Game: Scrub Dudes
Genre: Casual, Indie, Simulation
System: Steam (Windows)
Developer | Publisher: Kekik in the Bag
Controller Support: None
Price: US $4.49 | UK £3.89 | EU €4,49
Release Date: March 5, 2026
Review code provided, with many thanks to Kekik in the Bag.
Scrub Dudes is a simulation title all about cleaning up homes. You are a penguin who uses your pet pug to powerwash homes, suck up trash, and get things sparkling.
Kekik in the Bag’s New Game
I was honored to be able to play Kekik in the Bag’s previous game, Racoon Cocoon, which I believe was the developer’s first title. It was super cute and fun, which made me excited to play Scrub Dudes.
Scrub Dudes is a cleaning simulation game, similar to Powerwash Simulator 2 or Cleaning Simulator. But instead of washing realistic buildings, you are cleaning up cardboard structures. The entire world seems to be made out of cardboard à la Paper Mario, and instead of grass textures, the ground has gingham pattered fabric.
To complete levels, you need to use your dog to powerwash surfaces, then use the dog’s vacuum function to pick up trash. Once you have collected enough trash, you can purchase upgrades for the location to complete the cleanup of the area.
The upper part of the screen contains the number of items that need to be repaired, how much trash you have collected out of the total trash in the level, and the percentage of the whole area that has been cleaned up. You have two different powerwashing heads: one with a wider coverage but not as powerful, and a more focused and powerful nozzle.
You clean in first-person mode, and you can climb, fly, jump, and run around in third-person mode. There is a scan function to help you find leftover dirt, which is a big help in completing the entire level.
The Pros and Cons of Scrub Dudes
Scrub Dudes is an adorable game with fun, hand-made levels. They are cutesy and simple without looking unprofessional or childish, and the cardboard homes and islands were a great touch. It looks beautiful in a very surreal way, and I love the weird aesthetic and the colorful backgrounds. I also loved the scanning feature to find trash, and how cute the penguin looks when he floats around, using his hat as a parachute.
The sound design was okay. The music is repetitive in a way that I like; it’s softly in the background and quickly becomes unnoticeable. Most of the sound effects are fine, but there are a few that stand out as exceptions. One of the big ones is the sound of the powerwashing water; it sounds like someone is just blowing into a microphone, and it is not a great sound. Thankfully, there is a slider bar both for controlling the volume of the sound effects and the music separately, so I could keep what I wanted to hear and tone down the rest.
Unfortunately, a couple of the sound effects were not included in the sound effect slider, and those were as loud as ever.
As someone who has played a whole lot of Powerwashing Simulator, I did notice a few key things missing from Scrub Dudes that would make it just as good as Powerwashing Simulator. I think the most important one would be to add the ability to lock the camera in first-person mode to the dog washer. While I am not one of them, I know a lot of people who feel ill if they play washing games without the camera lock feature for too long.
Another miss on Scrub Dude‘s part would be the lack of extra trash. The number of times I just wandered aimlessly around an island, looking for the one piece of trash I was missing, was kind of annoying. I think games like this benefit from having more of the object than you need; this way, you can complete the level without needing to complete it 100%.
This would go for the completion of cleaning tasks as well. In Powerwash Simulator, Contractville and House Flipper, you have the option to finish the level once you get to about 90%. The option to do that in Scrub Dudes would only make it better. And it could incentivize 100%ing the level with Steam achievements.
Conclusion
Overall, I had a whole lot of fun with Scrub Dudes. I like the concept; it’s pretty similar to Powerwash Sim, just as Racoon Cocoon was very similar to A Little to the Left. But also like Racoon Cocoon, Scrub Dudes seems to have duped something without knowing 100% what made the original great.
Final Verdict: I Like it.
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