- BGG rank
- BGG #21,050
- BGG rating
- 7.1
Village Builder
- 1 player
- 40–100 min
- Complexity 2.0/5
- 2020
- BGG rank
- BGG #21,774
- BGG rating
- 6.6
The Cleaner
2018
Rules assistance for The Cleaner
Plain-language explanations of turns, card effects and disputed situations, with official source references and saved question history.
- 1 player
- 45–60 min
- 14+
- Complexity 2.0/5
For 1 player
Rules assistant for The Cleaner
What would you like to know?
Answers come from the official rulebook, with the page to check.
The Cleaner is a board game released in 2018 for 1 player, 45–60 minutes per game, and ages 14 and up. It was designed by Janine Viglietti and Martin Gonzalvez and its main mechanics are Dice Rolling, Modular Board, and Worker Placement.
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About the game
You are the Cleaner. Your goal is to clean as much evidence as possible from each crime scene before the police arrive. You bring equipment to each crime scene and use your equipment to generate effort, with which you clean evidence tiles from the crime scene. The more evidence you are able to clean, the less chance you give the police to catch you. The Cleaner is a game of playing cards to generate Effort cubes. You may then place Effort cubes on Evidence spaces, or combine lower-value Effort cubes to create higher-value Effort cubes. Once all spaces on an Evidence Tile have been assigned an appropriate Effort cube, you may remove that Evidence Tile from the play area. Each action you perform takes some time off the clock. You must play your Equipment cards as efficiently as you can, to cover as many Evidence spaces as possible. At the end of each stage, the police will conduct an investigation of the crime scene. For each unoccupied Evidence space, the police will have a greater chance of finding any Evidence you left behind. Successfully clean all the crime scenes to win the game. —description from the publisher ================ The Cleaner won the following awards in the 2018 Solitaire Print and Play Contest: 1st place, Best Regular Print and Play Build 2nd place, Best Rule Book 3rd place, Most Thematic Game 4th place, Best Resource Management Category 7th place, Best Overall Game 9th place, Best Graphic Design Janine Viglietti 1st place, Best Artist Martin Gonzalvez 3rd place, Best New Designer
Designers
Publishers
- (Self-Published)
Questions and answers
The Cleaner supports 1 player according to the catalogue. This is the publisher’s listed player count, so the game is designed for exactly that number of participants. Variants for other group sizes, if any, are described in the rulebook of your edition, so check it before setting up a different configuration.
The listed playing time for The Cleaner is 45–60 minutes. This is the publisher’s estimate for a full game. The actual duration depends on the group, the player count and familiarity with the rules: first sessions usually run longer, while experienced groups often finish faster. Setup and teaching time are not included in this estimate.
The catalogue lists The Cleaner for ages 14 and up. This is the publisher’s recommendation and reflects reading demands, rule complexity and small components rather than theme alone. Younger players can often join with help from an adult, so check the age guidance on your edition and consider your group’s experience with board games.
The Cleaner has a complexity rating of 2.0 out of 5 from BoardGameGeek players, which makes it a medium-light game. The rating reflects how much rules knowledge, planning and decision-making a typical game demands. Expect a longer first teach for heavier games, and use a preparation guide before game night.
The Cleaner belongs to these categories: Card Game, Mature / Adult, and Print & Play. Its main mechanics are Dice Rolling, Modular Board, and Worker Placement. Categories describe the theme and setting of a game, while mechanics describe what players actually do on their turns. Each mechanic links to a catalogue hub with similar games, which helps when you want something comparable.
The credited designers of The Cleaner are: Janine Viglietti and Martin Gonzalvez. These credits come from the published game data and name the people responsible for the game’s design, not its illustrators or publishers. Designer pages on MeepleRules collect other titles by the same designers, which helps when you enjoy a game and want to find similar ones.
The catalogue lists The Cleaner as a base game. It can be played on its own with the components in the box and does not require any other title. Expansions, if any exist, add new content or rules on top of it and are listed separately in the catalogue with a link back to this base game.