Cleanup on Aisle 3

Game

Cleanup on Aisle 3

Developer

Aviary Interactive, a one-person studio

Release

November 2026

Platforms

Steam (Windows, Linux, macOS)

Price

TBA

Genre

Arcade management, PlateUp-style

Players

Single-player, full controller support

Steam page

store.steampowered.com/app/4971070

Website

aviaryinteractive.com

Bluesky

@aviaryinteractive.com

Press contact

linkedin.com/in/jimmcquillan

You are the only competent employee. Keep a failing grocery store alive while corporate makes everything worse: hurl crates at shelves, chain register combos, wrangle five-cart trains across the lot. PlateUp-style escalation, six failing stores, one of you.

You are the only competent employee.

Cleanup on Aisle 3 is a solo arcade management game about running an entire grocery store by yourself. It starts manageable. It does not stay that way, because every night corporate approves exactly one improvement, and the store gets bigger, busier and louder while the help stays exactly as useless as it was on day one.

This is not a relaxing cleaning game. Think PlateUp, but the kitchen is a supermarket and the ticket rush never stops.

Scan for combos

Work the checkout belt and chain perfect scans for combo tips. The register doesn't care how your day is going, only your rhythm.

Throw the crates

The truck's here and the shelves are empty. Wind up and launch crates clear across the store: hit the shelf and it restocks itself. Miss, and you already know what happens next.

Wrangle the cart trains

Chain stray carts into a five-cart snake and haul the whole thing back across the parking lot before the next rush hits.

Survive the directives

Every night, corporate approves exactly one improvement. New departments, a bigger lot, new hires, stranger mandates. The store keeps growing, and so does the headcount. The new hires are exactly as useless as you'd expect.

Turn the chain around

ValuCo is failing one store at a time, and corporate's fix is you. Turn a store around and your reward is a transfer to a worse one: the 24-hour store, the Megamart, the concept store, the Flagship's 14-day Grand Reopening. Each one bigger, busier, and further behind.

Survive the shift. Keep customers from storming out. Keep the floor dry. Mostly.

Aviary Interactive is a one-person studio founded by Jim McQuillan. Before going indie, Jim spent 13.5 years at IGN Entertainment building products for game audiences, worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Apple, and was a Microsoft Xbox MVP from 2009 to 2011. Cleanup on Aisle 3 is the studio's debut game.

A production note reviewers tend to enjoy: the game has no hand-painted assets at all. Every scene is a hand-written text file, every color in the game comes from a single palette file, and the audio, icons, signage, and memo paper are all generated by scripts. The entire art direction is code.