Review: Powerwash Simulator

At a Glance

ESRB Rating:	E - Everyone
My Rating:	Everyone
Genre:	Other
License:	Commercial
Fun-O-Meter:
Release Year:	2022
Review Published On:	April 4th, 2026
Played on:	Thaddeus & Sebastian
Available for:	Windows
Available from:	Humble Store Steam
Soundtrack:	Available as DLC

Areas of Concern:

Supernatural References

How to Save and Pause:

Your progress within a level is parodically saved automatically, though it's also saved when you leave the game. Some sections of the game only permit one level to be "active" at a time, so changing which level you're playing will erase your progress in the earlier level.

To pause the game, bring up the job overview by pressing ESC.

Time needed per session:

This is an extremely long game. While you can make progress in 15 - 30 minute spans, expect to take hours to complete a single level.

Does this game pose issues for Christian players?

Some players may have concerns
This game's plot gets absolutely bonkers, which brings in some supernatural elements that stricter Christians may wish to avoid.

Screenshots

Game Overview

Powerwash Simulator is one of those games that doesn't seem like it has any right to exist, let alone be something worth playing. You might as well spend your time pretending to put up wallpaper or watching plants grow. But like those games, it actually manages to be a really nice, relaxing game.

There isn't much to this game: you arrive at a location where something needs cleaned, take out the hose, and spray everything down until it's all nice and shiny. As you work, your clients will occasionally chat with you about this or that, but otherwise you're free to take as much (or as little) time as you need.

The only tricky part of this game is keeping track of what's already clean. Fortunately, there are several ways to monitor your progress. The simplest is to watch for the dings - when something is completely clean, it'll flash briefly and a soft chime will play. Didn't see the flash or hear the ding? You've probably missed a spot. Try tapping the TAB key; this makes all of the dirt still present in the level flash orange for a moment.

Another way you can track the condition of anything in the level is to point your hose at it and glance in the upper left of the HUD. There's a small window here that tells you how much progress you've made in the current level, the name of the object you're aiming at, what it's made of, and how much dirt remains on this object.

Want to check everything at once? The pause screen features a big overview window that lists every object in the level and how clean it is. Can't find something? Select it in the list, and it'll start flashing.

Some of the levels also feature objects that you can play around with, such as the soccer ball that's rolling around on the playground level. There's no real point in doing this, but you can push it around by spraying it.

I'd definitely recommend playing at least the base game if you like quiet games that let you progress at your own pace. As improbable as it sounds, Powerwash Simulator is pretty fun. Start playing an audiobook, load the game's next level, and fight grime while you listen.

Just keep in mind that this is by no means a short game. Many of the levels will take over an hour to scrub clean, and they only get longer as you progress. Consider this a warning: the time trial mode considers 30 minutes to be an unusually fast time for some levels.

Points of Interest

Story Campaign

Yes, there's actually a story connecting everything that happens in this game. It starts out normally enough, with the player starting a powerwashing business, but it begins to get weird when Muckingham's cats start disappearing. When Mt. Rushless, the local volcano, starts rumbling, things start going downhill quickly.

Free play and Challenge Modes

Once you've cleaned a stage, you can go back to it later via the Free Play mode. You don't make much money replaying the levels like this, but it's an option if there's an achievement you missed or you want to try something different.

In the Challenge modes, you can attempt to clean a level as quickly as possible (quickly being a relative term here), or you can see how far you can get with a limited water supply. Neither sound very relaxing, but they wouldn't be challenges without some risk.

Additional Levels

There's a series of expansion packs called the Muckingham Files. These free levels give you more work to do around Muckingham, with places like as a minigolf course, an old paintball arena, and a massive gnome statue. Aside from the extra spending money, they do give you a little more lore about Muckingham and its population.

The DLC packs, on the other hand, let you work with more famous names outside of Muckingham. You'll get to wash down places like the Krusty Krab, Shrek's house, or even Wallace's basement laboratory.

If that wasn't enough, even more levels are released as seasonal events, though you can clean them up at any time.

Loads of customization

In a typical game like this, you spend your earnings buying better equipment or fresh supplies. While you can (and should) do that here too, you also have the option of buying new clothing and custom designs for your tools. You'll have the money for it earlier than you'd expect too - especially if you play the bonus levels as soon as you have some good equipment.

Victory Lap

After finishing a job, you'll get to see a short timelapse video of yourself cleaning the object or area. It's not a perfect recreation of what happened (ladders are noticeably missing from the timelapse), but it's a cool little feature.

Steam Community Features

There's a series of Steam trading cards available, should you be interested in those. But it's much more likely that you'll want to try earning the 100 achievements that are available. Many of them require you to plan your work carefully or try some silly things that don't have a thing to do with your job, like stand still for a few seconds or place an object someplace specific.

Easily the most nerve racking achievement is the one that requires you to clean 95% of a job without finishing any single piece.

Soap is limited and almost pointless

The mechanics behind the spray soap isn't intuitive and can easily lead to players running out of this very limited liquid. To begin with, each type of soap is will only clean dirt from a specific type of material (eg, plastic or metal). That already limits its utility, but there's another catch: it doesn't clean generic dirt or grime any better than your normal hose - in fact, it's often less effective.

The actual use for soap is to deal with the rare oily or greasy patches found in later levels. These are identified by their colorful sheen and their unusual resistance to water. Spray them with the correct soap to clean them instantly.

In other words, clean everything you can with the hose, and if anything doesn't wash away, go back and spray it with a little (very little) soap.

Don't have enough soap? Use your hose's tightest (and strongest) nozzle. It's much slower, but it will work.

Concerns and Issues

THE CATS ARE FINE

As mentioned above, in the story the cats of Muckingham are going missing en masse. This leads some of the citizens to fabricate rumors about the cats being stolen, harmed, or even made into cat burgers. Without spoiling the story, I'd like to point out that no cats are harmed at any point.

Muckingham's cat population is fine. They're just very interested in something and heading over to check it out.

Supernatural References

As you proceed through the story, you'll come across a lot of supernatural references. Bigfoot is apparently real in this game's universe, as one of your clients is trying to catch him and there are references to Bigfoot activity throughout other levels. Later on, you'll need to clean a fortune teller's cart and Atlantean artifacts start showing up.

The seasonal levels also include a spooky Halloween level with a graveyard and eerie house, though it's not anything special compared to what you'll encounter in the main story.

DLC can bring in questionable garbage

In the main game, you're going to be dealing with run of the mill muck and dirt. However, in the WarHammer DLC, you're explicitly cleaning up after major battles against alien creatures, which means the gunk you're washing off the war machines was once the bodily fluids of the creatures they fought.

Click to Show Spoilers

Really, really weird plot twists

Muckingham is a magnet for the weird and unexplained. On the more normal end of things, you have bigfoot researchers, and by the end of the story, you'll have been worshiped as the god of cleaning by the ancient Atlanteans - and that's because some aliens who were researching the local volcano went back in time to ensure your powerwashing equipment would save the world.

And no, actually playing through the story won't make this sound less bizarre.