A cleaner's sketchbook in Muri: Wildwoods

Pelle's sketchbook in Muri: Wildwoods has room for the creatures you've found and the cleaning you've still to finish. October's demo update added named areas and their cleaning progress, giving this small island restorer a useful companion to the water gun. You can wash corruption from the scenery, enjoy the returning colour, then open the book to see where the job needs another look.

Speldosa's adventure launches on PC on 7 December, with a free Steam demo available now. Its recent updates make a particularly appealing part of the game easier to follow: caring for a place involves noticing what's there. The book gathers discoveries alongside the work, while changes to spray effects and restoration sounds give the cleaning itself clearer responses.

A splash with an answer

The water gun starts with Bubble Spray and a Pressure Washer, with two further nozzles to unlock during the adventure. It's equipment for cleaning the environment and its sick inhabitants, as well as tackling small challenges along the way. Pelle's first solo cleaning mission takes them into the Wildwoods with TeamSqueak offering support through messages. There are ruins to explore and a forest spirit to save amongst the washing.

The 8 October demo patch gives spraying three distinct responses. Sounds and visual effects change according to whether you're hitting something, missing it or actually cleaning it. That's a useful detail for a game in which you're directing water at the scenery. Your aim and the result receive separate answers, helping the action communicate through the spray itself.

The official press screenshot of powerwashing puts that action right up close. A bright blue stream strikes a rounded structure, with dark purple corruption still stretched across its surface. The little cleaner occupies the corner of a much larger job. It's an inviting view of the game's scale: a patch of grime can fill the screen, and your tool reaches straight into it.

A book for unfinished places

The sketchbook supplies a second way to understand the island. The updated demo gives areas names and tracks their cleaning progress, while summaries gather sketches, pixies and the collectible outfit. Critters have their own category. Those different records make a pleasing fit for Pelle: a cleaner has practical work to remember, and a curious traveller has things worth keeping a picture of.

There are two reasons to reopen those pages. One is to find unfinished cleaning; the other is to revisit what you've discovered. Putting them in the same book gives the island a character beyond its dirty surfaces. A creature is something to help and something to remember. A named area is somewhere you can recognise when checking the remaining work.

Pelle also records water consumption in the Digidial menu. The developer's explanation for that addition is delightfully modest: it's fun to see. A running total gives your spraying an extra souvenir, alongside the drawings and rescued pixies. The statistics suit the task's pleasantly excessive nature. There's a whole island to wash, and now you can keep count of the water going into it.

Movement makes that attention to little places more appealing. Pelle can jump, double jump, climb and bounce, and October's demo added a roll after feedback asking for more speed. The outfit hidden in the demo gives exploring another small reward. Searching a space can therefore mean looking for something to collect as well as finding the last part of a cleaning job.

Leave the island brighter

Speldosa's cleaned-beach screenshot gives the work a lovely destination. Pale sand sits beneath blue and lilac plants, orange branching shapes and broad leaves, with Pelle tiny at the bottom of the scene. The woodland image offers a different palette: green ground, white flowers and oversized mushrooms on raised stumps. These are places with distinct colours and shapes to enjoy once the cleaning brings them back into view.

The 19 October patch added musical stingers when an area is restored. An area's completion can now receive a musical response alongside its entry in the book. It's a cheerful pairing for anyone who likes finishing a corner before moving on: the world celebrates the work, and the record helps you keep track of it.

The Digidial also keeps the crew nearby. It holds chat history and profiles for Pelle, Bea, Sixten and Rika, while incoming messages carry tutorial tips, lore and conversation. A solo mission has people on the other end of the device. Returning to the menu can mean checking a collection, reading back over a message or looking at who is helping you along.

That update also marks the demo's final deletion of old saves, with progress made afterwards carrying into the December release. The current demo offers an opening that can belong to the longer journey. For another gentle adventure about giving things a future, our Young Suns feature follows repaired finds into homes and donation boxes. Pelle's task stays with the landscape itself. The water gun changes what you see ahead; the sketchbook keeps the discoveries and unfinished jobs close to hand.