PowerWash Simulator News

Hey everyone - welcome to dev log 49!

Last week we shared insights from Paul, our UI artist, on how the decals in the Subway and Fortune Teller's Caravan were created. More on that here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1290000/announcements/detail/3139578128516450105

This week we take a look at what we've come up with on tweaking the economic system in the game.



Dealing with the 'unpaid intern' syndrome, popularised by the content creator Smii7y has been something on our mind alongside the economy in general.

In the next update, we have an extra bonus payment for Free Play and Special Jobs with a flat 25% of each item given on completion. This 25% bonus will also extend to Career and Free Play mode assistants.



Dan, our lead designer, gives their insight into the thoughts behind the new system:

Originally posted by Dan

Our goal has always been to provide players with the freedom to approach PowerWash Simulator however they wish.

Earning money in multiplayer helps with this, especially for players who are more interested in playing with friends than making progress through their own career. This change will allow these players to save up and purchase cosmetic items such as outfits and gloves while washing in Free Play, Special jobs, or as an assistant in Career Mode.

But we also wanted to preserve Career Mode to be the main way to earn money and save up to purchase equipment upgrades. So if you want to get rich quick, it's still best to make your way through the career as that pays the best!

Again this will be coming in the future, and it isn't in the live version right now. We're excited to hear people's thoughts and people to claim their in-game bonus cheques!



PowerWash Simulator is currently reduced by 15% until March 28th! Tell your friends, family, and whoever else might want a good deal of satisfaction!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1290000/PowerWash_Simulator/

Be sure to check out all of the other amazing games from our friends at Square Enix that are in the sale too! :)





We have a couple of talks and are taking part in this year's Simfest here on Steam. Find out more about this event here:

https://store.steampowered.com/sale/simfest_hobby



Sorry, there was no meme this week. We are currently making a new batch but rigging the models takes some time, and we've been busy this week. If you have any suggestions of a format you would like to see, please let us know in the comments below!

Thank you to everyone for reading, have a fantastic weekend, and we hope you will tune into next week! :)

Join our Discord to submit and vote on ideas for PowerWash Simulator, find other players, and more!

---> https://discord.com/invite/powerwashsimulator

Keep up with everything PowerWash Simulator by following our channels:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerWashSim
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/futurlab
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@powerwashsim?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerwashsim/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powerwashsim
PWS Wiki: https://powerwash-simulator.fandom.com/wiki/PowerWash_Simulator_Wiki

Hey everyone - welcome to dev log 48!

Last week we previewed the upcoming 'Aim Mode' feature, which targets reducing motion sickness. You can read more on that here (there's also a video demonstration below in this dev log): https://steamcommunity.com/games/1290000/announcements/detail/3139577498471389980



It has only been a couple of weeks since Update 0.8 splash landed. We've noticed so far how much people love uncovering some of the latest decals (posters etc.) in the Subway level and thought it would be nice to share more on their conception.



Paul, our UI artist created these wonderful creations and has these insights and WIP art that made it into the game:

[Quote]In my role as UI Artist, I've mostly been working on UI elements in the game's menu and HUD, but as the game has grown through early access and the levels have become more complex I've had an opportunity to do more graphic work for 2D elements like signs, posters, and maps.
For the Subway level, we wanted to make the location feel like a working station that has suddenly closed and been frozen in time.



[Quote]As it was last open in the '80s I tried to give the posters a bit of an eighties feel while pulling in some references from other story elements in the game, to make it feel like Muckingham is an interconnected world. I looked at photos from the New York subway in the 1980s for inspiration and had a lot of fun creating assets in this style.



[Quote]It was also great to create a subway map for the Muckingham station which outlined further how these fictional locations fit together, going so far as to create a logo for 'Caldera City Public Transport', I really enjoy adding elements like this to make something feel a little more real.



[Quote]For the Fortune tellers caravan we first thought of putting tarot cards on the caravan, but instead used that as a start point and pushed them more towards fictional 'water diviner cards', having drawings of dousing and other water-related activities that the Uncanny Franny would use to tell your fortune.



The caravan before decals.



