Your solar-powered boat is filling up fast with pollutants – and in Spilled, that’s a good thing. As you cruise through pixel-art waterways, your ship sucks up oil slicks and corrals plastic bottles toward recycling barges, transforming the water from a murky brown to crystalline blue, revealing thriving aquatic scenes.

It’s a peaceful, meditative experience, but it carries a serious message near and dear to Lente Cuenen’s heart.

“There’s lots of plastic in the water, even here in this town,” says Cuenen, the game’s 26-year-old solo developer. “And people dump oil, not being careful when they fill up their tanks. Sometimes you see a significant spill – you smell it, and you see the ducks going right through it.”

It’s something she’s experienced firsthand, having spent most of her life living on houseboats in the Netherlands.

“It feels wrong. It’s not meant to be that way,” she says.

Recycling floating plastic bottles, cleaning up oil and rescuing animals mired in petroleum muck is just the start. Cuenen also added sidequests, such as snuffing out forest fires with the boat’s water cannon and tracking down missing items for characters.

“It’s meant to be a simple game, but I was very self-conscious about it not being ‘game’ enough,” she admits. “You just clean up and go. There’s no time limit. You can do it however you want.”

That said, you’ll still face challenges. A climactic boss battle pits you against the oil tanker leaking the pools of goop you’ve been dutifully cleaning up.

“Maybe it’s a little goofy – a little detached from the seriousness the game can hold sometimes,” Cuenen says. “But it needs to be fun. Because if it’s not fun, no one’s going to play it and no one’s going to see it, and it’s not going to raise awareness.”

Cuenen spent her childhood on a boat with her family. Their electric generator was only turned on when absolutely needed (to power the washing machine, for example). The vessel’s drinking water tanks had to be filled at a harbour on the other side of the river.

“No electricity, no running drinking water – no big deal,” Cuenen says. “I think back very fondly to that time, because we would play outside so much, my brother and me. The world was our backyard.”

After quitting college in 2022 to pursue game development, Cuenen converted a 33-foot canal transport boat into her floating home (dubbed the Zusje V). It was there she began building Spilled as a way to share, through play, her real-world experience with sustainability.

“When I notice trash in the water or stuff people have carelessly left around, I always try to retrieve and dispose of it properly,” she says.

Replacing Zusje V’s diesel engine with an electric motor powered by solar roof panels, for instance, informed the game’s upgrade system, which lets you boost your boat’s speed and add a larger slick-cleaning boom.

“I like to take things into my own hands, to make something or change something for myself,” Cuenen says.

Like any good captain, Cuenen has a clear heading in mind for players who decide to climb aboard.

“I don’t expect anyone to go out and make crazy changes,” she says. “It’s about reaching a lot of people and raising awareness – and maybe steering them in the right direction.”