Common Loot

They say the path to happiness is… actually, I don’t know how the saying goes. It could be that happiness is where you find it which makes no sense to me. That feels like finding your car keys and going “it’s always the last place you find it.” An idiom that people say but don’t really internalize or think about for a second. It’s the 80’s action one liner designed to throw some tag on an event that lasted way too long. But the truth is happiness is listening to some music and doing something that calms your inner spirit. For me, that is listening to some music and playing Power Wash Simulator (specifically on handheld devices) from the wonderfully fun folks at FuturLab.

I never got a chance to fully review Power Wash Simulator, and to be honest I had zero interest in it up until I watched a video about “dad games.” I don’t know why it took me that long to jump into it. Nevertheless, I jumped in blind. After all, what is the worst that could happen?

I pumped 128 hours into Power Wash Simulator which comes right into line with a single play through of Baldur’s Gate 3- a game I dearly adore. I don’t know how this really happened but I can take a few guesses. I don’t want to say that Power Wash Simulator is an addicting game because I abhor saying it. But the fact is that Power Wash Simulator is a simplistic game with an easily digestible concept that allows me to turn my brain off and throw on some music while I clean up the grossest looking bathrooms this side of the digital landscape.

There is no grand boss, only conspiracies and theories thrown at you by those who hired you to clean their ugly abodes and fancy cars. You go from location to location trying to create the perfect approach to cleaning a location that makes sense to you. And the longer you hear the white-noise like spray of the washer in your hands, the more you become entranced by the removal of gunk from various places; hearing the ding and glow of a job well done. You don’t even need the visual effects, you can take pride in the moment-to-moment gameplay of making that perfect clean line in the dirt that makes you feel skilled and well organized in your habits. It is a dopamine releasing effect akin to a father adoring his freshly cut lawn. I don’t own a home, so I don’t get to have that feeling. I have an apartment and the closest I get to that feeling is this game.

Understandably so, there is Lawnmower Simulator but I am not ready for that just yet. It just seems a bit too serious. I think that Power Wash Simulator has that emphasis on the ridiculous which is only embellished upon by the presence of the game’s downloadable content.

Not only is the free content great, but the paid content is fantastic and quite eclectic! Crossovers with Final Fantasy 7, Tomb Raider, Warhammer 40K, Shrek, Back to the Future, Alice in Wonderland, Wallace and Gromit, and of course, SpongeBob Squarepants lean into that sense of insanity without breaking any sense of immersion. Because the immerse part of Power Wash Simulator is the act of cleaning. It’s so simple and satisfying. It is perfect. Ideal. And to many it could be boring, but to me it is a fun experience that doesn’t require all of my brain power. I have one goal: to clean. So I shall with some music on, just like what I do in real life. Sans power washer.

All of this only makes me more excited and eager to play Power Wash Simulator 2 when it appears sometime soon. I am on board day 1.

So tell me, what do you play to calm down? What gives you that inner peace? Tell me, or better yet, keep it to yourself and play it when you feel the times are getting tough.