Hey Sweepy Heads!
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!
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!
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!
Meet the Lead Devs
Nelson
Producer, Programming Lead, Implementation Lead, Design Lead, QA Lead, Writer, Voice Actor, and more! (I'm writing this dev log!)
Introduce yourself!
Hello! My name is Nelson Pires Jr., a programmer based in Boston, Massachusetts.
If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?
Definitely a toilet brush.
What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?
If I had to pick a drink, GEEEEEERRRRRRRRMMMMMMMM! I need the energy to program the game…
If I had to pick a food, the Chocolint Volcano Sudcake is definitely the most scrumptious looking.
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?
I would be an Apple. Mainly because I love apples. (I used to have an apple dealer in college)
Jess
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!
Introduce yourself!
Hey there! I'm Jess Liano, a 3D/2D artist from the wild and uncharted suburbs of Connecticut.
If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?
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.
What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?
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
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?
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.
Renee
Producer, Narrative Design Lead, and more!
Introduce yourself!
Hi, I'm Renee. I produce and I'm a writer who isn't very good at spelling.
If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?
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.
What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?
The chicklint tendies. They look so good.
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?
A plum.
Patrick
Technical Art Lead, Animation Lead
Introduce yourself!
Hi there! My name’s Patrick Luck. I’m a graduate student at WPI in Worcester.
If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?
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.
What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?
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!
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?
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!
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!
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.
The Clean Sweep Update Future
The Combat Update
Our first big update is the combat update! The combat update involves, well, combat. We're planning a lot for this update including:
Reworking moves
Readjusting stats
Balancing
Adding more germs
More Janitor Jobs & Mission Goals
And more!
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.
The NPC Update
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:
Adding more animations to NPCs (no more sliding! No more standing around!)
Expanding the Quest System which includes
Adding more quests!
Adding more quest types!
More branching pathways!
More events!
Adding quest location markers!
New dialogue
World Dialogue Voice Acting Barks
This may get moved back to the audio update, time depending
New character route events
And more!
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!
The UI Update
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)!
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.
The Audio Update
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!
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!
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.
Department Goals
Writing
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.
Editing elements of the main story (Some stuff was written two years ago. As you can imagine, things have changed a bit since then).
Implementing more character routes. Current status: 8.5/63.
Sifting through the **many hours** of voice recordings (shoutout to our voice actors!!!<3).
Writing more editions of the Cleanland Chronicle!
Updating the Clean Sweep wiki (yes, there's a wiki).
Art
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.)
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. :((((
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
Technical Art
MOCAP! We’re working on recording motion capture animations for the myriad of characters we have.
We’re also working on skinning characters and making sure they are properly rigged up for animating.
Thank you!
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!