Seaside Wash Steam Demo Review
Verdict: Play
You play a monkey with a very long arm who cleans other animals' boats, and no one seems to mention the arm.
Seaside Wash is a cozy ship-cleaning job simulator from BITCOVER. You play a long-armed monkey who scrubs rust, moss and barnacles off boats brought in by a rotating cast of cute animal customers. The arm is about four times the length of his body. BITCOVER sent it over on day four of Steam Next Fest, and I had warned them in advance that I would need to be in the right frame of mood for this kind of game.
Play, if you want a cosy ship-cleaning sim with pressure in the mini-games and a rotating cast of named animal customers. What stood out most to me is the moving-around-the-house loop that keeps you out of menus, walking down to the jetty, scrubbing, back up to the anvil to fix the brush, over to the PC for the next job. I wobbled on Maybe for a while in the back half because the three different kinds of dirt all use the same brush and I could not tell what my dock upgrades were doing other than making the dock look fancier. I settled on Play because the demo is better at the Casual job-sim shape than the last one I reviewed in this lane, Sludgeneers, with more variety across the mini-games and more that needs your attention per boat. The hull-plank mini-game stayed frustrating all the way through, and I would want a bigger indicator for which tool is in my hand. If you are not already into cleaning sims as a genre you will not like this one, which is more about the genre than this game. Anyone after a game you can fail can leave it.
Pros
- The moving-around-the-house loop keeps you out of a menu system. Jobs come in on a PC on one wall, upgrades sit on a tools table across the room, repairs happen on an anvil upstairs, and you walk out of the house to each new boat. I wondered part way through whether a menu would be quicker, and I came out the other side of that preferring the house.
- A rotating cast of named cute animal customers carries the loop. Toby the fishing raccoon, Bubbles the fish-in-a-diving-suit, Benny the capybara in a suit and pipe, Aria the swan, Mr. Octopus with the biggest ships at the end. Each one is a reason to look forward to the next job even when the job itself is still wiggling the mouse.
- Casual that still has pressure. Tools break mid-job, salvage runs down, days end on a timer. The sewing and plank mini-games have time on them. The ships get bigger faster than the brushes get stronger.
Cons
- The hull-plank hammer mini-game is not clear. The instruction popup says "click hammer to nail the wooden planks in place". I spent the first attempt wondering where the planks were. What the mini-game wants is for you to click multiple corks onto each hole before you reach for the hammer, and that is not told to you anywhere. On top of that, swapping between the cork tool and the hammer is a mouse click. The mini-game has a timer. A keyboard swap would have changed the mini-game.
- The on-screen indicator for which tool you are holding is too subtle. The monkey carries whatever tool you have selected in his hand. The brush and the iron brush look nearly identical at that size and pixel density. I spent five minutes inside a boat cabin rubbing an iron brush over mould that would only come off with the normal brush. Got nowhere. Called myself an idiot and started over. A tool chip in a HUD corner would fix it.
Why did I pick this one up?
I would not have picked it if I were scrolling the fest myself. It is a bit more Casual and relaxing than I normally go for. Late evening there is always a danger that casual and relaxing turns into me falling asleep. But a cute monkey with a very long arm cleaning other animals' boats was hard to turn down. I had Sludgeneers in my head going in, which I reviewed recently with a Maybe. That was a scrub-the-purple-sludge-off-the-whole-world sim, and this looked like it would live in a similar lane. I thought I would take a look.
What do you actually do?
At the core this is a cozy job Simulation. Jobs come in on a PC in a little seaside house. You walk down to a jetty and meet the customer and their boat. You click once per spot to scrub, not hold. I spent the first boat double-clicking because I had not realised. Move the mouse around to clear each surface. When you hit 100 percent you get paid in gold and salvage. Gold goes on tool upgrades at a workbench. Salvage goes on docks and repairs. Shift swaps between the three tools the demo gives you. The brush handles dirt, moss and mould. The iron brush handles rust. The chisel is for barnacles. E stretches the monkey's arm further out on a short cooldown. Tools break on big jobs. You fix them at an anvil upstairs by clicking a timing dot that is not timing anything I could feel. I did not understand the shape of the upgrade tree until the last boat. When I opened the panel I saw it splits across radius, durability, power and wear rate at different levels. Up to that point I had been buying every upgrade I could afford without reading which stat was going up.
Why does the character cast matter?
The animal customers carry the loop. Toby the fishing raccoon brings a basket boat with a story about a fish bigger than it was. Bubbles, a fish inside a diving suit full of water, hands over a wooden skiff with moss on the hull. Benny the capybara arrives in a suit and pipe with a metal boat that needs the iron brush. There is a swan called Aria, a penguin called Mr. Penguin Quinn, a cat with a boat covered in pink mould, and a toucan with a tear in his sail. Mr. Octopus turns up twice with the biggest ships in the demo, each one taking five to seven minutes. Each customer is a reason to want to look at the next job, which matters when the job itself is still wiggling your mouse. For what it is worth, the player character never gets a proper name on screen; I settled on Long-Arm Monkey.
What about the mini-games?
Three stacked on top of the scrubbing in the demo. The sewing mini-game asks you to hold-and-drag a needle between glowing anchor points across a tear in a sail. The whole frame wiggles as if you are on the sea. Pull too far or jerk too fast and the thread snaps. The window mini-game is a spray then a wipe. It is fine, but asked for a mouse click between the two tools every time. A keyboard swap would have moved it along. The hull-plank mini-game is the one that stayed frustrating all the way through. There is also a tool-repair screen at the anvil upstairs, and that one is just hitting a dot before the next job.
How does it compare to Sludgeneers?
I liked this one more. There is more variety across the mini-games. I was concentrating a lot more here because there is more to be getting on with per boat. Sludgeneers had the deeper upgrade tree of the two, a proper web of unlocks that gave each run a shape. Seaside Wash is thinner on that side. The upgrade panel at the end of the demo suggests there is more coming in the full game. Four stats per tool split across different levels. Right now you are mostly buying whatever the next job asks for.
What will the full game need?
The Steam page talks about building your own ship, and that is not in the demo. The little seaside house has a cooking area, a radio, and a few other items I never touched. The hope is those come alive in the full version. The Steam page also mentions a paintbrush for a bit of restoration on top of the cleaning. On the brush side I would like more specific upgrades. Right now the upgrades just keep you up with the ships getting bigger, instead of letting you feel connected to a build. The demo already surfaces the shape of it with radius, durability, power and wear rate. Splitting those out as choices rather than tying them to level numbers would help.
Game Info
- Full release
- TBC
- Platform
- PC (Steam)
- Multiplayer
- No
- Controller
- No
- Playtime
- 1h
Watch the complete live play on YouTube
Tags: Casual, Indie, Simulation
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