Tidy Mart Review: Tell Your Kids – Cleaning Is Fun!

I was going to go all out and write up all three shmup reviews in one go, but needed to break that up with some words on Tidy Mart. Out of all the thgames I’ve been playing these past few weeks (previews and reviews, that is), this one is the title that’s the most wholesome, that I’d sneak in a cheeky minute or two (hours), playing this chillfest.

No, it’s not an interactive cat video or floating feather simulator, but a tidying up game. Say, what?! Nobody likes cleaning games, right? But, of course they do. They’re some of the best titles. PowerWash Simulator and Lost & Found, to name just a couple. In this game from ShiningStarsTeam, you are responsible for restacking shelves in a growing series of shop fronts, and that’s it. No interacting with Johnny Public or managing finances. All you need to do is stack.

Easy. Well, not entirely. There are no objectives besides the obvious one, which is to clean up and make it tidy, and there are no restrictions, nor allocated places to put the goods. Unlike games such as Unpacking where you can dump items wherever you like, as long as they’re in the right room, in Tidy Mart, all you need to ensure is all the items have been put away. And, like A Little to the Left, items do need to have some symmetry to a degree.

At the start of each stage, you enter a room where all the items have been dumped on the floor. You simply have to pick up each item one at a time, and depending on how big it is, drop them into a basket so you can carry more. Some can only be carried one at a time, but what’s the rush? There are allocated shelves to present your goods, and while you might want to colour code everything and stack all the crisps together, or biscuit tins in one beautiful space, as long as the items are put away, you can move on.

However, Tidy Mart comes without any hints or guides; often you have to go on a whim and put everything away to begin with, then alter so they all fit. The shelves may vary in size, with Pringles-like boxes only fitting on taller shelves, or soda cans going in a fridge. That’s not to say you can’t stack dog food with cereal, but sometimes it makes sense to pack similar items together just so you can see the floor.

The first stage took me a couple of hours. Well, that’s what Steam told me, though I did share this with my kids as they really love this sort of thing, too. Surprisingly, the first stage was the trickiest out of the five (count ‘em), as this is where you learn to place particular-sized items in a particular manner – notably the smaller tins on larger areas to fit them all in. Once you get past the first stage, the next stages are a doddle and more about the chill vibe.

Now, as is the running theme with all these new articles, I’ve been away on holiday and took my Ayn Thor with me. This ran perfectly on this, and I took my time as I enjoyed it. As it’s now out, I’ve since seen that it has mixed reviews. The negative ones resonate with the fact that nothing is labelled, and I agree that the first stage is frustrating because of this. However, as mentioned, once you get past the first stage, it follows a similar pattern, and I personally found Tidy Mart very relaxing, and dare I say, satisfying. For that reason, I’m going to go against the grain and say that I’m recommending this title if cleaning is your thing.

The devs are apparently also working on a labelling system, so if that’s what’s stopping you from this very fairly priced casual simulation, then I’d suggest adding it to your wishlist. I really liked it.