Clean Sweep News

[p][/p][p]Salutations, Sweepy Heads![/p][p][/p][p]We're back with another Clean Sweep Devlog! If this is your first time here and you don't know what Clean Sweep is, let us tell you!
[/p][p]Clean Sweep is a comedic 3D character action RPG where everyone in Cleanland is a personification of a real world cleaning product! As the Town Janitor you'll befriend the residents of Cleanland and team up with them to fight germs![/p][p]
This is Jess, the super awesome and epic creative director, art lead, chief distractor, and many, many, many other things.[/p][p][/p][h2]Progress[/h2][p][/p][h3]Programming[/h3][p]Guess who can sprint now? That's right, the Janitor! Cleanland's favorite first responder can now huff it across the overworld! But not yet. We haven't implemented it. But in the grand scheme of time and existence, soon![/p][p][/p][p]The programmers also babysat the writers through quest and route event implementation. Now, the writers have the power of knowledge, and the programmers have the power of… more time on their hands.
[/p][p]Nelson told me there was a lot of refactoring happening. And I'm not too sure what that means. But I can guess that the game will be better.[/p][p][/p][h3]Design [/h3][p]So. About that combat update… Combat is getting COMPLETELY revamped! Like, WAY more than originally planned! Unfortunately, that means we probably won't have anything to playtest in the near future. HOWEVER, we can strongly predict you'll have more fun with the new version! 
[/p][p]FAQ[/p][p]"Dearest cleansweepthegame devs, what changes are you planning for the new combat system?"
[/p][p]What a great question.[/p][p][/p][p]Here's our plan (or at least everything I'm at liberty to share):[/p][p][/p][p]Overworld Combat[/p][p]As a janitor, it didn't really make sense to have your only source of combat be through Janitor Jobs that are just available… all day… Now, combat will happen randomly throughout the map, and saving people LIVE will be how you make your dough!  Also, leveling up will happen in-world.[/p][p][/p][p]The Newer and Cooler Janitor Jobs[/p][p]Janitor Jobs will still exist in Town Hall, BUT, they'll be catered, carefully designed challenges built to test your mettle. They'll be fixed at a certain level and will still rotate. You can replay jobs for the same rewards, but they'll be marked as completed after you beat them the first time (for all our completionist gamers out there).[/p][p][/p][p]Cleanland > Clean Lands[/p][p]A seamless world of Cleanland (except for interiors probably), no more loading screens! Just one big ol' Cleanland![/p][p][/p][p]Combat Prep… On that Damn Phone[/p][p]If you weren't already addicted to delicious screen time and Instagram reels, now you can be in Clean Sweep too! On your phone, you can now preload items and preselect party loadouts for when you enter combat. You can run away from combat (but you won't get rewards). If you fight to the bitter end and get KO'd, you will get half of the FXP you earned from killing the germs, and… they might rob you. 😳[/p][p][/p][p]Germs![/p][p]More germs! Quirkier germs! BETTER germs!
[/p][p]It'll be an exciting new direction to pivot our combat system, and we hope Sweepyhead Nation enjoys it![/p][p][/p][h3]Animation[/h3][p]Remember how we said last devlog that we were prepping for motion capture recording? Well, happy to report that we started off the month strong with a MASSIVE MOCAP L. And y'know what? We're OVER IT!! After being burned one too many times by evil mocap suit sensors, finicky software, and the general powers that be, we're shifting to hand animation! Eat it, mocap.[/p][p][/p][h3]Audio[/h3][p]Ironically, things have been mostly quiet in Audio World, but our composer has been cooking up some straight heat! We've got another awesome combat track to get your sweep on to! Be ready to get your groove on. 😎[/p][h3]
Art[/h3][p]2D item sprite production is back underway! Abi's currently working on the Wipe Flushin' and Jenny is cookin' up some Lintguini. Here's a quick peak at some of Abi's awesome thumbnails. For those unfamiliar, thumbnailing is a part of the art pipeline where artists create a bunch of sketches to ideate around a visual concept, or in our case, based off of the item description and photo reference. It gives artists the opportunity to get creative and think about different ways something can be designed or visually represented.[/p][p][/p][p]Wipe Flushin' thumbnails by Abi Laure[/p][p][/p][p]Can you guess which one we picked? 
[/p][p]New props are coming in hot! Our 3D environmental artists are finishing up props for The Periodic Table and The Experimental Bar… two locations that are full-game exclusive. You'll unfortunately have to hold your breath on that for a little while longer, but know that we're hard at work in the meantime. 
[/p][p]In my humble Art Lead opinion… I think there's some dissonance with the characters and the environment, especially in the texture department (I can say this without hurting anyone's feelings because I sped textured like 90% of the environment to get it out for the demo). I want a game environment that we can all be happy with! And with that, comes the Era of Experimentation – we need to diagnose what's breaking the visual cohesion and bring out the personality of the world. Our first attempt at ameliorating the issue will be a style test on the environment and props with handpainted textures. Stay tuned for how it goes![/p][p]
Also… I made the devlog image :D we love Olive knowing how inefficiently I do things knowledge.[/p][h3]
Writing[/h3][p]Cleanland's infamous Wedditor has once again been a big topic of discussion in the writing meetings. I mean, how can he not be? Writing for Vinny's quest arc… has begun. Expect twists! Turns! Curveballs beyond your wildest dreams! And most of all… expect Vinny.[/p][p][/p][p]As I mentioned earlier, we learned how to implement quests and route events in engine! We now are MASTERS of the flow nodes Change Camera and Change Location and Change Camera and Location… and so on and so forth. 
[/p][h3]Production[/h3][p]It was a dark Tuesday night. A cold wind howled through the November sky… Something… was amiss. Perhaps, perchance, for a long, long time… The producers (and creative director) called in an Emergency Meeting to address the elephant in the room. [/p][p][/p][p]The game… is not fun.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]CLEAN SWEEP IS NOT FUN!! Who wants to play a game that's not fun?! NO ONE!
[/p][p]And while we've made our new literal game plan (see design section), we want YOU (yes, you!) to tell us WHY Clean Sweep isn't fun! I promise we can take the feedback. Hurt our feelings. It will make us stronger. Find it here: [/p][p]https://forms.gle/7B8Z6sEsEUXyWHcE9
[/p][p]In other news, we did not get into Boston Fig, but we got a lot of helpful notes to help us identify areas of improvement!
[/p][p]In OTHER other news, we did get into a review program with game designer Alice Winters! We're looking forward to sharing the game with her, and we're excited to get her valuable feedback.
[/p][h2]Thanksgiving[/h2][p]We gave thanks! And took a lil breakypoo. Us devs want to share… that we're thankful for everyone in Sweepyhead Nation. Dev Corner[/h2][p]Welcome to the Developer Corner! This is a space where we ask the developers of Clean Sweep a question. With the the holidays on the horizon:
[/p][p]What's the number one gift you're hoping SC Jenkins Scenta Claus will leave under your Cleansmas tree?
[/p][p]Jess[/p][p]As much as I would love to say a job and an apartment, I have a feeling SC's I mean Scenta Claus' pockets don't run that deep, so… let's just go with holiday cheer, and a few extra Sweepybucks for good behavior.[/p][p][/p][p]Renee[/p][p]World peace. 🙂‍↕️🫶🙌[/p][p][/p][p]Nelson[/p][p]A desk 😔[/p][p][/p][h2]Assoapciate of the Month[/h2][p]Our assoapciate of the month is… drum roll please… (badabadabadabadabada BA): Abi Laure!
[/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hi!! I'm Abi Laure and I'm an illustrator who does the item sprites!! I looveee drawing food and drinks and currently discovering the beauty of Stardew Valley! 🐬 🌈[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]A pressure washer is calling to me....for sure can't use that inside tho.[/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat? [/p][p]Contaminut Shrimp!
[/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]Peach :D I think they're neat.[/p][p][/p][h2]Thank You[/h2][p]Thank you for reading! You can find devlog updates on our steam page or on itch.io. If you want to follow along with our game, check us out on our socials below.[/p][p]
Discord, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube[/p]

