Pool Cleaning Simulator

My instinct when I see a job-sim with a mixed Steam rating is to dig into why the split exists, and Pool Cleaning Simulator's 63% positive score tells a pretty clear story: the concept has just enough novelty to hook a certain kind of player, but the execution chips away at that goodwill level by level. You show up at a grimy pool, receive a client email listing your objectives, load your truck with the tools the job requires, sponges, a pressure washer with swappable nozzles, chlorine tablets, a landing net, an underwater vacuum cleaner, and then get to work. The pre-job preparation loop, including a home base where you can store gear, order new equipment, and even tend to a pet, sounds charming but ends up feeling like friction. Your inventory resets after each job, so you are re-equipping the same tools repeatedly rather than building toward anything. The level variety is the game's strongest card. Across roughly 12 to 13 stages you will drain backyard pools, scrub down community complexes, and stumble into some genuinely strange scenarios, fishing piranhas out of a hotel pool, sorting color-coded rubber ducks, and working a level that functions as an active crime scene where a UV light helps you trace blood evidence. That tonal whiplash is either a selling point or an immediate red flag depending on what you showed up for. If you wanted the meditative, almost rhythmic satisfaction that PowerWash Simulator delivers, the murder level will feel completely out of place. If you enjoy a sim that occasionally goes off-script, it provides a memorable moment or two. The core cleaning mechanics are where the game stumbles most consistently. The "cleaner vision" highlight tool, meant to show remaining grime, runs on a cooldown and frequently fails to surface dirt that blends into the pool floor texture. Dark levels are particularly punishing, grime that shares a color with the surface underneath can have you sweeping the same tile with a sponge for ten minutes without any feedback that you are close to done. The underwater vacuum is slow by design, but slow enough that cleaning a school pool floor can eat fifteen real-world minutes of largely passive play. Stair navigation produces jittery movement, you sink through water rather than swimming, and controller support has been described as genuinely uncomfortable. These are not minor polish issues, they are friction points that sit directly inside the core loop. From a progression standpoint, the upgrade system is thin. Inventory slot expansion and a single wide-nozzle attachment for the pressure washer are about the extent of it. There is no build-order thinking here, no resource tension, no decision tree that deepens over time. The whole game runs around nine hours for a thorough playthrough, modest even at a budget price point, and community feedback suggests the update cadence has slowed significantly since launch. For a game that exited Early Access in June 2024, the post-launch support trajectory matters. Players who followed it through Early Access report that while some rough edges were smoothed, the fundamental loop was not redesigned. Who actually has a good time here? Players who treat it like background-noise content, a podcast companion, something to idle through while watching a stream, will extract more value than those sitting down expecting a tightly tuned cleaning loop. The water physics are genuinely impressive when they render correctly, and the odd scenario design keeps the level list from feeling completely monotonous. But approach it with the same expectations you would bring to a polished sim in this genre and the gaps become hard to ignore.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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