Moldwasher
To be honest, there’s not much of a backstory!! Moldwasher simply began with me, some small, undetermined life form, armed with a pressure washer. I was instructed to clean the mold off a door and then enter it. And the game began!! Easy peasy and a unique way to begin a game.
The Look and Feel of Moldwasher
The colors in the demo levels of Moldwasher were bright and cheerful. The rooms in the demo were rooms typically found in a house, which was cool. My little guy was indeed small, I always get a kick out of small people or creatures in regular-sized houses. Reminds me of one of my favorite books as a child, The Borrowers.
The soundtrack for Moldwasher was calm and peaceful. I enjoyed it a lot. And there was a great “ding” sound when I completely cleaned an object or area. It was quite satisfying to hear that sound and know I had succeeded! In some areas, the cleaning was broken up into multiple areas, which I preferred. For example, there was a coffee pot area where the coffee pot was one item, each of the 2 cups was an individual area and the counter was the 4th area. I found that arrangement much cozier than having to clean an entire area.
The Gameplay in Moldwasher
Moldwasher had a nice tutorial which walked me through each action I could take, one step at a time. I always appreciate that. First, I cleaned the door and entered the game. I was in a room that had a dirty map hanging on the wall and was instructed to clean the map. I did as instructed, turns out the map was of the kitchen with an icon telling me to go to the refrigerator. So I did. When I was in the kitchen and opened the fridge door, I saw mold and immediately began to remove it with my pressure washer. But there’s a catch!! The mold grew back (slowly, fortunately!) so I had to keep working and get every bit off before it had a chance to regrow totally! That was unexpected. Another thing that surprised me was when I paused the game (for example, to take notes for this article!), the mold continued to grow. So I’d advise you to pause only after completing a level but before starting a new one.
There was a bar in the top right corner of the screen which tracked my progress in cleaning. It started as a black line but got whiter as the area got cleaner. I found that very helpful in tracking how I was doing. You can see in the screenshot above that the map has been totally cleaned, so the bar is white.
Once the mold was cleaned, I was sent back to the map to choose another level. Also, after my first fridge cleaning job, I was paid for my service, and I was notified that the shop was now open. I went there and learned that’s where I could buy upgrades for my tools. So I made sure to buy a wider nozzle for my pressure washer so that I could clean a larger area at a time.
I found, as I played the demo, that I was not only cleaning mold. There was one level where I cleaned the side of a fridge; I had to remove a total of 12 stickers from it, and each one had its own meter to track my progress. There’s also a level in the demo for Moldwasher where I would have cleaned the crumbs from a microwave oven. I did not get enough money in my demo play to purchase the leaf blower to do this task, but it’s definitely possible to do so in the demo. I just play slow!
The next demo level was interesting; it was the freezer! The mold there looked icy, and I guess it was. There was also a teddy bear in the freezer. The Steam page hints that there are surprise items hidden all over the place! There was also a chicken leg, which made perfect sense! The mold on the freezer shelf had ice on top of it so there were two layers of gunk for me to remove, and I had to be careful that it did not grow back before I finished! I was glad I had purchased my new pressure washer nozzle; the wider opening helped me clear the mold more quickly.
Moldwasher has no day/night cycle, no need to sleep or eat. It’s very chill that way. The main goal was to clean, at least in the parts of the demo I played. I didn’t realize until too late that the demo does not save. I played about a half hour when I had to log off, and learned my progress didn’t save. No worries, I decided to play it again when I had more time and discovered even more of it than I did the first time. There’s quite a bit of complexity to what appears at first to be a simple cleaning game. If you play the demo, you should budget 30-45 minutes to complete it.
Hats off to Moldwasher’s Publisher
I ran into some questions after I played Moldwasher, plus I wanted to give the team some feedback so I reached out on Discord. The Publisher, Anshar, got back to me quickly and answered my questions. I’m always impressed with game devs and publishers who are very responsive to players. To me it indicates that they are committed to developing an excellent game and want to make sure the players have the best possible experience with it.
In particular, I was having trouble playing with my controller. I was assured that flawless controller support was the goa,l and they were hard at work taking care of that issue. So if you play the demo with a controller, be aware that it will definitely improve!
Final Thoughts
I was informed that Moldwasher was developed by a solo dev who also doubles as a pixel artist and musician. Anshar Publishing is a small team that specializes in indie games. I think they have produced a lovely and satisfying game for us.
There’s a lot more to this game than just cleaning things! If you like pressure washer/cleaning games, I think you’ll enjoy playing Moldwasher. There’s quite a bit more content in the demo that I did not touch on in this article. I left some things for you to discover for yourself! The demo is available now on Steam, and the full game will be released soon.
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