Janitor Bleeds Review

Janitor Bleeds tells the story of a nameless protagonist who crashes his car in the middle of night. Being in such a predicament, you go on to find some help. After finding a flashlight, you follow a path to an abandoned arcade in hopes of finding help, but all you find is a single functional arcade machine. Little do you know that it’s your key to survive the night.

Janitor Bleeds is a unique survival horror game where you’ll need to escape an unknown entity trying to get rid of you. However, unlike other similar games of the genre, players need to play an arcade game to keep progressing through the game and discover the dark secret of the arcade machine. In order to be able to play the machine, you’ll need to find and collect coins; each machine require 3 and you can hold a max of 10 coins.

In smaller rooms, coins are easy to spot and collect, while in larger areas, such the roof, you need to explore a bit more to find the necessary coins to play the game. In the game inside the game, you play a janitor where you need to clean up messes to clear your path outside the arcade machine. The area in game matches the room you’re currently in. In the arcade, you’ll also need to find keys to unlock doors to find new messes to clean.

But keys, and other items, can also be found within the arcade and “spawned” in “real life” so you can collect and use them to progress through the various rooms of the arcade establishment which is quite a unique gameplay mechanic. The other way around is possible as well by finding items while exploring the various areas and transfering them inside the arcade machine. The game also has two different endings while you can also discover a few stories.

Janitor Bleeds’ presentation is quite spot-on. Despite its low-poly pixelated visuals, the game is quite unnerving, let alone walking around in dark, spooky building. Additionally, the entity is a messed up pixelated walking creep that’s somehow genuinely spooky. Furthermore, when playing the arcade game and cleaning messes, the noise will sound behind you giving a few unpredictable jump scares. On the audio side of things, it’s also quite spot on. While walking around, there’s a light ambient sound, but once you’re about to find an arcade machine, you’ll hear its soundtrack which is somehow both reassuring and unnerving.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with Janitor Bleeds, but I can see players claiming the game doesn’t have much gameplay depth; which is understandable. It’s also a bit on the short side; playthroughs can take anywhere between 3 and 5 hours depending on the way you play games. Some players will want to blaze through it as fast as possible while others will take their time. Puzzles can sometimes bit a bit… well… puzzling. Also the lack of a map is a bit irritating.

Janitor Bleeds is the prime example of a game where atmosphere can be much more effective than visuals. The game’s ambiance and its unique premise make it stand out among the horror genre. Sure, it’s a bit shallow in terms of gameplay, but offering two endings and additional side stories will compensate for this for players looking to achieve everything. I highly recommend picking up Janitor Bleeds whether you’re a horror game fan or not.