I picked up Leaf It Alone during the Steam spring sale, since it was nice and cheap. It also helped that it bore a resemblance to some other satisfying clean-up style games like Powerwash Simulator and A Game About Digging a Hole. In the end, while I mainly enjoyed my time with it, apparently taking leaves just isn’t as fun as digging a hole of blasting dirt off a car.
The setup in Leaf It Alone is very similar to A Game About Digging a Hole. Do a specific task and earn money as you go. Then redeem said money to improve your ability to complete the task. Rinse and repeat until it is complete.
The problem with Leaf It Alone is that the escalations of your abilities never feel good enough that it feels worth the effort. Even fully powered, the leaf blower doesn’t feel as good at blowing leaves as I would have liked. Additionally, it would have been nice to have some kind of cartoonishly wild escalation in the upgrades similar to the drill in A Game About Digging a Hole.
That being said, it was still very satisfying cleaning up all of the leaves in all of the areas. I also liked the physics of the leaves themselves. They were beautiful to watch as I blew them off the roof of the shed or into the pool.
While it didn’t hit the highs I was hoping for from it, I would still recommend checking out Leaf It Alone, especially while it is on sale.
