[h4]Remember how it all started?[/h4]
0.0.1 launched February 2023 in a bare-bones state with the simple objective to clean up trash piles and trash bags on a single map, a house haunted by an old lady. Nothing else. I think there wasn't even a way to set your keybinds.

[h4]What about now? What's in the game?[/h4]

• 5 Maps with unique enemies that have their own behavior, abilities, looks, sounds and jumpscares
  
• Several things to clean, from dirty toilets to ectoplasm and bloody symbols
  
• Dynamic, interactive environments with a lot of interactable items
  
• Unique Banish Mechanics on each map to get rid of every entity, like burning down an art studio to destroy cursed paintings
  
• A new interactive lobby to hang out in, no boring static menu
  
• Proximity Voice Chat
  
• We (you and I) iterated through several Objective Systems over the years, from randomized contracts to now full on cleaning jobs where you have to clean a percentage of everything there is to complete your job
  
• Player Perks, so you can play just the way you want to. Want to clean faster while an entity is near or would you rather be able to run faster after cleaning something?
  
• Equipment Upgrades: Permanent improvements to your gear
  
• Daily & Weekly Tasks to gain additional EXP and $$
  
• So many Achievements with ingame rewards
  
  [h4]New with 1.0[/h4]
  
• A Prestige System so you can grind endlessly and get sweet cosmetics
  
• Character Outfits
  
• Hard Mode: Up to the Challenge? Unbanishable Entities that hunt non-stop.. for double the job reward
  
• Bug Fixes
  
  BUT, there's still some stuff missing that I promised for the launch, that isn't in the game yet. All that is coming in the next couple weeks, I am working hard to get it done as soon as possible, this is my top priority.
  
  [h4]Coming in the next couple weeks[/h4]
  
• 3 New Maps, yes, not one, 3!
  
• A new Objective, including a new cleaning item and upgrades for it
  
• Localization
  
• Controller Rework/Tweaks/Fixes
  
• Steam Deck Verified
  
• New Character Skins
  
• Equipment Skins
  
• ..and more, based on your feedback :)
  
  [h4]Let's sneak a look at one of the new maps[/h4]
  
  Thank you all for your patience and endless support. Thank you for all the great feedback in the last couple months, it's been amazing doing this for you.
  
  Have fun playing, and as always, see you in game!
  Cheers,
  Beepbep

We are close to launch! With this patch every map is now reworked and polished, every entity can be banished and many more suggested changes and bug fixes were implemented. More content is on the way now. Thank you all for your help! :)

• 'Butcher's Nest' and 'The Quiet' have been reworked and polished
  
• You can now banish the entities on 'Butcher's Nest' and 'The Quiet'
  
• The Butcher no longer hunts all the time and instead hunts in waves like all the other entities. He learned a trick or two from grandma though
  
• Entities now end their current hunt when all players are downed
  
• Hunts no longer increase in duration and no longer reduce in cooldown after each hunt and rather hunt for a fixed duration with a slight deviation each time
  
• reduced the chance of an entity searching the exact hiding spot a player is currently hiding in
  
  
• tweaked and fixed Ectoplasm and Cult Symbol spawns on every map so they are more fair/less hidden (Did you know the larger maps have up to 300 spawn points? fuck me)
  
• fixed several collision issues resulting in non-cleanable ectoplasms
  
• fixed a bug that caused the UV Lamp to turn ectoplasm permanently invisible
  
  
• Increased base cleaning speed for all items by 10-20%
  
• Increased base Sprint Speed by 15%
  
  
• Increased texture and mesh quality for important models and stuff you interact with
  
• removed Depth of Field, everything's crisp now
  
• added more Radio Songs, increased radio audio quality and tweaked attenuation and occlusion
  
• lowered TV beep sound volume and added a remote to every TV to turn them off manually
  
• lowered telephone beep sound volume and added the ability to turn the phone off manually
  
• lowered van door chime sound volume
  
• reduced car alarm sound duration down to 10 seconds (was 60s)
  
  
• fixed a bug that caused weekly tasks to not reset properly
  
• fixed a bug that caused players to go into debt just to buy more energy drinks
  
• small tweaks and changes here and there

Thanks again for your help! I am looking forward to your continued feedback.

Have fun playing and see you ingame! :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

thanks again for all the bug reports and suggestions, your help means the world to me! Took me a bit longer than I hoped to get this patch out the door but I think this time I really managed to fix the most frequent crash issues, which was a big priority for me.

