Developer: Mind Control Games
Publisher: Forklift Interactive, Digital Pajamas
Platform: PC
Tested on: PC
Cash Cleaner Simulator – Review
We have said it numerous times before, but simulator games have been releasing at a pace we can’t keep up with these last few years, ranging from realistic titles to more absurdist ones. We have had a lot of fun with titles such as Powerwash Simulator and Farming Simulator 25, but the genre also spawns rubbish like Food Truck Simulator and Ambulance Life: A Paramedic Simulator. Those games all revolved around doing an honest day’s work and opened up a lot of possibilities for people who are perhaps stuck at home. That said, the genre also opens up other avenues that may delve into more illegal activities. This brings us to Cash Cleaner Simulator, a game where you’ll be running a money laundering operation.
Story
Cash Cleaner Simulator’s story starts out a bit vague. You wake up in an underground facility with no visible exit, except for a massive tube embedded in the ceiling and a conveyor belt leading somewhere else. Even so, it’s clear that you would not be able to escape on your own. You are immediately contacted by Betty Oops, who tells you to simply follow the instructions they patch through, if you want to survive. From here on out, you’ll commit yourself to completing money laundering tasks, while also figuring out why you’re doing this and who you are. It seems that when your abductors kidnapped you, they perhaps whacked you on the head a bit too hard. A few hours into the game, you’ll get to know more about why you’re there and why you are forced to perform these tasks. The story does take the backseat for most of the game, and there are also quite a few other side conversations you’ll have via your texting app in-game. It’s a fun concept, and as far as stories go, this one is just fine.
Graphics
While we wouldn’t exactly call Cash Cleaner Simulator’s visuals hyperrealistic, the game doesn’t look bad as a whole. You’ll see fairly bright colors being used for certain items, making them pop, while others look more subdued and darker. The tools you’ll work with look fairly realistic, and this helps a lot with the general immersion. There are, of course, a few sillier items thrown in the mix, but these all fit well within the theme of the game. As your environment is very limited, there is not much variation in terms of backdrops.
Sound
The sound design of Cash Cleaner Simulator isn’t bad. You’ll start with a small radio that plays some classical music, and if you want to hear more tunes, you’ll have to buy new speakers with new tracks. It’s an amusing approach to how background music works, but this is also one of those games where we expect a lot of players to just turn on their own music. The music on offer isn’t bad, but it’s a bit generic. The sound effects provide satisfying audio feedback and would do well in ASMR videos. There is some limited voice acting present, which does help with the atmosphere.
Gameplay
Cash Cleaner Simulator is a simulator game in which you’re essentially forced to run a money laundering operation. For the most part, things are fairly straightforward, even if the tutorial does miss a few beats here and there. You’ll have to accept missions, follow the instructions on how you’ll have to send money to your clients, and that’s about it. As you progress, you’ll unlock new tools, a new workspace, and some other things you’ll have to do. You’ll soon find yourself washing and drying money, using money counters to filter fake bills, or checking money under UV lights to see if they are marked. It’s a simple concept that is supposed to work as a relaxing experience.
The game is, of course, more complex than just getting money sent to you that you need to sort and then ship back to your client. You’ll have to make sure the bills are clean, dry, have no markings, contain no fakes, and so on. It’s a fairly fun concept, and it works well, to a certain extent. It’s amusing at first to sort the smaller piles of bills with your money counting machine. You can turn loose bills into stacks, and these stacks can be wrapped in foil to create money bricks. You’ll often have to ship the money back to your client in a specific container, and you’ll earn digital currency as a result. That currency can be used to buy new tools and materials for your underground workshop. This is all fine, but we felt like we unlocked all the tools too quickly, compared to the goal we had to achieve. On top of that, the controls aren’t always that responsive either, and the grab-all function should allow players to set a filter on what to grab.
The main problem we had with Cash Cleaner Simulator is that the general progress is very slow, especially when it comes to collecting the money to fund your escape. The tools on offer are cool, but they feel a bit too limited, and there’s hardly any automation to be unlocked as you progress. We felt as if we had to do more and more tedious chores, instead of becoming an underground kingpin. Some tasks require you to check almost every bill individually, and this grows old really quickly. The game suffers from losing steam rather quickly, as you’ll find yourself just doing mission after mission at a certain point, without actually unlocking new items to tinker around with. We also encountered quite a few bugs, where money bags (or boxes) simply disappeared or didn’t even spawn in the first place. The latter was somewhere at the beginning of our playthrough, which also caused some frustration. Other bugs involved actions being unresponsive.
Conclusion
Cash Cleaner Simulator is a fun simulation title that somewhat struggles with pacing and a few final touches to make it a truly memorable experience. We enjoyed our time cleaning, drying, checking, and stacking dollar bills in our underground workshop, but we were sometimes frustrated by the lack of automation and bugs that halted our progression. Even so, if you’re a fan of these types of games, you’ll probably love what is on offer here. If you’re on the fence, it might be best to wait for a few patches before picking this one up.
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