The quest for the ultimate bottom of your screen game continues as I stumbled across Bao Bao’s Cozy Laundromat on Steam. This cute and colourful idle game features pixelated pandas who wash and dry clothes automatically, but how does it stack up against other idle games on the market?
Panda Prowess
Starting with the single panda, presumably Bao Bao, you purchase and unlock new and more colourful washing machines and dryers for your laundromat. It’s a simple premise, with the cost and efficiency of each machine increasing incrementally, allowing for bigger profits. There are also decorative items, vending machines and other items to explore, which boost earnings.
The basic gameplay loop is as expected from an idle game. You purchase new items to increase efficiency, then leave your game running to gain income. New items are unlocked by purchasing a number of the previous items, with your progression shown on the menu. Otherwise, there were few barriers to my progress. Simply leave your game running, and you will gain income over time, however slowly.
Unfortunately, this low-input cycle is a double-edged sword. The lack of barriers means that there’s not really much in the way of goals or progression. I didn’t have much to aim towards aside from purchasing and unlocking new machines to gain income faster. The Steam achievements are also not too difficult and don’t give much to aim towards either. You could get pretty far without purchasing anything and leaving it running for an extended period.
Presentation
The cosy vibes are bolstered by cute graphics, ambient sounds, and a light gameplay loop. I also appreciated being able to adjust the volume of each of these individually.
The pixel art and animations were really well done; however, they were not without fault. The clouds along the edge of the gameplay area swayed, making it difficult to tell where things could be placed. Then, I was unable to move things I’d placed in these areas until I had unlocked the area expansion to clear the clouds.
Work Focused
Bao Bao’s Cozy Launderette features a work timer and relaxing lo-fi music to help you stay focused. It feels like it’s meant to be a companion game for working, much like Spirit City and other productivity tools. In this regard, it works incredibly well; however, it’s not really marketed as a productivity tool.
Co-Working With Twitch
Bao Bao’s Cozy Laundromat also has Twitch integration. It’s easy enough to set up, but the authenticator would pop up every time I opened the game after setting it up. It was not very obvious what this did, other than display the names of my chatters above a panda that ran at the top of the screen.
What does this button do?
I think perhaps my biggest gripe with Bao Bao’s Cozy Laundromat is that I didn’t know what most things did. I understand that I could unlock things and that my pandas would interact with them, but I had to figure out what they did after purchasing and placing each item. Even then, the cat companions were something that made money, but I wasn’t very clear on how or why.
Similarly, I’m not sure what the benches or vending machines did. There was a bar when my Pandas interacted with them, so I assume it had something to do with my staff’s stamina. It’s not like this matters much with the lack of punishment or ability to fail, but I didn’t know what was worth spending money on or where best to upgrade.
Ignore The Creases
Bao Bao’s Cozy Laundromat is a cute, low-stakes idle game that accomplishes most of what it set out to do. The Twitch integration is a little meh, there was a leader board and some other features that I couldn’t get to work. Also the docking mechanics are so wonky and take up so much of your screen that it’s basically redundant, but I had few issues otherwise.
It’s not a replacement for Rusty’s Retirement or Maltese Fluffy Onsen, nor as addictive as Fish To Dish, but it will keep you company for 30-40 hours while you look for a new workplace companion. I’ll also be keeping an eye on Destroyer Doggo’s upcoming Bao Bao’s Cozy Cleaning Service, as that looks like it will be a lot of fun.
Platform: PC
Publisher: Destroyer Doggo
Developer: Destroyer Doggo
Played On: Steam
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