'Rumu' release date: Vacuum cleaner game launching next week

The Australian indie vacuum cleaner game "Rumu" is hitting Steam next week.

As an early Christmas present, players will soon know how it feels to be a robot vacuum cleaner in this era of smart home.

Announced in October, "Rumu" is a sort of coming-of-age story that follows the titular little robot vacuum cleaner and its road to self-awareness as it goes through its daily life in the smart home owned by David and Cecily.

Rumu lives with the house's artificial intelligence Sabrina, along with a cast of dysfunctional semi-intelligent devices. It goes through its day-to-day life of cleaning the house, but soon its routine cycle reveals a glimpse of something dark lurking inside the eerily abandoned sci-fi home. With the humans gone, and with the house's AI seem to be hiding something, it is up to Rumu, and the players, to solve the home's many puzzles and discover the ultimate mystery.

"I don't know what they'll do to you. You must let me protect you," Sabrina is heard saying in the trailer below.

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The game is said to be among the most promising ones seen at the PAX AUS 2017 gaming conference in Melbourne, Australia and received "intense interest" on the show floor from both the press and consumers.

The guys at The AU Review already had a chance to play the game, which they say they really enjoyed.

"When something draws you away from your home maintenance duties and into the hidden passageways and long forgotten rooms of the house, you'll be faced with challenging moral dilemmas forcing you beyond your programming to uncover the truth about the love and loss of your elusive family," the Steam description says.

"Rumu" is a creation of the Aussie indie studio Robot House. It will be launched for Windows PC on Steam on Dec. 13.

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