[p][/p][p]Hello Sweepy Heads![/p][p][/p][p]We're back from break with another Clean Sweep Devlog! If this is your first time here and you don't know what Clean Sweep is, let us tell you![/p][p][/p][p]Clean Sweep is a comedic 3D character action RPG where everyone in Cleanland is a personification of a real world cleaning product! As the Town Janitor you'll befriend the residents of Cleanland and team up with them to fight germs![/p][p][/p][p]This is Renee, producer and lead narrative designer. Welcome to this ~spooky~ Hallowclean edition of the Clean Sweep Devlog! We were only in production for half of October, so this one's going to be on the shorter side. [/p][p][/p][p]Come on, let me show you around. [/p][p][/p][h2]Progress [/h2][p][/p][h3]Programming [/h3][p]Our programmers have been updating the event system and are working on the first of three playtesting builds for the upcoming combat update! Yipee! [/p][p][/p][p]Speaking of the combat update… We want to hear your thoughts on our combat: the good, the bad, and the ~spooky~. Join our discord server to become a playester! [/p][p][/p][p]Nelson is tired every day. [/p][p][/p][h3]Design [/h3][p]The design team has also been working on the combat update, but their primary focus as of late has been preparing for motion capture recording in early November. We've attempted mocap recordings before and have always been hit with technical difficulties. Hopefully this time we'll actually be able to capture some motion. Wish us luck… Patrick Luck. [/p][p][/p][h3]Animation[/h3][p]Speaking of Patrick Luck, as this is the Hallowclean addition, our lead animator has provided a ~spooky~ behind the scenes look into the world of technical art![/p][p][/p][p] ​​[/p][p]Taken while skinning Charming (making the model animate and deform nicely).[/p][p]​[/p][p][/p][p]Soap’s skeleton escaped![/p][p]​[/p][p]​​​​[/p][p]Lysa dressed up as a biblically accurate angel. Or in our case, a concerning looking Assoapciate. [/p][p]​[/p][p][/p][p]Roxy dressed as a ghost. She’s in the scene, I swear, she’s just really good.[/p][h3]Audio[/h3][p]And now presenting: screams and strangeness from the voice acting vault! If you've ever wondered what our characters sound like, here's a sneak peak. [/p][p][/p][p]This VA was recorded over a year ago and was so much fun to revisit. Huge shout out to our amazing voice actors. VA recording has truly been one of the ~spookiest~ undertakings of this project. [/p][p][/p][h3]Writing[/h3][p]The writing team got back into the swing of things with a focus on quests. Before the break we made a list of quests and outlined all of them… except for one… Vinny's arc. We dedicated a meeting to finalizing the outlines for Vinny's quests (yes, that is quests with an 's'), so if all goes well, the people will be blessed with more Vinny content.    [/p][p][/p][p]Important cleanified words update: [/p]