We run a weekly developer live stream called FuturLab Friday, this week we did a short preview of the Aim Mode if you want to see it in action:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1428304626

Please follow us and keep an eye on the schedule for the next one! (Yes this one was on a Thursday!)





We're going to W.A.S.D, one of the UK's newest and biggest video game shows! We want you to visit our booth so we're giving away 2 x 3 Day Passes to 1 lucky winner!

W.A.S.D takes part on the 7th, 8th & 9th of April!

Enter here for a chance to win: https://gleam.io/jjFnJ/wasd-x-pws



We release a format of a popular meme template using PowerWash Simulator models every Monday at 2 PM GMT, this is our latest one - Internal Screaming PowerWash Sim.

Template: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/377235413/Internal-Screaming-PowerWash-Sim

Text:

Clean:

Let us know if there are any formats you would like to see created! :)



Thank you everyone for reading, have a fantastic weekend, and we hope you will tune into next week! :)

Join our Discord to submit and vote on ideas for PowerWash Simulator, find other players, and more!

---> https://discord.com/invite/powerwashsimulator

Keep up with everything PowerWash Simulator by following our channels:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerWashSim
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/futurlab
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@powerwashsim?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerwashsim/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powerwashsim
PWS Wiki: https://powerwash-simulator.fandom.com/wiki/PowerWash_Simulator_Wiki

April 1st will bring the start of the London Games Festival, a loosely affiliated series of events which almost inevitably involves some poor fella in a Sonic costume posing for press photos on Westminster Bridge. Today, the Festival announced its Official Selection, 33 games which will be showcased online and in various events. Some good games in there, including PowerWash Simulator and Failbetter's Mask Of The Rose.

Read more

Hey everyone - welcome to dev log 47!

Update 0.8 has only just splash landed last week bringing in new levels, cosmetics, and more! Today, we are looking into the future and to an upcoming feature that is one of the most requested we've had during Early Access.





One of the unique challenges we have had for the game is overcoming motion sickness which affects some players and can be a complete blocker to playing! Part of that is due to how so far the motion of washing has been tied to moving the camera. Whilst we have put in small tweaks to help and many players have adapted the way they wash we knew we could do more.

Say hello to the Aim Mode which will bring a form of fixed perspective washing to the game. When toggling this mode on by the press of a button, your washer will move independently of your camera. Currently, your view only turns if your crosshair reaches the edge of your screen. This wash mode is totally optional and you can go back to the normal washing mode fixed to your camera/movement at any time.

Please note this is still very much a WIP and will come in a future update. It is not in 0.8. We're now certain it will come to the game and have made it integrated into the main control scheme but it still needs some work.

Here are some insights into the development and design of Aim Mode from programmer Louis:

Originally posted by Louis

Always looking to improve on accessibility features and reduce motion sickness in PowerWash, we've been wanting to implement Aim Mode for a while! Working closely with the design team, we settled on building a system that would lock the camera rotation and seamlessly blend player input from the camera rig into the character model, to allow players to swap in and out of Aim Mode on the fly.

With a lot of the foundation already laid thanks to the work on our new camera rig for implementing custom FOV options, the majority of efforts went into improving the stability of the washer visuals and water VFX rendering to reach all possible angles when in Aim Mode.

We also overhauled the crosshair UI to dynamically target washable surfaces that can be focused on when in Aim Mode, to give players that extra bit of precision when washing those hard-to-reach spots (or to help put the finishing touches on some dirt drawings…)

We're super pleased with Aim Mode, it further improves accessibility for the players who need it, and has the added bonus of giving players the tools to clean with more precision and more creativity. It's also a fab way of appreciating the amazing glove and washer cosmetics from some brand new angles.
It's my new favourite way to play, and I hope the community will love it too :D happy washing!

We'd also like to thank everyone who filled out our motion sickness feedback form, it gave us some really useful insights into what is working, what we could do better, and suggestions like those for this very feature!

More info on that here: https://steamcommunity.com/games/1290000/announcements/detail/3132818923050869740

As Louis mentions, not only do we hope it will help with accessibility but also it adds a new way to play which many of the devs in internal play sessions have said they now prefer. Also, we will be looking forward to the art that can be created when the perspective isn't warped as much by moving away from your wash target.

