Goblin Cleanup Early Access Impressions – Someone Has to Mop Up After the Heroes

I’ve spent many hours over the last few weeks cleaning up after dead adventurers, and as to be expected, I have some thoughts.

The concept of Goblin Cleanup alone had me sold on wanting to give it a whirl. You’re a goblin janitor working for some dungeon’s Dark Lord, and your entire job is mopping blood, resetting traps, and putting furniture back where it belongs before the next group of heroes shows up. It’s Viscera Cleanup Detail, but fantasy. This one’s got personality.

I started with the tutorial dungeon which took me maybe twenty minutes. Basic stuff for the most part: mop some blood, pick up chairs, feed body parts to a mimic. Wait, I guess that’s not so basic. Yeah, you’ve got this thing called a Slimop which is literally a pitchfork that you stab slimes with to make a living mop. The slimes soak up blood until they die from blood poisoning, then you feed their corpse to a mimic. It’s so absurdly insane but also just…perfect.

The mechanics layer way more than I expected. You’re not just mopping up the mess, you’re resetting spike traps, refilling mana crystals with this tool called a Managon, restocking treasure chests, respawning dead monsters. There’s a slime dispenser machine in each dungeon where you spawn fresh slimes, and you learn real quick that carrying a bucket full of them around is way more efficient than running back every two minutes.

You quickly learn that life down in the dungeon as a janitor is still dangerous. The traps don’t care that you work here and are just trying to do your job. I died to spike traps probably five times in my first proper dungeon because I forgot which ones I’d already reset. There’s also a shadow cat thing that stalks you in darker areas, and mimics will absolutely eat you if you’re not careful. I spent way too much time in the Ocean Abode dungeon trying to figure out why I kept hearing this weird clicking sound before realizing an active ballista was pointed at the hallway I was working in.

Speaking of the Ocean Abode, it’s actually my favorite dungeon so far. It’s got a flooded castle vibe with tilted furniture and water everywhere. Fire slimes work differently than regular slimes, and ice slimes have their own mechanics. I’m still figuring out the optimal strategy, but I think you’re supposed to use fire slimes for certain stains? Possibly.

Nine dungeons in total have shipped with Early Access. Some take 15-20 minutes solo, others I’ve been stuck in for an hour because I can’t find that last blood splatter. And to be clear, you have to find everything, or you can’t clock out. Some things never change. But to be fair, there’s something weirdly satisfying about seeing that completion screen after scrubbing every surface.

What’s keeping me interested thus far is how the dungeons feel different. Classic Dungeon is straightforward, lots of corridors and standard fantasy stuff. Haunted Castle has collapsing floors and poison gas vents. Ancient Tomb gets really twisty with narrow passages. Each one introduces new hazards, and you’re constantly adjusting your approach.

Despite the fun, the replay value here really worries me. Once you’ve cleaned a dungeon three or four times, you start memorizing where everything goes. The blood spawns in the same places, furniture has set positions, traps are always in the same spots. I’m already starting to envision quick speedrun routes for the easier dungeons just because there’s not much surprise left.

Solo play is chill, almost meditative once you get into a rhythm. But I can already tell this game’s designed for co-op chaos. The description literally says you can play “cooperatively or maybe not so cooperatively” which feels like the devs know exactly what they’re enabling.

What I really want is more variety. More tools, more dungeon mechanics, more reasons to keep coming back after you’ve seen everything. The devs seem to have troves of content ready to go. They’ve mentioned fire slimes and giant crossbows in upcoming updates. If they actually deliver on that roadmap, this could have some serious legs.

In it’s current state, it’s a solid foundation that needs more content. The core loop of cleaning, resetting, and trying not to die works. It’s funny, it’s satisfying in that weird cleaning sim way, and I genuinely want to see where it goes. But I’m also already feeling that repetition creeping in after a few hours.

If you’re into cleaning sims or weird co-op games and you’re okay with Early Access jank and limited content, it’s worth checking out. Just know you’re getting in early and there’s a lot still being figured out.