• [p]Pumpkin is scumkin[/p]
• [p]Lumpia is loofpia[/p]
• [p]Lobster is lobscour [/p]

[p][/p][h3]Art[/h3][p]Take a look at that beautiful devlog cover image! Writing picked out Hallowclean costumes for the playable characters and art brought the party to life!  [/p][p] [/p][p]Cleanland's Hallowclean Costumes 2025:[/p]

• [p]Cain: Werewolf[/p]
• [p]Charming: Good witch[/p]
• [p]Lysa: Existential dread[/p]
• [p]Mr. Tidy:
• No costume*[/p]
• [p]Roxi: Scrubbert [/p]
• [p]Shawn: Loofpia[/p]
• [p]Soap: A prince[/p]
• [p]Vic: Pirate (sexy)[/p]
• [p]Windy: Scumkin [/p]

[p][/p][p]We initially considered having Shawn go as Scrubbert for Hallowclean. While that honor ultimately went to Roxi…[/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Who wore it better?[/p][p][/p][h3]Production[/h3][p]The studio heads actually came back a bit early from break to submit Clean Sweep to Boston FIG. Wish us luck![/p][p]… Patrick Luck. [/p][p][/p][p]Production has also made the incredibly exciting decision to use our google calendar instead of an excel spreadsheet calendar. Very riveting stuff.[/p][p][/p][p]In other news, we have two new Assoapciates! Well, one new and one returning! Jeff Chen is our new 3D environmental artist and Cam Prats is coming back to our tech art department to work on animation, 2D and 3D VFX. We're always looking to add more talent to the team, so if you're interested, submit an application using this form.  [/p][p][/p][p]To end the progress update, I'm giving a final reminder to join our discord server and become a playtester, AKA tell us everything that's wrong with our combat… and maybe sprinkle in a compliment or two. [/p][p]It's fine if you don't want to, I'd just be a lot cooler if you did.  [/p][p][/p][h2]Dev Corner[/h2][p]BOO![/p][p][/p][h2]Assoapciate of the Month[/h2][p]I am very pleased to introduce our Assoapciate of the month: Mia Mueting! [/p][p][/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hi I'm Mia and I work as a Programmer and Play tester for Clean Sweep.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]I would clean with a disinfectant spray if I were a janitor.[/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat? [/p][p]I would like to eat the Chocolint Volcano Sudcake.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]I would be a blueberry.[/p][p][/p][h2]Thank You[/h2][p]Thank you for reading this ~spooky~ edition of the Clean Sweep Devlog! You can find devlog updates on our steam page or on itch.io. If you want to follow along with our game, check us out on our socials below.[/p][p][/p][p]Discord, Instagram, TikTok, X, YouTube[/p]

