Clean Sweep News

[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]

[p][/p][p]Hey Sweepy Heads![/p][p][/p][p]We've been working hard to bring you new features and content for the Clean Sweep Demo! Here's a list of everything we've added![/p]

• [p]Leveling System[/p]
• [p]Main Story Level 1[/p]
• [p]Soap's First Event[/p]
• [p]Environment Interactions[/p]
• [p]New Music[/p]
• [p]A New Quest[/p]
• [p]New Dialogue[/p]
• [p]A Ton of Bug Fixes[/p]
• [p]and more![/p]

[p][/p][p]Thank you to everyone who's played the game so far! We could not have done this without you. We hope that you enjoy the current and future Clean Sweep content![/p][p][/p][p][/p][p]There is a known bug where after completing the first level of the Main Story, you can't exit the Dining Room. If you find yourself unable to exit after Beau gives the okay to leave, use the home button on your cellphone to return to the entrance of the mansion and continue with your day. [/p][p]We're working hard to fix this and any other bugs you may encounter![/p][p][/p][p]Make sure to join our Discord and follow us on our socials![/p]

Hello Sweepyheads!

From Thursday to Sunday, Clean Sweep is going to be at PAX East! Stop by to get a taste of what's to come for the future of Clean Sweep! We're at booth 10032 on the left hand side of the expo floor showcasing with the WPI booth. We’ll be featured alongside other amazing games that are all worth checking out. We'd love to see you there!



In other news, an update will be coming soon with new content, a ton of bug fixes, and a bunch of cleaning fun! We're very excited to share everything with you soon!