CleanFall Review Summary

Addictive and creative with excellent music and sound, but clunky controls, steep unbalanced difficulty, and janky turrets and building make it frustrating.

Highly fun and addictive: The gameplay is consistently described as very fun, creative, and addictive. Many reviewers highlight the entertaining and innovative nature of the game.

Unique and creative concept: The game's uniqueness is a major draw, with reviewers noting its fresh and innovative approach. It stands out as one of the most unique roguelites available.

Excellent music and sound design: The soundtrack and sound effects are frequently praised for being fantastic and enhancing the atmosphere. Reviewers specifically highlight the amazing music and sound design.

Great potential for future development: Many see the game as promising and believe it could become a cult classic if the developer continues to support it. The foundation is strong and the potential is high.

Engaging core gameplay loop: The fundamental gameplay loop is fun and keeps players engaged with sufficient content depth. Building and combining war machines is particularly enjoyable.

Clunky and unintuitive controls: Players consistently find movement, building, and turret placement awkward and stressful. Controls never feel comfortable, with issues like inconsistent jumping, grappling inertia, and forced key mappings.

Steep difficulty and poor balance: The game is excessively hard, with steep difficulty spikes and unbalanced classes. Turret builds dominate while other playstyles like guns and summons are weak and often unviable.

Turrets and building are janky: Turret placement often fails due to gravity, misalignment, and unintended connections. Moving or repositioning turrets is unreliable, with right-click conflicts and random debris causing frustration.

Missing tutorials and guidance: The in-game tutorial is minimal and unhelpful, leaving players confused about core mechanics. There is no compendium or in-game information, forcing trial-and-error and external outdated videos.

Frequent bugs break gameplay: Numerous reports describe bugs that make the game unplayable, including freezes, crashes, and serious progression blockers. Specific issues include stacked vending machines, chests spawning in walls, and items disappearing.

Ship building and customization: Players assemble and customize ships or mobile fortresses, often as the central activity. The tutorial and core gameplay revolve around constructing a warship or vehicle.

Roguelike core structure: Multiple reviews highlight the game as a roguelike with procedural runs, meta progression, and unique random elements. This forms the foundation of the replayable experience.

Turret alchemy and fusion: A unique system allows combining turrets to create new types with different effects, often aided by a combination chart. Turrets can be fused or upgraded into advanced forms.

Tower defense mechanics: The game incorporates tower defense elements, with players building and placing turrets to defend against enemy waves. Turret placement and repair are core mechanics.

Digging downward progression: Digging toward the center of the earth is a core gameplay mechanic, with players descending through levels and layers. This drives exploration and resource gathering.

Severe stuttering ruins gameplay: Players report severe stuttering during gameplay, especially when starting a second round, making the game unplayable. Restarting the game does not fix the issue.

Performance degrades with depth: Performance issues are described as vast and awful, worsening as players progress deeper into the game. The last area has particularly severe performance problems.

Launch failures and non-response: Players experience repeated launch failures and the game becoming non-responsive. There is also a high chance of crashing or non-response when starting the game and generating the world.

FPS drops with few entities: Noticeable FPS loss occurs even with a relatively small number of entities, indicating poor optimization. Frame rates cannot reach 60 fps, though they stay above 30.

Crash at end of chapter 1: The game crashes specifically at the end of chapter 1, blocking progression. This is a critical issue that prevents players from continuing.

Worth the price: Multiple reviewers state the game is definitely worth the money, well worth the price, and absolutely worth buying at its current cost.

Strong overall recommendation: Many reviews give a strong, highly positive recommendation to play the game. Some call it amazing and suggest getting it right now.

Niche appeal mentioned: The game is recommended for specific audiences such as fans of Made in Abyss, sandbox survival with deep building, or those who enjoy weird and creative indie games.

Recommended for Noita fans: Players recommend it to those who enjoy Noita or similar broken roguelikes, though noting it is different. It is also suggested for fans of Terraria, Oxygen Not Included, and Lovecraftian horror.

Recommended with caveats: Reviewers recommend it despite difficulty issues or flaws, and suggest trying the demo first for those who can get used to the controls. It is also not recommended for everyone due to high difficulty.

Community fair range: $10.00 - $20.00.

Game completion: 28.0h.

Story completion: 4.0h.

Session length: 7.0h.

Most reports describe the game as immediately fun and addictive, driven by creative physics, bosses, and genre blend, while a steep learning curve and placement or bug issues create friction. One conflicting report describes novelty-driven early enjoyment followed by frustration.

Friction: steep learning curve; advanced crafting and resource management; inconvenient turret placement; bugs and poor design for new players; limited out-of-game progression for beginners.

Roguelite Genre Crossover Fan: Replays runs, experiments with builds, and evaluates the game against other roguelites and physics sandboxes. Motivation: Experiencing a fresh fusion of physics roguelite runs and base-defense dungeon crawling. Stance: buy.

Base-Building Tower-Defense Strategist: Builds and upgrades defenses, chooses turrets or ship layouts, and plans how long to farm before descending. Motivation: Optimizing ship and turret setups while balancing resource gathering against escalating danger. Stance: buy.

Challenge-Seeking Hard Mode Tinkerer: Attempts gun-only or solo-maid runs, avoids direct hordes, learns through repeated deaths, and treats turrets as a fallback. Motivation: Mastering punishing runs and self-imposed constraints for the satisfaction of overcoming difficulty. Stance: buy.

Made in Abyss influences: The game's world setting and anime appeal are frequently likened to Made in Abyss, with reviewers noting mysterious worldbuilding and story similarities.

Early Access status noted: Many reviewers mention that the game is currently in Early Access, often noting it could use more polish and will continue to be developed.

Frequent Noita comparisons: Reviewers often compare the game to Noita, highlighting similarities in challenging roguelike gameplay and unique approaches, as well as differences such as machine building instead of wand crafting.

Terraria-like mining and controls: At first glance, the game is compared to Terraria for its controls, mining, and exploration mechanics, with reviewers noting similarities and inspirations.

Rain World ecosystem vibes: Comparisons to Rain World are made for the game's ecosystem feel and genre blend, with some noting stronger combat than Rain World.