Post Steam Next Fest Update Is Live

After Steam Next Fest, I went through the feedback and focused on the biggest issues players ran into during the demo. This update is all about making Rug Cleaning Simulator feel smoother, clearer, and more polished across the full gameplay loop.

A lot of the work in this patch went into the cleaning experience itself. I reworked the feel of first-person cleaning, improved tool feedback, upgraded water and puddle behavior, and tightened progression through each cleaning stage. I also spent time improving onboarding, end-of-day flow, and a lot of smaller quality-of-life issues that were holding the experience back.

What changed in this update:

• Reworked the core cleaning flow into a smoother first-person cleaning experience

• Improved camera handling, movement, and entry/exit transitions during cleaning

• Upgraded the water pistol, scrubber, and water extractor with better visuals and feedback

• Added better wetness behavior, including puddles, water persistence, and proper extraction

• Improved crosshair, cursor feedback, and overall readability while cleaning

• Refined cleaning progression, stage completion, reward flow, and EXP gain

• Improved rug handling with better shape support, offset fixes, and mask-map updates

• Upgraded foam, scrubber, extraction, and water-stream visual effects, plus shader fixes

• Reworked the end-of-day flow, including laptop-based day completion and improved shop-state behavior

• Added a better end-of-day presentation with an improved summary flow and updated modal screens

• Expanded progression systems with ranking improvements, league icons, and new level-up card options

• Improved tutorial modals, tutorial videos, shop naming, rug labels, settings behavior, loading flow, and general stability

• Added optimization work, asset cleanup, translation updates, and reduced noisy debug logging

I've prepared video devlog showcase if you want to see how it looks now:

This patch was heavily shaped by the problems and rough edges exposed during Steam Next Fest, so thank you to everyone who played the demo and shared feedback. It helped me focus on the changes that mattered most.

If you try the update, I’d love to hear how the new cleaning flow feels and which improvements stand out the most.