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A volcano has dusted an American suburban idyll and now a thick layer of dirt lies on motorcycles, playgrounds and barbecue grills. But thank God I exist, and above all: my high-pressure cleaner! With this Ariane5 rocket under the cleaning devices and its five water jet strengths, I move out and don’t let myself be intimidated by particularly stubborn deposits such as mold. And so I drive my high-pressure jet along camping awnings and bumpers and enjoy the accurate high-pressure cleaner simulation.
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PowerWash Simulator Launch Trailer
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The third best game of the year
And that makes me one of many, many, many, many gamblers. No nonsense: The Powerwash simulator is one of the game highlights of 2022. The game has 10 out of 10 stars on the gaming platform Steam and so many positive reviews that it is the third best game of the year mathematically so far. Playing instead of washing up: The whole thing is, at least initially, as addictive as bursting bubble wrap and just as satisfying as analog cleaning. The difference: You don’t have to move here and the boom from the console high-pressure cleaner feels far better than a wet musty sponge. The monotonous singsong of the cleaning machine has a relaxing effect and is something like the computer game answer to ASMR videos in which some people on YouTube gently rustle cellophane bags.
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But why do so many people get the thrill of spending hours hosing down subway tunnels, skate parks, or golf carts on screen? question to the Psychologist Benjamin Strobel from the portal „Behind the Screens“which is all about the psychology behind computer games: “Shooting and cleaning in the game is an intrinsically motivating activity. We don’t need any external incentives like trophies or high scores here. Finishing cleaning something is satisfying in itself. Out The success of the Powerwash simulator can therefore be explained well from a psychological perspective. The activity is manageable, i.e. clearly limited in time and space, and you have a clear goal in mind. In addition, you can see the results immediately, i.e. the effect of your own actions. That does not always succeed in everyday life or at work, where goals and successes can often be a long way off.”
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Scrubbing the world once – and then everything is fine again?
This also explains why the Powerwash simulator is far from the only game that triggers our cleaning mania. Already 2015 left us Viscera Cleanup Detail rid a space station of alien debris. This year worried Unpacking caused a sensation, here we unpack moving boxes. In a more abstract way, Tetris is also about creating order and making sure that the cup stays nice and empty. Quite similar to many shooters, where we clean up with the machine gun. The Powerwash simulator lets us finally and directly do what we love to do in computer games but don’t like to do in reality: clean up. In addition, the Powerwash simulator hits a nerve of the times: scrub the world properly – and then everything is fine again.
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A dirty game!
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But this is exactly where the problem lies: Unfortunately, the Powerwash simulator is also a difficult game, and a quick scrub isn’t enough. I overlook the stain in the dog house, the graffiti at the skate park just won’t go away and I can’t get over the subway shaft in this lifetime. Actually, I was hoping that the Powerwash simulator would be a flawless power fantasy, a game that would allow me as a city kid to finally poke around a bit and show the dirt where the frog vinegar cleaner has its curls. Instead, at some point I virtually crawl around on all fours to clean up the last bits of dirt in an artificial pond. That’s too much work for me. What a dirty game!
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