The Cleaner

When will it be my turn to live in an apocalypse and discover that life is short and find my romantic other half who will destroy me? When it is MY turn? This is a visual novel through and through with a handful of simple to do mini games. The simplest mini game being clicking the space bar quickly to fill up another bar, with the most difficult being a series of button prompts that increase in complexity with a shorter period of time to finish them. There is no punishment for failing the mini-games. If you're looking for engaging game-play, this is not the game for you. Really enjoyed the story, as convoluted as it ends up being, mainly because the chemistry built between our two leads is phenomenal. They each have their own pretty strong personalities in being polar opposites of each other. Finding comfort in one another because of and in spite of the end of humanity. My only con in this game comes from the spritework. This isn't about how the sprites don't have much variation, but with the animations. In some very well written scenes, I'm completely taken out and have to laugh because of how quickly actions happen. Single frame animations that are so quick that it honestly makes the actions the characters are taking look like they've been burned and are jumping back from the flame. Doesn't help when the animations are seemingly only used in strong moments of character bonding. Takes me out of it when The Cleaner looks like he's spitting out the ice cream that he, moments later, says he ate the whole thing out of excitement. But truly this is such a small nitpick, I just thought it was funny. This was a great visual novel, especially for only a dollar. If you want to spend 2 or 3 hours enjoying a tragic romance, you'll have a good time.