[p][/p][p]Hey Sweepy Heads![/p][p][/p][p]We're back with another Clean Sweep Devlog! If this is your first time here and you don't know what Clean Sweep is, let me tell you![/p][p][/p][p]Clean Sweep is a comedic 3D character action RPG where everyone in Cleanland is a personification of a real world cleaning product! As the Town Janitor you'll befriend the residents of Cleanland and team up with them to fight germs![/p][p][/p][p]This is Nelson, the lead programmer, once again writing the Devlog! With that said, we have some news… We are going on break![/p][p][/p][h2]Break[/h2][p]You might be asking, why right after starting the dev log? Trust me, we asked the same lol. Truthfully, we've been working on Clean Sweep all the way back in June 2023, and since starting the project, we have not taken a single, long break. As a small team working nonstop for over 2 years, we've become very burnt out, which might be an understatement. After putting on more responsibilities for the team, like a devlog, it became evident that we all need a break. Everyone has put in some insane efforts these past 2 years, and they deserve to rest.[/p][p][/p][p]Our break is from now until October 14th. We're taking 2 full months off so when we come back we can jump right back in and continue with our update plans. Speaking of…[/p][p][/p][h2]Update Progress[/h2][p]We have been working on the Combat update and various other parts of the project so let's dive right into it![/p][p][/p][h3]Combat & Animation[/h3][p]We've reworked and are actively reworking some of the moves including:[/p]

• [p]Janitor's Hold Standard[/p]
  • [p]It now bounces between enemies and flies more linearly on the initial throw (check the video below!). We also fixed bugs with the broom either not throwing or remaining visible in your hand when thrown.[/p]
• [p]Janitor's Special[/p]
  • [p]It hasn't been finished yet, but we are fixing the vortex drawing in enemies to be less… violent on lower frame rates as well as rebalance the damage[/p]
• [p]Soap's Passive[/p]
  • [p]You retain some slipperiness on swap now! When swapping off of Soap, it does drain slightly though. Enjoy slipping and sliding a lot more often[/p]
• [p]Charming's Hold Standard[/p]
  • [p]It now has a minimum charge time[/p]
• [p]Revives[/p]
  • [p]They actually work now! They aren't fully done yet, but they're almost done.[/p]
• [p]Hitboxes[/p]
  • [p]They got a lot better internally! Knockback should be a little better and attacks overall are getting slightly modified[/p]
• [p]Germs[/p]
  • [p]We've fixed some bugs on the germ AI including them not attacking you if they spawn inside of you. We've still got more to fix and big reworks coming later in the update[/p]