• You can now banish the entities on 'Whispering Studio' and 'Ritual Row'
  
• 'Whispering Studio' and 'Ritual Row' have been polished and updated
  
• FINALLY fixed the map transition FatalError bug (caused by AudioThread & VoiceChat btw)
  
• Not the first time I said this but this time I actually fixed the game breaking objective spawn bug for ectoplasm, cult symbols and banish items
  
• added 2 UV Lamps to each map which you can carry around to see Ectoplasm even when an entity isn't hunting
  
• all entities (besides the butcher) now have hunt and lurk phases (means cult guys dont hunt all the time anymore, but the butcher does because thats just his thing)
  
• You now need to clean at least 50% on each map to be able to win
  
• Hunts now start a bit later and are shorter initially but get longer with each hunt
  
• Entities now gain movespeed the longer they chase you
  
• Oh, you can jump now.
  
• ..but also can the entities
  
• made some general changes to physics actors to prevent them from clipping through the floor
  
• changes/tweaks to audio attenuation and concurrency
  
• more general GPU and CPU optimizations (improved culling, more/better mesh LODs, smaller textures, reduced drawcalls by around 50% on every map, ..), game is also a bit bigger again(uncompressed) but in turn loads stuff a bit better so D3D timeout crashes might happen less frequent
  
• removed the red entity post process effect for now because it was waaaay too unoptimized and in some cases cost up to 20FPS
  
• fixed a bug causing voice chat to be active all the time even when using push to talk
  
• minor animation tweaks for all entities
  
• aand as always a lot of smaller tweaks/changes in the background as well as minor bug fixes I totally didn't forget about

Thanks again for your help! I am looking forward to your continued feedback.

Have fun playing and see you ingame! :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

this is gonna be a short but good one. :)

• Fatal Error Crash is fixed. Big, big Thanks to @xeltic and @EpicTurttle for finding the cause
  
• Even more Performance Improvements: Cut amount of polygons game-wide in half and reduced/compressed ALL textures, which cut VRAM requirements in half and reduced the game's filesize to a third of what it was on 0.3.6
  
• various ectoplasm related collision fixes
  
• fixed missing HUD bug (again)
  
• fixed a bug causing the perk that grants a medkit to not count as a medkit when getting killed
  
• fixed ingame chat
  
• fixed an issue causing to get stuck on some UI widgets (pause menu, paper/notes, didnt close)
  
• adjusted bridle street haunted toy collisions (again) so they dont fall through the map
  
• adjusted bridle street objective spawns so they aren't that clumped together

Thanks and have fun playing! See you ingame! :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

thanks again for all the bug reports and suggestions and awesome content on youtube which helped me a lot to understand some bugs and first player experiences. So here's another patch trying to improve things:

• General Performance and Network Optimizations on all maps in hopes to fix the D3D and Fatal Error Crashes
  
• now actually fixed the game breaking objective spawn bug for ectoplasm, cult symbols and banish items
  
• new achievements for sponge and paint roller upgrade progress
  
• implemented some backend stuff trying to fix players losing their levels, as well as trying to restore the old levels players lost
  
• moved the friend-invite telephone in the lobby closer to the computer so its more obvious its interactable
  
• added a friend invite button to the pause menu
  
• you can now use the steam overlay in private lobbies to invite friends and join friends
  
• fixed a bug not showing the correct amount of player names when people leave and join the lobby
  
• fixed a bug when changing characters that forced the player characters head to look straight down instead of into the camera
  
• carrying trashbags often blocked the whole view for clients, so now if the trashbag gets too close to the camera you can see through it
  
• now actually added unlocking equipment upgrade steam achievements (I just forgot)
  
• added player names above characters if close to one another
  
• fixed a game breaking bug that got people stuck in a closet on willow lane
  
• fixed a bug that caused the fully upgraded Swift Savior Perk to increase medkit revive time by 10.000% instead of 100% (lol)
  
• fixed a bug that caused banish items on bridle street to sometimes fall through the floor
  
• fixed a bug causing players to sometimes lose their HUD when skipping the intro
  
• fixed the 100% cleaned achievements on willow lane and stafford lane
  
• pretty sure there was some more stuff but I forgot because I am sleepy

As always, probably not every fix is gonna stick on the first try and I'll have to look at it again but we can hope for the best :D

Thanks again for your help! I am looking forward to your continued feedback.

