Games Like Cable Manager

Somebody's got to sort out that cupboard. Turns out it's you.

Grab the duster, grab the bags, and get stuck into years of cable that nobody ever took out, only added to. Blow the dust off, pull the dead leads down, bag them up, run the good ones back in nice and straight, and flick the switch. Then stand there for a minute and enjoy it. You earned that. Just you, a van full of zip-lock bags, and a room that's about to look a lot better than it did.

MIND THE WIRES

Every job starts the same way: a mess. Leads going nowhere. A cabinet that hasn't moved since the nineties with who-knows-what behind it. Dust on the dust. Pull the furniture out, get in there, and find out.

ONE CABLE AT A TIME

Coil it up, drop it in a bag, zip it, suck the air out, box it, tape it shut. It's a little ritual and it never stops being satisfying. Then run the new lead along the wall, clip by clip, corners at ninety degrees like a professional, and plug it in. Lovely.

FLICK THE SWITCH

This is the good bit. Wire a box and the lights in the next room come on. Feed a machine and it starts turning while you're still working on the one beside it. By the time you get to the big switch at the end, half the place is already awake. Pull it anyway. You'll want to see what happens.

NO RIGHT, NO WRONG, NO RUSH

Plugged the wrong lead in? Pull it out. Can't find that last bit of dirt? Hold a button and the game points at it. Fancy going home with a few things not quite perfect? Fine. There are gold stars for the fussy among us, but nobody's checking. 

JOBS, JOBS, JOBS!

A desk. A back office. A laundrette with lint behind every single machine. A loft you crawl through on your belly. An arcade, a cinema, a cold store, a carousel, a bowls club somebody wired with plastic capping and a hammer. A clock tower stopped at half past. Every one has its own mess, its own switch, and its own little moment when it comes back to life.

THE RIGHT TOOL FOR THE JOB

A duster that flips over into a vacuum. A tester for when six grey leads look identical and only one of them goes to the till. And now and then a job hands you something special: an ice scraper, a pry bar, a can of black spray. You'll know what to do with it.

GET DOWN THERE

Some of the work is under a bench. Some of it's in a hole in the floor. Some of it's on a ceiling platform you bring down to your own height. Stand up, crouch, lie flat. You'll spend a decent chunk of this game on your knees, and honestly, that's the job.

HOME TIME

Back at the garage there's a workbench filling up with the kit you've bought, a pinboard where clients leave you a note, an album of every before-and-after you've snapped, and a back room to knock through and furnish however you like. Do enough good work and someone sends you a radio. Pick your own tunes.