Hello Sweepy Heads!
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!
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!
This is Jess (creative director, art lead, and all-around cool guy) bringing you the February devlog updates fresh off the press!
Progress
Programming
February was a very productive month for the tech team. We held a combat playtest! We've gotten some useful feedback, but would still love more soooo we're showing off our game at the Boston Game Dev Demo event!
In terms of new game developments:
The world encounter system has become more refined.
The Beau projectile was reworked to not be frame dependent (hopefully no more wild germ movement).
Making lots of minor improvements along with moving more data to C++ to ensure a faster and smoother experience.
Aside from that, we've added Discord Rich Presence! Now people can see you actually playing the game in Discord along with images and status updates! Also, we've moved to using Perforce! Source control feels a LOT better now, rest in power Git.
We've also added a questline for the mansion so it can no longer be forgotten. Now you'll get push notifications as you progress through your Mansion of Mystery:™:.
Design
As mentioned above, we held internal combat playtesting to get some feedback on new features, UI screens, and our NEW encounter system! As prophesied, combat now occurs seamlessly in the overworld; GONE are the days of the antiquated Janitor Job (not actually, they still exist, but they're going to be reworked into catered challenges carefully crafted to test your mettle… S.C. needs to know if you're a janitor worth your suds).
Animation
Tech Art is cooking! The retopologizing process for the updated player character models has begun, meaning that better optimized meshes will be coming soon! Also, simple logistical animation work is underway (falling down, getting up, etc), so characters will soon have a wider range of movements!
Art
Big things have been happening in art world! First and foremost, we kicked off character redesigns with Lysa! Lysa was one of the first characters I concepted… in November 2022. Since we were but a Humble Student Project™ with a crazy scope and a tight timeline at the time, we just ran with it (DISCLAIMER: this is BAD PRACTICE, 100% WRITE YOUR CHARACTERS FIRST before you design them!!). However, it's The Good 2-6. I'm older, wiser, stronger… and I have way more experience with character design. I can do better!! I wanted to blend Lysol more into Lysa's design while maintaining her style and personality, overall more holistically capturing her character. We're down to the Final Four: 2 from the big flannel band tee set (yes, her shirt is a Radiohead reference because I'm the artist and her writer AND I SAID SO) and 2 from the artsy musician set… and I still can't choose. 😭
Which one is YOUR favorite? Let us know in the Discord or in the comments of our Devlog 6 Instagram post! (please I'm indecisive)
Speaking of characters, Soap and Charming's models are getting edited and improved! Soap's blazer has been moved closer to their chest to reduce the area where you can see through their mesh, and their hair has been slated to get retopologized. Charming is having a more drastic remodel, focused on giving her more realistic proportions to improve body representation, as well as improving her clothing meshes.
Also, I made the devlog image! Did you know that drawing something 3 times makes it take 3 times as long? I didn't! Well, okay. I did. But. I had a vision of greatness and I delivered. Anywhosies, are you feeling rizzed up by Vic?
Remember how we mentioned animals in the last devlog? Here's a sneak peak of some of the creatures we plan to feature:
The dust bunny! In proper bunny fashion, they disintegrate into dust as a defense mechanism when you get too close. DON'T WORRY! They reform!! Their bodies literally just do that.
You've seen cat representation in vroombas, now get ready for the sweepifcation of dogs! Loofa pomeranians (loofaranians?) and mop komondors (komopdors?)!
As you can see, the REAL concept art happens in MSPaint.
Big news — remember back in November when I said that we're planning on revamping the environment? Well, now we're finally getting started! Anyone who has talked to me about the Clean Sweep environments knows one thing for certain… I have generational beef with the Plaza. First and foremost, it's FINALLY getting redone! Expect a new layout, new buildings, new props, and more! After that, the 3D environments team is going to be retexturing the entire environment to make sure that everything is cohesive. It's going to be a massive undertaking, but the end result will be well worth the effort.
Writing
The writers have been making big money moves in the worldbuilding department. To brainstorm improvements to the beach map, we took a luxurious and rejuvenating trip down the boardwalk… in Google Maps. We also had a meeting of the minds (well, it was just a regular writing meeting) and discussed the burning question: Where does everyone in Cleanland live? I won't elaborate further so you can feel free to make your own headcanons, but just know that there's a right answer. In a similar vein to making sure the mansion isn't forgotten, we spent some time ideating on what we could include in the mansion to make the players want to visit/spend more time there, ranging from small interactables, minigames, dinner parties, and customization! If you have any suggestions on spicing up your Mansion of Mystery™, let us know in our Discord!!
Most importantly, the writers have been working long hours in the Word Mines this month. The first quests of two SECRET characters that are being GATEKEPT by the demo questlines and the second quest of Vinny's questline have been written! We're also writing the NEXT installments in each of these quests as our current tasks, so stay tuned for that.
Good writing means good research…
Production
With our next big development milestones being centered around submitting to Cycle 2 of the Epic Megagrant, our focus has been on improving our visual cohesion and overall quality. We held several meetings dissecting the current state of the art, and triaging the most important tasks to make sure we can hit our deadline of mid August, such as revamping the Plaza, retexturing the environment, and improving the playable character models. We're excited to bring our new ideas to life in a fully refurbished Clean Sweep!
Dev Corner
Welcome to the Developer Corner! This is a space where we ask the developers of Clean Sweep a question. This month's Dev Corner question comes from the World Health Organization!
"What are you doing to prevent the spread of cooties this Valentine's season?"
Jess: I'm wrapping my entire body in an impenetrable layer of saran wrap until the first day of spring. As the dog worm medication ad goes, ain't no bugs on me.
Nelson: Nothing. Spread them cooties.
Renee: Washing my hands and staying vigilant. Cooties can be sneaky… They make it hard to know who to trust...
Patrick: Abstinence.
If there's something you're gleaming to ask the Clean Sweep devs, join our Discord linked below and submit a question!
Assoapciate of the Month
Drum roll please... the Assoapciate of the month is Cam!
Introduce yourself!
Hi, I'm Camille, a 2D/3D artist, but I'm mostly known as Cam. I'm one of Clean Sweep's 3D animators based in Puerto Rico!
If you were a janitor, what would you clean with?
I'd either use a vacuum cleaner with the handheld option or one of the rideable floor cleaning machines.
What Clean Sweep food item do you want to eat?
The chicklints look scrumptious, so probably those.
If you were a fruit, what fruit would you be?
I'd be a mango! :D
Thank You
Thank you for reading this 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.