Spilled!

A clean-up game about saving cute critters in a gorgeous pixel world.

Image credit: Lente

Spilled! is in the same family tree as games like Power Wash Simulator or Viscera Clean Up Detail. You go around in an area and clean up a mess that someone else has made. Traditionally, I enjoy these games very much because they occupy a really important niche for me. While I am studying at university (or even just existing in this modern world), sometimes my brain is just…tired. Thus, I need to occupy my time in a restorative way, and for me, this means watching YouTube and cleaning up digital mess or doing Picross.

In Spilled! you’re a little clean-up boat sailing around, sucking up spilled oil and pollution. You gain coins for making progress, and you can use the coins to improve your boat in one of three ways. I upgraded my ship in a very even way across the board, but it would be fun to see what would happen if you put all your coins into one thing. Would you be able to create a little speed machine by pumping everything into speed, or is there an upper limit? Who knows.

While I did enjoy Spilled! as far as it goes, unfortunately I don’t feel like it went far enough, and a lot of that is how I like to consume games like this. The art and audio, especially, are exactly as good as you can see from the trailers and images that publicise the game, and if they appeal to you then give it a go, you won’t be disappointed.

Look out, oil, I’m coming to get you! Image credit: Lente

However, I’ve racked up nearly 100 hours of Power Wash Simulator while I unwind. Spilled! lasted just 80 minutes, and about ten of those were taken up by the very strange and unnecessary boss fight. As you all know, I really strongly believe that short games can be just as wonderful and occupy as much space in our culture as their much longer counterparts. Unfortunately, I feel like I’ve found something that makes me go “well, maybe not 100% of the time.”

I really want to emphasise that Spilled! is worth getting if you’re looking for a bite-sized version of one of these clean-up games. Sucking up the oil spills is satisfying, and the game is gorgeous to look at – it has clearly been made with love. But this really cemented to me that, at least for me personally, some genres or types of games don’t get a chance to shine in my eyes as a short experience.

Sadly, not even the 1.5 hours you do get with Spilled! are flawless. I found the controls to be a bit of a problem and didn’t really enjoy piloting my little boat, which is a bummer because that’s the entire game. A bit of finessing would really help here. It doesn’t make the game unplayable by any means, but it introduced a bit of frustration into what should have been a very cosy experience.

The graphics really are gorgeous when you’ve cleaned up an area. Image credit: Lente

I backed Spilled! on Kickstarter quite a while ago and was really looking forward to playing it, so perhaps the excitement of the process artificially inflated my expectations. The solo-developer Lente was so passionate about the project. It also feels great to know that some money from every sale on Steam gets donated to the Whale and Dolphin Conservation charity.

Personally, I don’t think I’ll be getting any more clean-up or ‘brain off’ games that are quite this short. Especially given Spilled! ends with a frustrating boss battle, I wasn’t fully done with my wind-down session when the game just ended, and that didn’t feel super great for what I was looking for from a game of this nature.

However, if you can reckon with the length of the game before diving in (something you might think I would be more practised with at this point) and don’t mind the janky controls, Spilled! is an easy recommend for the artwork and audio alone, plus the charity donation.

• Game: Spilled!

• Developer: Lente

• Publisher: Lente

• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch

• Time to complete: 75 minutes

Ali’s update corner

I don’t have much of an update for you folks, just a bit of a complaint. Even though I write my content in Microsoft Word, its spellcheck seems to be useless, so I use Grammarly for a final pass at spelling, grammar, and whatnot, but I think I’m going to have to stop. It keeps trying to change my sentences enough that they don’t feel like my writing anymore. If anyone can suggest a good browser plugin that doesn’t think it knows better, please let me know!

Also, a few folks have suggested a few games for me to cover, which I love and appreciate. However, money is very tight at the moment, so I am restricted to games I already own. I do hope to get to your suggestions in the future, but while my paid subscriber count is very low, I can’t invest money into this blog. I really hope you understand <3