[p][/p][previewyoutube][/previewyoutube][p]Do note that everything shown in the video is subject to change.[/p][p][/p][p]We've also added some new combat animations which can be seen above and are rebalancing a lot of the game. Additional combat plans include doing mocap! We have a mocap session planned for some time in August. We've made SEVERAL attempts of trying to record mocap and got hit with so many technical issues so please wish us luck… Patrick Luck (He's our lead animator)! If everything goes well then adding a new character may be a lot sooner than expected…![/p][p][/p][p]Last thing! We're doing some playtesting! The initial update in the Combat update is almost ready for playtesting. If you'd like to be part of this, please join our discord! Official information about joining will be sent out a bit after we're on break. All that's left for us to do is some more balancing, finish off the initial reworks, and then we should be ready to playtest. [/p][p][/p][h3]Audio[/h3][p]We had a meeting with Diego Somoza (@diegosomoza.music on instagram) who gave us some great music advice. [/p][p][/p][p]We also had our fantastic composer cooking it up in the studio with a new combat song. You can hear a preview of it in the combat video! The bassline goes hard af. He also made a mansion investigation theme. You can expect these in the new update.[/p][p][/p][h3]Art[/h3][p]The Mansion Level 2 rework is currently in the works. It's unknown if it will make it into the Combat Update itself, but the level is in the process of being remodeled.[/p][p][/p][p]We've also got some images of the new item sprites our item team is cheffing up. Here's a few of them:[/p][p][/p][carousel][/carousel][p]Don't those look scrumptious?[/p][p][/p][p]Finally, the tech art team has been reskinning Charming so we'll hopefully have our favorite barista-powerhouse be a lot less collapsed when attacking.[/p][p][/p][h2]Developer Corner[/h2][p]Welcome to the Developer Corner! This is a space where we ask the developers of Clean Sweep a question. With the break coming up:[/p][h3]What are you most excited about doing during break?[/h3][p]​Nelson[/p][p]​I am very excited to start working on some personal projects![/p][p]​Jess[/p][p]​Working only ONE job instead of two! But mostly working on personal projects LMAO[/p][p]​Renee[/p][p]​Working on clean sweep.[/p][p]Isn't it funny how all of our break time is going to be spent on working on something else? We really are a team of workaholics, lol. This has been your dev corner![/p][p][/p][h2]Assoapciate of the Month[/h2][p]As mentioned in our Devlog 00, we've had a very large number of Assoapciates work on the game. We wanted to highlight one of them every month to give you a little more background on who they are and what they do on the team. Our current Assoapciate of the month is Ethan Chau! He works on our writing team and is our longest serving Assoapciate to date. He currently is the main writer for Shawn and has written a lot of dialogue and quests. He's also our voice actor for someone who isn't out yet, so you'll just have to cope until you hear his stellar performance :)[/p][p]
[/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hey y'all, I'm Ethan! I'm a writer who also isn't very good at spelling (Renee and I make a great team). I work with Fifty Birds as well on Sincerely, Robin!
[/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]A sword and parrying dagger but the blades are those barbed drain snakes. I think that would be cool. And useful. I have long hair that gets stuck in the drain.
[/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat? [/p][p]Buffalo chicklint wings, for sure. I love buffalo chicklint. Mmmmmmmmmm.
[/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]Longan. My family buys longan often, but I couldn't eat it growing up because it irritated my bad asthma. But now that I've outgrown the asthma, I love it. Also it's part of the soapberry family! (haha get it?)[/p][p][/p][h2]Thank You[/h2][p]Thank you for reading our double oh one-th devlog! We'll be back with our next one after the break. You can find our dev log updates on our steam page or on itch! If you want to follow along with our game, check us out on our socials below![/p][p][/p][p]
Instagram, Tiktok, X, YouTube, Discord[/p]