Have fun playing and see you ingame! :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

thank you all for your support! Thanks to all the valuable feedback and a little bit of manic crunch I already have the next patch for you:

• Balanced Walnut Street Cult Guy as he was way too strong
  
• a couple level design tweaks on Walnut Street to make the spawn/street safer
  
• Vaccuum Cleaner now actually cleans again (he previously identified as a dustpan but now succesfully transitioned to a vaccuum cleaner)
  
• fixed several Field of View related bugs
  
• fixed various collision issues related to ectoplasm
  
• several performance optimizations: decreased almost ALL texture sizes which drastically improves memory related issues, added more/better LOD's as surprisingly a lot of meshes were missing LODs entirely
  
• fixed a game breaking objective spawn bug for ectoplasm, cult symbols and banish items
  
• fixed a couple bugs related to the banish mechanic and fixed some spawn location issues
  
• added Cult Symbols to Butcher's Nest
  
• Tweaked and fixed issues with the Butcher's behavior
  
• Wood Planks now break visually when destroyed
  
• fixed a game-breaking bug which caused some(ok almost all) players to be unable to use medkits on others
  
• increased heart beat danger sound trigger range, so it starts earlier when an entity is near you so you have more time to react
  
• Many new Stat-related Achievements (VI to X) with big rewards
  
• tweaked several achievement requirements and rewards
  
• Because of that I adjusted the level requirements and prices of several equipment upgrades and perks too
  
• added more equipment upgrade levels for sponge and paint roller
  
• drastically lowered the radio's health so just yeet it against a wall if the music annoys you
  
• implemented a potential fix for FatalError and D3D crashes (i am just guessing here I have no idea whats wrong)
  
• a couple minor network optimizations (but more on the way there's a lot to improve)
  
• fixed a super edge-case bug which caused some players to lose all their equipment upgrades (sorry bout that but thanks for the lovely review sir)
  
• fixed various bugs related to perks which allowed players to double or even triple select the same perk (was fun though ngl)
  
• tweaked needed % cleaned to win on each map
  
• fixed various harmless but confusing UI bugs
  
• some other tweaks and changes here and there under the hood

As always, probably not every fix is gonna stick on the first try and I'll have to look at it again but we can hope for the best :D
If nothing major comes up I will now continue reworking/polishing all maps one after another to get them on the same level of quality of the first one, including unique spooks and the banish mechanic. A new objective is on the way, too. After that it's time for a new map, which is also almost done already :)

Thanks again for your help! I am looking forward to your continued feedback.

Have fun playing and see you ingame! :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

It’s been way too long, but the wait is finally over. Today's update brings a full rework of the game’s core systems, maps, progression, and content.

But this is just the beginning. This update marks the start of the Road to 1.0, which is leading up to the game's Launch in May! We are starting out with a huge accumulation of updates and changes I should have released in small increments over the last year. There's still work to do, but at this point I think its best to release what's there and iterate and improve together.

• Reworked Objective System
  - No more seperate jobs, now its just 1 big workload on each map. Because of that you can leave when you cleaned a certain minimum amount (depends on the map) If you get out alive, you get paid depending on the % you cleaned.
  
  
• Fully Reworked Lobby (walkable and interactive!)
  - Bye bye boring menu, welcome brand new playable/walkable lobby. Make yourself at home in your new garage and center of operations.
  
  
• Two new maps: Walnut Street & Lawrence Drive
  - Both plagued by a satanic cult. On both Maps there are multiple buildings to clean, perfect fit for the new objective system
  
  
• Two new objectives: Clean ectoplasm and paint over satanic cult symbols
  - Ectoplasm is only visible when there is active paranormal activity (but when testing we figured there should be a way to make it visible when there's not an entity nearby or hunting, so some kind of UV Perk/Item is coming soon)
  
  
• Finally, grandma isnt spooking around every house anymore: Unique enemies for each map with their own behavior, abilities, looks, sounds, jumpscares.
  
  
• Upgrade your Gear: Items can now be permanently upgraded at the workbench in your garage.
  
  
• Reworked and upgradeable Perks: Unlock Perks in the new perk tree and upgrade them (some up to 10 times)
  
  
• The Banish Mechanic: Complete unique objectives to weaken or banish the enemy. At the moment only on the first map in which you have to find 5 very hidden cursed toys and burn them in a fire. I will work my way through all the other maps and give each one the same kind of polish and rework the first map got.
  
