Starting off our Janitor Bleeds review, I would like to acknowledge the nostalgia of the old school arcades from the early 90’s a magical, simpler time that our youngling readers may not have experienced.
For those of you who may have been born after 9/11 and never knew the true America, imagine going to a mall filled with people, be given like 20 bucks and get left in a place with over 100 different games while your parents went and knocked out Christmas shopping.
Janitor Bleeds
Developer: Korpus
Publisher: Bonus Stage Publishing
Platforms: Windows PC, Xbox One
Release Date: April 7, 2022
Players: 1
Price: $12.99 (Review Copy Received)
If you like low-poly PlayStation 1 style graphics and walking simulator reminiscent of the first-person survival horror video game like Slender: The Eight Pages you will enjoy Janitor Bleeds.
The game starts after your car has crashed and you stumble on to a camp where you find a letter stamped to a tent basically out lining the controls. Janitor Bleeds controls are pretty standard WASD to move around with control for crouching and going prone, and shift gets you to run.
I’m sorry to report but hitting the CAPS lock doesn’t put you on constant run mode. The Steam description says Janitor Bleeds has full controller support which for me would add to the nostalgia.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t get it to work with my Xbox 360 or PS3 controllers. Another bug I came across is every time I started up the game past the first time my movement keys defaulted to the D key. It’s an easy fix just going back to the menu and rebinding the WASD keys, but this happens every time I start the game.
Janitor Bleeds has that unarmed survival horror feel in the vein of Outlast and the Amnesia series with a worn and chunky pixelated textures and low poly count models are faithful to the aesthetics seen in 32-bit games.
Janitor Bleeds story starts out with your character recovering from a car wreck making their way to an abandoned old school arcade to find help. The story of Janitor Bleeds is told through a series of messages left throughout the arcade.
As you make your way around the arcade you will pick up coins that you will use to play the Janitor arcade cabinet that has the look and feel of an Atari game.
The game within a game has you clean up trash that opens up new paths for you to explore out of the Janitor game. You are able to carry three items that you can quickly switch between by using the mouse wheel.
While playing the mysterious arcade machine you will be noticed the entity and you will have to use quick thinking and use the environment to run and hide from the entity.
There is no in-game map, but I never got lost as Janitor Bleeds does a great job of guiding you to where you need to go. Janitor Bleeds also features a handy auto save feature when you make your way to a new area.
There are a few puzzles that will require a little of outside of the box thinking to send and receive items from the Janitor arcade cabinet. These include the keys you will need to unlock areas of the arcade all while avoiding the entity who will walk by and send your screen into a retro style glitch and static frenzy adding to the suspense.
Janitor Bleeds definitely has the look and feel of an old school PlayStation 1 game and if it would have come out in the 90s, I’m sure it would be a beloved classic now. Janitor Bleeds has a way of building up a mysterious atmosphere with a respectable amount of storytelling. Bottom line, Janitor Bleeds is a fun survival horror game with a retro art style.
Janitor Bleeds was reviewed on Windows PC using a copy provided by Bonus Stage Publishing. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here. Janitor Bleeds is available for Windows PC (via Steam and GOG) and Xbox One.