[p][/p][p][/p][p]Hey Sweepy Heads![/p][p]With the launch of our demo and our first big update, we’ve decided to start a Dev Log! If this is your first time here and you don't know what Clean Sweep is, let me tell you![/p][p]Clean Sweep is a comedic 3D character action RPG where everyone in Cleanland is a personification of a real world cleaning product! As the Town Janitor you'll befriend the residents of Cleanland and team up with them to fight germs![/p][p]We’ve been working hard to develop new content for Clean Sweep behind the scenes but we wanted to open up a bit more and share what is actually getting done. But first, you may be wondering, who is even making Clean Sweep? Well, let's introduce them![/p][p][/p][h2]Meet the Lead Devs[/h2][h3]Nelson[/h3][p]Producer, Programming Lead, Implementation Lead, Design Lead, QA Lead, Writer, Voice Actor, and more! (I'm writing this dev log!)[/p][p][/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hello! My name is Nelson Pires Jr., a programmer based in Boston, Massachusetts.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]Definitely a toilet brush. [/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat? [/p][p]If I had to pick a drink, GEEEEEERRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM! I need the energy to program the game…[/p][p]If I had to pick a food, the Chocolint Volcano Sudcake is definitely the most scrumptious looking.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]I would be an Apple. Mainly because I love apples. (I used to have an apple dealer in college)[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Jess[/h3][p]Creative Director, Design Lead, 3D Character Art Lead, 2D/UI Art Lead, Audio Lead, Concept Art Lead, 3D Environmental Art Lead, Writer, Voice Actor, and more![/p][p][/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hey there! I'm Jess Liano, a 3D/2D artist from the wild and uncharted suburbs of Connecticut.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]A GIANT ball and chain flail… except the ball portion is a giant weaponized soapy sponge. Just so I can feel strong, pick up something heavy, and spin around in circles. And when it hits germs? Massive splash action. [/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat? [/p][p]If I wasn't allergic to cranberry, I'd go for the beloved Podka Cleanberry… but I GOTTA go with the Soake Bowl, gluten free of course. #CeliacDiseaseRepresentationInMedia[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be? [/p][p]I'd definitely be an orange. I'm pretty zany and outgoing, and to me, oranges have that type of kooky extrovert vibe. I feel like oranges have a type of quirked up ZING that I bring to the function.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Renee[/h3][p]Producer, Narrative Design Lead, and more![/p][p][/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hi, I'm Renee. I produce and I'm a writer who isn't very good at spelling. [/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?[/p][p]A wet floor sign. It's not really a cleaning tool, but you could use it like a shield and I think it would be fun to wack germs with. [/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?[/p][p]The chicklint tendies. They look so good. [/p][p][/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]A plum.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h3]Patrick[/h3][p]Technical Art Lead, Animation Lead[/p][p][/p][p]Introduce yourself![/p][p]Hi there! My name’s Patrick Luck. I’m a graduate student at WPI in Worcester.[/p][p][/p][p]If you were a janitor, what would you clean with? [/p][p]A pressure washer. Ideally with a comically sized water tank backpack and some big nerdy goggles to go with it. Long range and very satisfying to use.[/p][p][/p][p]What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?[/p][p]I feel obliged to choose the Clora Cola due to my infamous soda addiction. Also, I like that it’s blue, so that’s an added plus![/p][p][/p][p]If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?[/p][p]I looked it up. Technically, peppers count as fruits. So I’d be a colorful pepper of some kind, like a jalapeno! Perhaps it’d be a bit overpowered, but I’d like to be a ghost pepper if possible though. I like-a-the spice![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Aside from our current lead devs, we’ve also had a VERY LARGE number of Assoapciates throughout the years who’ve helped us along the way as well as countless voice actors. Definitely check out the credits on the main menu screen in game to see everyone who's worked on the game so far! There’s a lot of work that’s already been put into the game and we have way more that’s planned. Speaking of plans, let’s talk about them![/p][p]We’ve got a general roadmap for our next couple of updates with work being done in the background to ensure we can keep delivering new and fresh content.[/p][p][/p][p][/p][h2]The Clean Sweep Update Future[/h2][h3]The Combat Update[/h3][p]Our first big update is the combat update! The combat update involves, well, combat. We're planning a lot for this update including:[/p]

• [p]Reworking moves[/p]
• [p]Readjusting stats[/p]
• [p]Balancing[/p]
• [p]Adding more germs[/p]
• [p]More Janitor Jobs & Mission Goals[/p]
• [p]And more![/p]

[p]And if you're extra good, maaaaybe we will add another character??!! We shall see. We'll be sharing more information and new changes as they come in.[/p][p][/p][h3]The NPC Update[/h3][p]Ah, yes. The NPC update. This and below are gonna be a bit vague as we are still planning out the details, but the NPC update will be mainly focused on spicing up our world! We plan on doing a lot including:[/p]

• [p]Adding more animations to NPCs (no more sliding! No more standing around!)[/p]
• [p]Expanding the Quest System which includes[/p]
  • [p]Adding more quests![/p]
  • [p]Adding more quest types![/p]
  • [p]More branching pathways![/p]
  • [p]More events![/p]
  • [p]Adding quest location markers![/p]
• [p]New dialogue[/p]
• [p]World Dialogue Voice Acting Barks[/p]
  • [p]This may get moved back to the audio update, time depending[/p]
• [p]New character route events[/p]
• [p]And more![/p]

