27/10/2022

PowerWash Simulator - The Joy of Washing - Powerfully!

So, you know when an utterly bizarre game comes that you had no interest in playing, you try it out, and it becomes a brief, several week long obsession? We’ve all been there. For me, that’s usually been an issue with JRPGs, with tactical games, but I never thought my addictive personality would fall prey to goddamn PowerWash Simulator of all things.But in retrospect, how could it have gone any differently? With its chill vibe, relaxed pace, wonderfully dopamine-inducing gameplay loop and one of the most surprisingly bonker stories and sense of progression released this year… Well, I can’t believe PowerWash is a genuinely strong contender for being near the top of my Game of the Year list.

Power Wash Simulator is exactly what it says on the tin; you play as a fledgling business-owner, who for some reason wants to run a power washing business. As far as I could tell, there was a volcano eruption and that led to a lot of outdoor structures just getting caked in stuff. Anyway, you’re not here for the story… at least not at first. The main form of progression is via the Career mode; you’ll start out small, washing at first your very own van you’ll be working out of, before moving on to houses, cars, backyards, slowly growing in size and scope. Eventually you’ll be washing an entire fire department, private jets, a penny farthing (for a pittance!) and god knows what else. Each job comes with its own smattering of dialogue, doled out through text messages sent from the client. These can range from tepid to genuinely quite funny, but they slowly spell out a picture of these people's lives, and the city they live in, that it honestly became one of the driving points for getting those objectives cleaned. Seriously, in the later parts of the game, the text messages you start getting are kind of bonkers. Stuff about an entire town’s worth of cats going missing, or bank robbers hiding out in a bakery… It's good fun, from start to finish. And that’s not to mention the last couple of jobs, but the less I say about those, the better. Seriously, don’t look up the late game for this. It’s actually insane.

Now, my most obvious piece of advice in regards to this game is… if you think a game called Power Washing Simulator sounds boring, don’t even bother giving it a try. Seriously, like I said, this is exactly what it says on the tin. The context and locations in which you’ll be doing your One Sole Task may change, and you may go to some real strange and wonderful places, but you’ll still be just power washing your heart out. And this is the biggest issue I’m having writing this review. How do I describe a game about Power Washing Simulator?

As you’d probably guessed, PowerWash Simulator is, in fact, a Powerwashing simulator. For each of the surprisingly lengthy campaign levels, you’ll be tasked with clearing off with a certain building, vehicle, or… well, I won’t spoil some of the late game tasks! And… that’s it! Seriously though, the entire gameplay loop is slowly working your way through the various tasks presented to you - you’ll start by cleaning the very van you’ll be working out of, moving to houses, playgrounds, skateparks, with the scale of your cleaning projects growing ever so slowly. Your power-washer itself has a number of different settings, mostly affecting the size of your wash, at the expense of the pressure. Having a light coating of dirt on a structure - raise the width! Have a small, but frustratingly clingy layer of mud? Opt for a small-yet-powerful stream! As you complete your tasks, usually at each 20% mark of the overall project, your character will be texted by the various characters who are assigning you these jobs, giving you context as to why the building is so filthy, or in some cases just providing little glimpses into their lives. The people who live in the town kinda feel like a less existential dread version of the cast of Twin Peaks, in the sense that the town is full of kinda weird, almost crazy people, but brings with them an entire cozy, almost welcoming feel to them all the same. And honestly, whilst the ‘story’ is there to provide basic context as to why you’re doing what you’re doing, it honestly does ramp up in a rather surprising way, and it all just kind of feeds into the satisfaction of what you’re doing - you’re just doing your everyday job, and you just happen to save the world at the same time. Yeah, it’s one of *those* games.

Now, not only is Power Washing Simulator amongst the better games i”ve played this year, it’s easily the most satisfying. Starting with a grime-infested, dirt-covered home that isn’t fit for a hillbilly, and then just going to town on it, peeling away layer after layer of grime brings a delight unlike anything else I’ve played this year. And, uh, I play a lot of games. Don’t judge. Each specific section of the structure you’re cleaning has its own progress bar, which obviously fills up as you clean the section. You don’t actually have to get every single little spot on the item, just around 99% of it, which is a godsend when you just can’t find that last little spot. All these smaller progress bars feed into your overall completion percentage for each job you take, and it’s genuinely just a constant rollercoaster of endorphins and visual stimuli. Even the *ka-ching* noise that plays every time you complete a section sets off those endorphins, and when you clean a whole bunch of tiny bits at once… Ah man, there’s a word for that, but who knows what my audience is like! Seeing your work pay off as you tackle a huge wall, or slowly clean up an entire roof and seeing those bars trickle down… Oh, it says something about me that I’m so delighted by this, doesn’t it?

I was also genuinely blown away by the scope of this game’s levels; at first, I thought they’d all be rather small-to-medium scale, like cleaning your van, or doing someone's backyard - maybe a house, for a larger stage. No, no. Power Washing Simulator will constantly be pushing forward, taking you to places no power washer would expect him to go. These do naturally lead to these levels getting longer and longer, since the fact is you just have that much more to clean, but I kinda loved that, though that might just be the ADHD talking, and the fact that I was enjoying this game so much, I barely wanted to even reach the end. I’ve heard some criticism leveled at how long it takes to finish these levels, but I honestly kind of loved undertaking these massive projects, the last of which took nearly five hours for me to complete. I was perfectly happy with just taking my time, watching all those little bars trickle down as I slowly turned, say, a fire station from a condemned outhouse-looking facade to a genuinely beautiful feat of architecture. I highly recommend playing this game on PC, and enjoy a nice, easy-watching TV show at the same time - personally, I watched all of The Book of Boba Fett (not great) and then jumped over to my current watch-through of Star Trek: The Next Generation (really great!), and weird as it was, I felt this way of engaging with the game made me appreciate it waaaay more.

