There are plenty of racing games where you climb into a supercar, strap yourself into a futuristic vehicle, or jump behind the wheel of something with considerably more horsepower than your average family hatchback. Then there is Floor Wiping Race, a game in which the key to victory is apparently knowing how to push a mop across the floor faster than everybody else. It is the sort of concept that sounds completely ridiculous when written down, yet somehow becomes strangely appealing once you see it in motion. SAT BOX has never been particularly afraid of unusual ideas, and this one certainly qualifies.
Known as Zoukingake Race in Japan, Floor Wiping Race takes the traditional Japanese school cleaning routine and turns it into a full-blown arcade racing competition. Rather than calmly cleaning corridors after lessons, your character is sprinting around courses, sliding across polished floors, drifting around corners, and using assorted items to gain an advantage over the opposition. It is gloriously silly, unapologetically arcade-focused, and very clearly designed to put a smile on your face before you have time to question exactly what you are doing.
Who Said Cleaning Was Boring?
The basic premise is wonderfully straightforward. You choose a character, select a course, then try to beat your opponents to the finish line while wiping your way around the track. The courses take you through locations including schools, temples and plazas, giving the game a surprisingly varied backdrop for something based around floor cleaning.
The movement is where the concept really starts to make sense. Your character can drift around corners, helping you maintain momentum as you negotiate the bends on each course. It feels less like a conventional racing simulation and more like an arcade game that has taken a familiar kart-racing formula, removed the karts and replaced them with people frantically sliding around on cleaning equipment.
There is a certain satisfaction in getting a corner right. You approach at speed, initiate the drift and hope you come out the other side without losing too much momentum. It is not especially complicated, but the immediacy of the controls means you can grasp the basics almost instantly, which is exactly what you want from this sort of game.
Clean Lines and Dirty Tricks
Of course, no respectable arcade racer would be complete without items, and Floor Wiping Race happily embraces the chaos. Power-ups and items can be used to gain an advantage over your rivals, transforming what could otherwise be a fairly straightforward race into something considerably more unpredictable.
This is where the game is likely to be most fun when several people are playing together. It is one thing to learn a course and perfect your racing line when you are competing against the computer. It is another when a friend suddenly uses an item to ruin your carefully planned run and sends the whole race into a state of glorious chaos.
The items also help compensate for the simplicity of the underlying racing mechanics. There is only so much depth you can squeeze out of drifting around corners, but throwing competitive items into the mix creates additional opportunities for things to go wrong. Sometimes you will pull off a brilliant manoeuvre, only to have your lead disappear moments later. It can be frustrating, but in a party game, that sort of frustration is often exactly where the laughs come from.
Three Very Different Ways to Race
Floor Wiping Race offers several modes, each with a slightly different purpose. Time Attack is the option for players who want to take the silliness seriously and focus on improving their own performance. You choose a course and aim for the fastest possible time, with online leaderboards providing an additional incentive to keep shaving seconds off your best run.
There is something appealing about Time Attack because it strips away much of the chaos and puts the focus firmly on your own driving ability. Once you have learned a course, you can experiment with different approaches to corners and try to maintain as much speed as possible. It is a simple concept, but online leaderboards can give even relatively lightweight arcade racers a surprising amount of replay value.
Free Run takes things in the opposite direction. Here you can race against friends or CPU opponents and make use of the game’s items, turning proceedings into something much closer to a traditional party racer. It is probably the mode most likely to produce shouting, laughter and accusations of cheating when somebody steals victory at the last possible moment.
Then there is Grand Prix, which strings several courses together and challenges players to achieve the highest overall score. It offers a little more structure and gives you a reason to think beyond a single race. A bad result does not necessarily end the competition, so every subsequent course becomes another opportunity to recover.
Four Players, One Very Silly Idea
The inclusion of up to four-player local multiplayer is probably the biggest reason Floor Wiping Race works as well as it does. This is not the sort of game I would necessarily recommend sitting down with for hours on your own, but put three friends or family members in the same room and the equation changes considerably.
There is something inherently funny about watching four people frantically race around while wiping floors. The concept’s ridiculousness becomes an advantage because everyone understands that this is not supposed to be serious. You can compete, sabotage each other and laugh at the inevitable mistakes without worrying about ruining some painstakingly constructed simulation.