[p]Unfortunately, no new characters. We will continue to gatekeep the rest of them >:) Buuuut we may share some of the new NPCs that will be coming to Cleanland so stay tuned![/p][p][/p][h3]The UI Update[/h3][p]We're gonna be slapping a fresh new coat of paint on all of our existing UI. It's also always been our goal to make our game completely controller navigable! We're gonna be cleaning up a lot of the UI screens to hopefully make that a reality. Currently the game mostly works with controller. Definitely give it a try (it's the ideal way to play btw)![/p][p]We're going to be redoing a lot of UI flow, adding new sprites, and making our game look so so polished. If you have any feedback about our current UI, especially on hard to read screens, please let us know on our Discord's Feedback channel! And don't worry, the Janitor Job selection screen will be getting changed in the combat update. Even we have a hard time going through it lol.[/p][p][/p][h3]The Audio Update[/h3][p]Did you know that audio is ⅓ of the player experience? We do! We've already gotten some amazing work done by members of the audio team, including balanced voice acting, sfx, and music. We hope to continue creating new sounds and try to enhance our world even more! We'll be aiming to add new tracks, ambient sounds, and sfx to everything from combat to UI. Keep your ears sharp for this update![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]Aaand that just about wraps it up for our major goals. We've decided going forward to make more focused updates so that we aren't spread thin on every aspect of the project all at once. This should hopefully help us get more content out to you![/p][p]And since I'm the programmer, this roadmap is basically what I'm gonna be doing for the next while, alongside some framework updates and fixing bugs. I'm gonna let the rest of the devs take you through their individual plans for the coming months. [/p][p][/p][h3]Department Goals[/h3][p]Writing[/p]

• [p]Creating more quests! We're prioritizing quests that focus on NPC character development, but we'll make sure to get silly goofy stuff in there too.[/p]
• [p]Editing elements of the main story (Some stuff was written two years ago. As you can imagine, things have changed a bit since then).[/p]
• [p]Implementing more character routes. Current status: 8.5/63. [/p]
• [p]Sifting through the
• *many hours** of voice recordings (shoutout to our voice actors!!!
• [p]Writing more editions of the Cleanland Chronicle! [/p]
• [p]Updating the Clean Sweep wiki (yes, there's a wiki).[/p]

[p]Art[/p]

• [p]MANSION EXPANSION! The Environments team is hard at work designing the level layout and assets for your Mansion of Mystery. Next up: The Laundry Room. Have you ever forgotten to do your laundry and realized you're out of underwear? Well... that's just a glimpse into the EVIL SICK AND TWISTED vibe you can expect from level 2.[/p]

• [p]In The Shadows, Kseniia and I are also working on completely NEW environments and renovations of current ones... full game exclusive, though, so you'll have to hold your breath until then (BAD IDEA BAD IDEA).[/p]
• [p]On that, optimization has plagued us from the dawn of time, so we're planning to, well, optimize! From all things meshes to textures to collisions. Is it riveting? No. Is it necessary? You bet your bottom Sweepybuck.[/p]
• [p]Updating Windy!!!! I initially modeled and designed Windy TWO YEARS AGO when I barely knew how to 3D model, so our beloved antisocial gamer needed a very necessary upgrade. It's in progress... it's cooking as we speak... In this house, we love Windy.[/p]
• [p]Gatekeeping I mean finishing the full-game exclusive characters (THAT'S RIGHT. THERE'S MORE. THERE'S MORE AND WE'RE HOARDING THEM. WE'RE HOARDING THEM AND YOU HAD NO IDEA.)[/p]
• [p]The item machine keeps chugging along! We have SOSOSOSOSO MANY items in Clean Sweep and you're morally obligated to use them all! Otherwise our 2D item sprite artists Abi and Jenny will be sad. Don't make Abi and Jenny sad. :(((([/p]
• [p]I also gotta get cracking on some sprite expressions! These characters have... character! They won't be mogging you with their neutral expressions forever. Some characters will be getting entirely new base sprites too! And that's on? Style discovery and improvement. But which characters will be getting makeovers? Guess you'll just have to wait and see ;3[/p]

[p]Technical Art[/p]

• [p]MOCAP! We’re working on recording motion capture animations for the myriad of characters we have.[/p]
• [p]We’re also working on skinning characters and making sure they are properly rigged up for animating.[/p]

[p] [/p][p]Thank you for reading our zeroth dev log! Our first devlog will be posted at the beginning of August. You can find our dev log updates on our steam page or on itch! If you want to follow along with our game, check us out on our socials below![/p][p][/p][p]Instagram, Tiktok, X, YouTube, Discord[/p]

[p]Fixed:[/p]

• [p]The prompt to start Mansion level 1 combat not reappearing after choosing to not start the combat[/p]
• [p]Mansion level 1 not allowing you to leave after completing combat[/p]

[p][/p][p]If you encounter more bugs, please report them in our discord server![/p]