Monster Mop Up Review

I’m a sucker for cleaning simulators, which is ironic, because I’ve always loathed cleaning with the burning fire of a thousand suns. I’m also a pretty big fan of whimsical things, so when I was given the chance to review Monster Mop Up from developers Terahard Ltd, I was pretty excited.

The overall concept of Monster Mop Up is a simple one: you rescue some little monsters, known as Ragamuffins, from 16 different levels. If you catch them with your hands… You’ll find that they’ll crap everywhere, which they've admittedly already done. Each poop will do something different: some will expand, others explode, and others will defy gravity and cling to the ceiling. However, in this world, Ragamuffins aren’t really known about by the wider public, so they’ve hired a cleaner. I am, of course, that cleaner.

Armed with a mop, bucket, and a trap to catch the Ragamuffin, I had to start each level by jumping into the wardrobe from my hideout. Said hideout appears to be under a giant bed of some sort. Am I human? Am I another type of monster? Who knows. All I know is that I’m humanoid, and it’s my job to clear up the poop and the multi-coloured stains that each one has left. The only way to get rid of the crap? Burn it, or throw it in the toilet. The same can also be done with all the furniture, so if you’re a fan of arson, then boy, do I have a treat for you.

I should say that the traps themselves are simple, you just throw them down and the Ragamuffins should fly in if you placed it right; all I had to do was place them near the little buggers. In some levels, it will look as though the Ragamuffins will escape, but after a couple of them, it’s easier to lure them. After all, there are upgrades that can make you stealthier, increase the range of your mop, and unlock more equipment. But not every tool can be bought: some can only be obtained by finding them on certain missions, and others only when I upgraded my hideout.

Admittedly, that was the only perk of having the hideout. It can be decorated, however, the physics of Monster Mop Up is a little bit out of whack. Nudging furniture can send it flying in another direction, so each time I completed a level, it still looked like the area had been ransacked by some burglars. Truthfully, I have a headcanon that this is the thought that strikes anyone who comes back home to discover no stains, some items missing (or all of them if you’re particularly fond of fire), and all the furniture all over the place. There’s never an in-canon reason, so if you’re like me and want to leave the place in one piece? Well, that’s not going to happen.

While there are upgrades that can prevent the furniture from being moved everywhere, it’s not great; everything can still fall over, especially the bucket of water. To refresh it, I had to keep returning to bring the bucket back to the wardrobe where I came in from. It would then spawn nearby again, and this process would repeat when the bucket needed replenishing.

Life was made somewhat easier when I got the vacuum, which can suck up items nearby as well as other crap. While some users have had problems with it, I didn’t have any issues with it breaking my game. The same could not be said for other users, but it’s a common complaint, so I thought that it would be unfair not to mention that. With the vacuum, I was able to just dump a bunch of crap in the fire at a time. Of course, there’s a limit on how much I could store, but then it would blink red, and then it’s just a simple right-click to remove them and refill it with more.

The upgrades were particularly useful. There are some items that can be obtained in each level, such as fire orbs that you can drop and incinerate items and crap in a nearby area. These are considerably rarer than the water orb, which can either be dropped in a bucket or a bathtub so that I didn’t have to keep running to the wardrobe — unless I knocked over the bucket — or drop them to clean a small area in one go. So, when I got the water orb that always spawns near me? Well, I was delighted.

In terms of issues that I had, well, I couldn’t say there was a lot. My biggest peeve was that the object physics were so skewed so that items could fall everywhere. I did find that it was almost impossible to play this with a controller, so I’d recommend playing Monster Mop Up with a mouse and keyboard.

There were some moments where the game would claim that I’d S-ranked it when I hadn’t finished cleaning the room yet, and then it would finish cleaning it for me, which I did find a bit confusing. Other times, I can say that the trap was the tool that I had the most significant issues with. I have to admit, there were times when a trap clipped through to the floor below, or I would miss a Ragamuffin and it would somehow appear in the trap that I’d placed for a different Ragamuffin.

Outside of that, there wasn’t much of a story here, and the soundtrack wasn’t that compelling. But it was a good time sink as I just listened to some podcasts while I cleaned up the mess around me. While I wish I could decorate more, if I look at it from a cleaning perspective, it was a game that I could just turn my brain off and keep playing. Overall, a whole playthrough of getting S-rank on all 16 levels took me a little over 11 hours. Some achievements will mean that you have to replay some levels, while others you can do as you play. The only real difference with each level is the size and a bit of the layout, so it’s not like there’s a massive difficulty spike.

Admittedly, I can’t say anything about the multiplayer capabilities as I didn’t have the chance to grab my friends to play it. But, if you’re playing it solo? Well, it does offer a great chance for you to listen to some podcasts while you clean. Although it’s not as deep as other cleaning simulator games and doesn’t have a cleanliness tracker, it does offer a sense of whimsy that is pretty fun.

I just wish that the hideout had more for you to do in it, and that the Ragamuffins would at least explore a bit rather than stay in one stationary position when I caught them and brought them back with me. Likewise, I feel like they could improve the controller support a bit, as that was… stressful.

As it is, Monster Mop Up does have potential. I’ve spent a good chunk of hours on it, and I personally enjoyed it a fair bit. However, I do wish that there was more to do. If the developers leaned more into the decorating aspect of the hideout, I think that it would have been an element that added more to it. Without it, you’re essentially going back and forth between missions. Overall, I do think the devs did a good job with what they had, but I just wish there was a little bit… more.