Dust till Dawn

Dust till Dawn combines a calm cleaning simulator with psychological horror. You play a new live-in maid who cleans for various clients in a remote Japanese town and comes across a strange kind of dirt that keeps coming back despite thorough cleaning.

Everyday life starts with ordinary work in houses, shops and public buildings. As time goes on, however, these same familiar spaces increasingly change and become a source of supernatural signs.

Mac n Cheese Games is developing Dust till Dawn for 2027. No exact release date has been set yet. A Steam playtest is planned or accessible before release; playtest access is not a separate product.

Currently, only PC via Steam is confirmed. Console versions or native mobile versions have not been announced so far.

The core remains deliberately hands-on: sweeping, mopping, scrubbing and high-pressure cleaning require different tools depending on the dirt and surface. Completed jobs earn money, which goes into better cleaning equipment and unlocks new job sites.

The locations are visited repeatedly. This makes changes noticeable that were not there during the first job, and cleaning also becomes a means of exploration.

Final system requirements have not been published yet. Steam currently lists English, Japanese and traditional Chinese as supported languages, as well as full controller support, but no reliable hardware configuration yet.

Players decide for themselves when a workday ends. Going home early reduces the risk. Cleaning until deep into the night earns more money, but at the same time increases the likelihood of paranormal events.

These include apparitions in mirrors and televisions, shadows behind sliding doors and rooms that change in unnatural ways. Some clues can therefore only be discovered if a job is deliberately extended late into the night.

According to the developer, the visual direction is inspired by Japanese horror, and it explicitly names Junji Ito's work as an inspiration for the art direction. The goal is less a constant jump-scare rhythm and more the slow turning of familiar rooms into something eerie.

For the reveal trailer, Akira Yamaoka, best known for his music for Silent Hill, contributes a music track. The game itself combines this horror aesthetic with the meditative satisfaction of a cleaning simulator.