That couch multiplayer appeal is important on the Nintendo Switch. The system has always been particularly well suited to games that can be passed around a room, and Floor Wiping Race fits comfortably into that tradition. It is easy to explain, quick to start and does not require everyone to spend half an hour learning complicated controls before the fun begins.
Make Your Own Cleaning Champion
Character Edit adds another welcome touch. Rather than being restricted entirely to the game’s default characters, you can customise your racer and create your own character for use in the various modes. It is not the deepest character creation system you will ever encounter, but it gives players another reason to experiment and adds a little personal identity to the experience.
There is also an element of customising your character’s stats, which gives the game a modest strategic layer. Depending on how those attributes are balanced, you can create a character better suited to the way you prefer to race. It does not suddenly transform Floor Wiping Race into a serious role-playing experience, but it gives the otherwise simple arcade formula another small hook.
Being able to take your custom creations into races is a nice touch too. It means the customisation is not simply cosmetic window dressing. Your character can actually become part of the multiplayer experience, which makes the game feel a little more personal when you are competing against friends.
The Budget Shows
As enjoyable as the concept can be, Floor Wiping Race does not escape the constraints of its budget presentation. The visuals are functional rather than spectacular, and the environments lack the detail or visual variety you might expect from a major racing release. The school, temple and plaza settings provide different flavours, but the underlying presentation can begin to feel familiar surprisingly quickly.
The physics are similarly straightforward. This is arcade racing rather than a simulation, so there is no expectation of realistic handling, but some of the movement can feel a little basic. Experienced racing fans looking for precision and depth will probably find themselves wanting more control and nuance.
That is not necessarily a deal breaker. Floor Wiping Race is clearly aimed at casual players, and the simplicity is part of what makes it approachable. The important question is whether you are prepared to accept the limitations in exchange for the game’s unusual sense of humour and multiplayer appeal.
More Fun With Friends
This is a game that makes a strong case for being played socially. Alone, the repetition becomes much more noticeable. Once you have raced around the available courses and become comfortable with the handling, there is not much left to discover unless you are particularly interested in chasing leaderboard times.
With friends, however, the same tracks suddenly feel much more entertaining. A perfectly ordinary corner becomes an opportunity to overtake someone, an item becomes a potential source of revenge, and a race that seemed predictable can completely unravel in the final few seconds. That unpredictability gives Floor Wiping Race its personality.
It is also the sort of game where losing can be almost as entertaining as winning. There is a particular kind of joy in a ridiculous racing game where everyone knows the premise is absurd and nobody takes the result too seriously. SAT BOX has clearly understood that this concept works best when people are laughing together.
Final Verdict
Floor Wiping Race is exactly the sort of game that is difficult to take seriously, and that is precisely why I found myself warming to it. Turning a mundane cleaning routine into an arcade racing game is such a wonderfully strange idea that it immediately gives the experience an identity. The drifting is easy to understand, the item-based chaos adds entertaining unpredictability, and the three main modes provide enough variety to keep things moving for a while.
The limitations are equally obvious. The visuals are fairly basic, the physics lack the sophistication of more established arcade racers, and the selection of courses and gameplay mechanics can become repetitive. As a single-player experience, its appeal is therefore likely to fade more quickly, particularly once the novelty of the premise has worn off.
But add a few friends and the game becomes a different proposition. Four-player local multiplayer is where Floor Wiping Race really finds its purpose, turning the bizarre concept into a wonderfully daft party experience. Time Attack also provides a useful extra for players who enjoy chasing leaderboard positions, while Grand Prix gives multiplayer sessions a little more structure.
Ultimately, Floor Wiping Race knows exactly what it is. It is not trying to compete with Mario Kart, Crash Team Racing or the heavyweight arcade racers. It is a quirky, budget-friendly distraction built around an idea so silly that it is hard not to admire the sheer audacity of it.
Sometimes gaming is about epic adventures, unforgettable stories and enormous worlds. Other times, it is about watching your mate wipe a school corridor at ridiculous speed while you try to knock them off course with an item. Floor Wiping Race belongs firmly in the latter category, and there is nothing wrong with that.