  
• More Interactive Environment: More stuff to interact with, more stuff happening around you.
  
  
• Random Daily & Weekly Tasks with XP/$ rewards
  
  
• Maaany new Achievements as well as XP/$ Rewards for them
  
  
• Many, many smaller changes, across the board bug fixes, graphics improvements, performance improvements, network improvements, new settings, smoother camera/less headbobbing, UI improvements, new and improved physics Interactions, and so much more I forgot since the last update 14 months ago (damn its been long)

So, as I said, this is a rolling content update as we move toward a full 1.0 launch in May. Some features are already live, some are unfinished but also in already(we are still in early access after all), others are dropping over the next weeks.
The game will improve rapidly from now on.

Your feedback is more valuable than ever. Bug reports, suggestions, memes, whatever - bring it all.

Thank you so much for sticking around. See you ingame!

Cheers,
Beepbep

Before we dive in: The last year was.. quiet. I kept postponing updates and in the end everything took longer than planned.. and, well, you know. Communication wasn’t great. That’s on me, and I'm sorry.

Time for some change. I’m committed to doing better, so let's kick off a new phase of consistent development: The Road to 1.0.


We start it off with a huge game-changing update thats about to go live. It's a major rework of the whole game and it’s the beginning of a full development sprint leading up to launch. There will be frequent updates, fresh content, and lots of polish as we shape the game into its best version yet. Together.

[h4]So, whats on the Road to 1.0? What is Paranormal Cleanup 1.0 gonna look like?[/h4]

• Lobby Rework: Say goodbye to static menus and hang out in your own interactive garage between jobs
  
• New Objective System: Every map now has one big to-do list. Don't worry about cleaning everything at once, though. Clean at least 25%, then feel free to escape if you want to live
  
• 5 New Maps by launch (so 8 total)
  
• Unique Enemies: Every map has its own paranormal threat(ːlunchladyrageː) with unique behavior and special abilities
  
• More Gross Stuff to Clean, to fix, or get rid of
  
• Improved Atmosphere: More environmental interactions, scares, and surprises.
  
• Perk Overhaul: Now more powerful than ever and upgradeable at the Workbench in your garage
  
• Also at your workbench: Equipment Upgrades: Permanent Improvements to your gear, no need to waste Perk Slots just for a brighter flashlight
  
• The Banish Mechanic: Complete special objectives to weaken or even kill the entity you are facing
  
• Daily & Weekly Tasks for additional cash and XP
  
• Tons of new Achievements, now with cash and XP rewards
  
• Visual & Performance Upgrades: Improved graphics, better optimization, fewer bugs.
  
• Unlockable Character Skins and more playable Characters
  
• Localization
  
• Improved Controller Support
  
• Steam Deck Support
  
• Menu/Lobby UI Overhaul
  
• Balance Tweaks & lots and lots of polish

The update thats about to drop has most of the systems above already (in at least bare-bones form) and the rest is coming fast in the next patches.

If you want to check it out already, join the beta with the code "newbetapassword69".
I will post patch notes seperately once the update goes live.
edit 31/03/25: Update is live!

Thank you for your patience and have fun playing! See you ingame :)

Cheers,
Beepbep

- trying to fix an issue with save files sometimes not loading properly.. hopefully fixed it? Please let me know :)




Thats it for this patch!
If you encounter any bugs, feel free to report them in the steam discussions or join me and the others over at discord[discord.gg].

You can see the current game version in the main menu's bottom right corner.
If Steam doesn't update the game automatically, just restart Steam and the game should start updating.
If you have trouble joining a server, the host probably hasn't updated the game yet.

Thanks for playing and have fun!

Beepbep
Manic Mice

Dont panic, its just a small balancing update and some bug fixes (:

- Normal Difficulty: Ghosts hunt less often and not as long as before
- fixed several game breaking bugs caused by perks
- fixed wooden planks not replicating properly in multiplayer


Thats it for this patch!
If you encounter any bugs, feel free to report them in the steam discussions or join me and the others over at discord[discord.gg].

You can see the current game version in the main menu's bottom right corner.
If Steam doesn't update the game automatically, just restart Steam and the game should start updating.
If you have trouble joining a server, the host probably hasn't updated the game yet.

Thanks for playing and have fun!

Beepbep
Manic Mice