Across each of the jobs you’ll earn cash, in small increments for each particular surface you clean, and then a nice tidy sum once the job is done entirely. This money is used for a few purposes, but the main one is to upgrade your equipment. As of the time of the review, there are five different power washers to buy, each one a tier up from the previous one. In addition, each particular power washer has a number of attachments you can buy for it, such as improving it’s range, or allowing you to spray a particular brand of surface cleaner to get through the job that little bit faster. Buying the bottles of surface cleaner cost a bit extra, but not enough to bankrupt you, though I generally didn’t use them that often - they’re not great at fully cleaning an area, but their main value lies in clearing up the dirtiest, toughest stains before you set your power washer on them. There’s also cosmetics to buy, mostly consisting of skins for your character’s body and guns- I mean power washers. These feel fairly useless - the power washer skins I kinda get, since you’ll be seeing them a ton, but the bodysuits just feel like a waste, unless you’re playing with a bunch of friends, but even then, I doubt you’ll be spending that much time looking at each other when you’re doing the real hero’s work - power washing.

It would’ve been nice if there was a bit more decision making in regards to buying the different power washers; as it is, each one is a straight upgrade on the previous one. I would’ve preferred if some of them were similar in overall quality, but had certain perks and negatives associated with them, like one being fantastic at long range, but having a somewhat smaller area of effect at close range. It’s not a huge deal at the end of the day, but it makes the mainline equipment progression very linear, when there could be a bit more variety injected. There’s also some cosmetics to play around with, but unless you’re actively playing with someone else, you really aren’t going to be seeing them outside of the time lapse at the end of each level, so I just got the ones I needed for an achievement and thought nothing more of it. I will say, though, that I love the time lapse as a kind of culmination of satisfaction; seeing a gangy old house becoming a shining beacon, or seeing how some of the late-game structures clean up is perhaps the pinnacle of how this game feels to play. A little complaint I have is, especially on some of the longer levels, they do cut down the time lapse, so whilst I’d have loved to see the aforementioned four hour clean sped up to a two or three minute clip, I had to make do with the ~30 second one I got. It’s not actually a huge complaint, I’m just a man who’s always seeking satisfaction.

I know all things are subjective, but I think the biggest reason I love PowerWash Simulator so much is the fact that my brain is ADHD as all hell, and that’s why I love games like Dynasty Warriors, or other ‘switch your brain off’ experiences like that. I love multitasking, spending my time with something that I can just ‘play’ without devoting all my attention to. In that sense, PowerWash Simulator is one of the best games I’ve ever played, at least in my brain, though I know that isn’t the truth. It’s still very, very, very good, though.

Honestly, I don’t know when this switch got flipped in my head. I used to be able to dedicate my attention - all of my attention - to a game. I could just let the hours fly by, gunning down foes in Jak 3, or racing to my heart’s content in Mario Kart 64. But one day, probably in my teenage years, something changed. Maybe it was when I discovered podcasts, or became aware of how efficiently I used my time. But I’ve reached a point in my time where it just feels… wrong to play just a game by itself. It’s not that I can’t, of course, but when I’d found out how efficient I could be, watching TV or podcast alongside gaming… it’s become somehow so much harder.

Power Wash Simulator is the culmination of all these ADHD traits I’ve become aware of in the last ten years of my life. In the time I’ve spent playing this silly little game, I’ve watched the better part of an entire season of Star Trek: The Next Generation; I’ve watched countless YouTube video essays (thank you, Eyepatch Wolf, for the amazing content); and I’m still in the process of watching my best friend play through the newest Somnium Files game. It’s freeing, in a way, having this way to help me sit down and enjoy a TV show, or a game I’m not actively playing, but it also makes me a bit sad. I wish I could just enjoy myself playing a game sometimes. Right now, I’ve recently bought Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak, Live A Live, and Fire Emblem: Three Hopes, and whilst the former kind of has the same trappings for my brain as Power Wash (I play a lot of Sunbreak in bed, listening to podcasts), I’ve found it really hard to just sit down and playing the latter two. It’s not as if I’m not enjoying them or anything, truly not, it’s just… maybe it’s a matter of efficiency, that I can’t really dual wield media with Live A Live or Three Hopes the way I can with Power Wash or Monster Hunter.

I know this was meant to be a review of Power Wash Simulator, but I’m sure there’s a million of those out there. I like using this review as a therapeutic, honest way to jot down my thoughts on how I consume media, and how my stupid little brain percieves things sometimes, and as a way to explain my subjective feelings on why I had as much fun with this game as I did.

As it is, Power Wash Simulator is nothing but fun, being a perfect slow burn kind of game. Throw on a movie, or a podcast, or whatever! As long as you’re okay with only paying attention to the show 90%, Power Wash is perfect to just chill out and keep your hands busy. It’s simple in size and scope, but few games this year have given me the sense of satisfaction and pleasure that cleaning an entire wall - and the resounding DINGS that accompany them - have given me in the last few weeks. Be it from Xbox Game Pass or Steam, Power Wash Simulator is worth your time and money… just be careful.

I haven’t played anything so addicting since I got into Monster Hunter!

Power Wash Simulator is available on PC (via Steam and Xbox Game Pass PC) and Xbox One/Series X.