The Fake Clean Obsession

The last few weeks have been dominated by one activity: cleaning. It’s reached a point where resisting the urge to clean is a real struggle, and witnessing anything even slightly dirty is deeply unsettling. This obsessive tidying isn’t happening in my actual home, but within the virtual world of PowerWash Simulator, a video game released in 2022 by the British studio FuturLab.

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The game adopts the first-person perspective common in shooter games, but instead of Doom or Quake, think of it as Dirty Doom or Caked Quake. However, there’s no shooting involved. In fact, there’s no one at all – not even a reflection in the freshly cleaned glass. I am simply the Prime Vista 3000 power washer, equipped with a 15-degree nozzle, which acts as my sole appendage. The only other presence is dirt, clinging stubbornly to every surface.

“The game is very unusual,” explained Dan Chequer, the studio’s design director. “It’s both the noun and the verb – you powerwash, and you’re a powerwasher.”

As a noun, I’ve been tasked with cleaning increasingly vast and filthy surfaces, including a van, a fire engine, a fire station, a garden, a bungalow, a mansion, a carousel, a Ferris wheel, a fishing trawler, an ancient monument, and even a UFO. The most time-consuming project was undoubtedly a subway station, right down to the advertisements, maps, air vents, cables, and rails. Each individually cleaned section produces a satisfying ding, a sound I now hear in my sleep.

On the surface, the game, like the real-life activity it emulates, appears incredibly mundane. Yet, my evenings are now dictated by these dings and the relentless pursuit of the next one. Consequently, I find myself pondering the metagame: why am I so compelled to clean fake dirt off fake objects?

The Meditative Nature of Simulated Cleaning

For one, the game possesses a deeply meditative quality. The repetitive left-right sweep of the nozzle across a surface resembles controlled breathing, while the transformation from grime to gleam is undeniably aesthetically pleasing. The gradual revelation of what lies beneath the dirt is also captivating – a phenomenon that has spawned numerous satisfying videos on platforms like YouTube and Instagram. Similar to the feeling after a meditation session, emerging from a powerwashing binge leaves you in a pleasantly relaxed daze. Chequer highlights the game’s technical aspect, with its constant use of both joysticks and button presses. “All that subconscious activity allows your conscious brain to think about other things,” he said.

An Antidote to Algorithmic Summarisation

However, PowerWash Simulator also serves as a powerful antidote to the pervasive “summarise” and “autocomplete” ethos that drives so much modern technology, particularly the so-called “artificial intelligence” that increasingly shapes our interactions with machines. It’s almost impossible to send an email or read an article without being bombarded with unsolicited “summaries”. Powerwashing, on the other hand, and its virtual counterpart, is inherently about completion. Something is either clean, or it isn’t. You cannot progress to cleaning the mansion until the bungalow is spotless.

PowerWash Simulator presents a range of dirty objects in all their intricate detail. There is no such thing as summarisation. Each facet, each nook and cranny, must be cleaned meticulously and from every conceivable angle. The last object I cleaned in the main campaign was a glowing “pyramidion gem” atop an island temple (things do get a little strange). Thankfully, PowerWash Simulator 2 is scheduled for release later this year.

Beyond Powerwashing: Other Ponderous Pursuits

PowerWash Simulator isn’t the only game that provides a welcome escape from the algorithmic summarisation that plagues modern life. My other gaming obsession has been contract bridge.

Bridge, once immensely popular in the mid-20th century, has since declined. The simplest explanation for this is its notoriously steep learning curve, involving complex rules and intricate bidding conventions, in my case, the Standard American Yellow Card system. (“Opposite an unpassed partner, an opening 3- or 4-level call in a suit tends towards sound at equal or unfavorable vulnerability,” reads its official booklet, and continues in a similar vein for many pages.)

However, the difficulty is precisely what makes it so appealing. As with powerwashing, there are no shortcuts in bridge, no useful summary of a bidding system or the cards that have been played. To play well, you must remember every nuance of your system and every card played. Consequently, there are no bridge prodigies. The game relies on deep experience – the antithesis of summarisation.

Another potential ponderous pursuit is the world of 18XX board games, which simulate the 19th-century railway industry. Their reputation stems from their complexity and the significant time commitment they demand. Even watching videos explaining their intricacies is strangely comforting, despite my limited understanding.

The Philosophy of Play

The late philosopher Bernard Suits, perhaps the foremost philosopher of games, argued that games are essential for a “utopia”. He believed that in a future where technology meets all of humanity’s material needs, games will be all that truly matter, making their cultivation crucial even now.

Suits championed the grasshopper from Aesop’s fable. Unlike the industrious ant, who spends all his time stockpiling food for winter, the grasshopper dedicates his days to play. Aesop intended the grasshopper as a warning, but Suits saw him as a role model.

I would expand on Suits’ argument. Video games often simulate the impractical – space combat, civilisation building, monster collection. But to combat the algorithmic urge to summarise, we must engage in ponderous games – completist activities that reconnect us to real-world tasks, and to things we don’t fully understand but can learn, beyond the superficial summaries offered by large language models.

It doesn’t require much. Chequer estimated his game’s cleaning fidelity at an “eightish” out of 10, and the realism of the objects being cleaned at a four. PowerWash Simulator is not “a simulation about powerwashing – it’s more a dreamlike state of it,” Chequer said. “But it feels kind of authentic in the moment.”