Viscera Cleanup Detail

Viscera Cleanup Detail starts the way other games end. The alien invasion was repelled. The facility was saved. The survivor became a hero, killed everything that needed killing, and went home. You arrive afterward, in coveralls, with a mop and a bucket. The job description is what the title promises: clean up the viscera.

Gameplay is unhurried, methodical and gently absurd. Blood, body parts, spent shell casings, dead workers and miscellaneous debris cover every facility you visit. Tools include a mop, gloves, biohazard barrels, dispenser machines, a plasma laser for stubborn stains, and a sniffer tool that helps locate the smaller particles you missed. When you think you're done, you walk to the punch-out clock and try to clock out — and the game tells you, often patiently, exactly what you forgot.

The game is structurally a sandbox. There's no fail state in the conventional sense and no goal other than cleanup completion, which makes it useful both as a comedic puzzle game and as something more meditative — many players treat it less as a challenge and more as a place to put their brain on idle and tidy something up. You can also save mid-shift, which is the kind of feature that sounds small until you realize how long some of these levels take.

Multiplayer brings in friends or coworkers to help (or make the mess worse). Split-screen co-op works locally, and online co-op runs through Steam — note that the OS X version lacks Steam multiplayer connectivity, Workshop or Steam Achievements. Buying the main game also bundles in two spin-off titles: VCD: Shadow Warrior and Santa's Rampage. Santa's Rampage ships both inside the main game and as a standalone download for connecting with players who only own the spin-off.