For the last three weeks or so, I’ve been unhealthily addicted to Powerwash Simulator. It dominated my thoughts and even invaded my dreams until I completed the final level this week. Since then, I’ve felt a hole in my soul where the space-cleaning game previously was, bereft and left wondering what I should do with all of my new free time. 

Okay, so maybe that’s a little dramatic (it definitely is), but I have been looking for something to give me the same tidying, chaos-to-order dopamine fix, and I found it in Leaf it Alone. 

Leaf it Alone is a charming fall-centric short game developed and published by Eternity. It perfectly encapsulates all of the things I adore about these kinds of games: the slow start that quickly picks up pace, the newly unlocked abilities and locations earned by completing objectives, and most of all, the emphasis on bringing peace to where chaos once reigned. 

Leafing through

Leaf it Alone begins with a snippet of text that realistically has no effect on the game in any way, although I feel like it should be highlighted. Apparently, you’ve just woken up from a coma (again), the doctors don’t know why this keeps happening, and yet your first thought upon opening your eyes is not “am I going to be okay?” or “what’s happening to me?”, it’s “why are there so many leaves?!”

I would argue that the mysterious character has bigger issues to be worrying about here, but that feels like I’d be doing a disservice to the game. Besides, you soon forget about your medical woes. 

And there really are so many leaves. 

The main goal in Leaf it Alone is to get rid of the leaves, throwing them into the bin to earn cash to buy upgrades. Think One Man’s Trash, except there’s no digging and a whole lot more leaves. You mostly pick them up with your hands, although you can buy a rake and a leaf blower, and you begin by picking up the leaves one by one. 

Re-leafing tension

I’ll be honest, there was a huge (and probably masochistic) part of me that actually enjoyed the slow process of picking up leaves one by one and eventually throwing them into the trash once my hands got full. Sure, it was slow, but it was also bizarrely relaxing, and the progress I made felt like it meant something. In the end, I cleared the front path like this while choosing to ignore upgrades, but then I realized I couldn’t really write about the game in its entirety without purchasing upgrades. So I sacrificed my slow progress for the sake of fair writing. 

You’re welcome. 

Admittedly, the upgrades to the hand are worth getting. They let you pick up more leaves in one grab, reduce the time between available grabs, and they do make everything go just a little faster. I was still picking up the leaves by hand, so it didn’t feel like too much of a difference aside from the speed at which the new areas got cleared. 

You can also buy things in the shed: a trash bag to store your leaves in and reduce your time between visits to the trash can, along with a rake and leaf blower, which are pretty self-explanatory. I bought all of them (as you do), but I never used the rake or the leaf blower despite unlocking all of their upgrades. The bag is definitely worth it, though. 

I can’t be-leaf it

Once you clear up every single leaf, you’re shown a leader board of players who have also done the same. I completed the entire game in two hours and 12 minutes, which if I’m honest, I thought was a pretty good time…

…Until I saw that people were speed-running the hell out of Leaf it Alone, completing everything within half an hour. 

I’m not sure how that’s possible, and it’s not something that I’ll ever be able to do. I like taking my time, and I like working my way through everything methodically. I can imagine that those people prioritize the bag-tying ability and don’t bother to actually throw their bagged leaves into the trash, but I would lose sleep at night knowing that I left such a mess in this virtual garden. 

I’m not usually a perfectionist, but apparently, there are exceptions to that rule. 

Whether you want to take it slow and zone out while gathering up the fallen leaves or you want to speed run through and try to take the top spot on the leader board, Leaf it Alone is available now through Steam.