Again, it isn't ready just yet but we really wanted to let everyone know it was coming, especially to those that are affected by motion sickness! Let us know your thoughts below.





Inspired by anecdotes of wellbeing from PWS players through Steam reviews and comments. We've partnered with the Oxford Internet Institute (OII: a department in the University of Oxford,) to better understand the implications of the game. We've also hired a dedicated programmer to help conduct the study and to feedback recommendations of how we could potentially make the game better.

The full MCV/DEVELOP article is here with interview snippets from the FuturLab director and OII researcher working on the project.



We release a format of a popular meme template using PowerWash Simulator models every Monday at 2 PM GMT, this is our latest one - Tap Mask.





Let us know if there are any formats you would like to see created! :)



Our weekly Twitch stream or FuturLab Friday will be canceled this week. However, we will be back next week where we'll show this new washing system in action! :)



Thanks to everyone for reading, we hope everyone is excited about the new 'Aim Mode' feature and we can't wait for those to have suffered from motion sickness to try it. We'll be back next week with more dev insights so watch this space! :)

Join our Discord to submit and vote on ideas for PowerWash Simulator, find other players, and more!

---> https://discord.com/invite/powerwashsimulator

Keep up with everything PowerWash Simulator by following our channels:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerWashSim
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/futurlab
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@powerwashsim?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerwashsim/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powerwashsim
PWS Wiki: https://powerwash-simulator.fandom.com/wiki/PowerWash_Simulator_Wiki

Welcome everyone to Update 0.8!



It's time to once again equip your power washer and discard decades of dirt in our largest level yet. Plus, uncover filthy ancient secrets at a dig site, fly through the eggy exterior of a stunt plane and implement your clean vision onto the fortune teller's caravan. We can't wait for people to dive into all of the new content in this update and discover more of our world's lore!



New jobs: Subway Platform, Stunt Plane, Fortune Teller's Caravan & Ancient Statue.



New cosmetics: Say hello to our first Prime Vista Pro skin, Carbon:



We've also added all of the default suit colors to the starter gloves for some extra fashion options.

New challenge: Vintage Car - Time & Water





99% Save issue

• An issue in which players loaded data from a previous save will be unable to finish half-finished tasks has been fixed.
  

Any level with washing progress will be auto-completed when booting up the game after the update. The partially completed levels will auto-complete when you join the level. Though will appear at the percentage you left it at on the menu initially. Also, the menu UI may not show fully complete but you can ignore this and progress as normal.

We have tried to give an advanced warning to those who may have been in progress but we apologise to anyone who may be caught unaware by this.

The game has changed a lot under the hood (bonnet) since the first Early Access Launch and whilst this wasn't ideal we feel it was necessary to get on top of some issues that occurred with conflicting saves between the patches. This will bring everyone's save data up to date with the current version 0.8. Anyone who was stuck with unwashable objects at 99% in the last patch will now be able to continue as normal. Those who had the Ferris Wheel completed will just be able to go straight into the new patch!

All money from the parts and job completion will be given to all players for any jobs that auto-complete. Note, the UI in job details may get slightly confused and display something like $149/$150 but the total earned will be correct.

More fixes:

• An issue in which clients could not open the inventory in a multiplayer game if they had soap selected in Career Mode before has been fixed
  
• A rare issue in which the tablet would occasionally get stuck on the screen has been fixed
  
• Some localisation corrections
  

New non-slippy ladders are in. A lot of players have complained about being able to stay on the ladders without slipping off the sides. In Update 0.8 you will no longer easily slip off the side and it will keep you inside unless you are purposefully trying to get off the ladders.



we hope everyone will have a much better experience when climbing up walls etc!



The gnomes have been a running gag for us and something that has become quite iconic to PowerWash Simulator. We were all a little upset that they last-minute broke the game before 0.7 and had to be taken out.

Don't worry, they are back and are better than ever! There is now a gnome in every level! Not just that, you can also pick them up and move them if they are in the way of your washing. Or, even to put them in a better position for a nice picture.

Keen gnome hunters, it is your time to shine!



Known Issues

• Messages for the Stunt Plane & Ancient Statue job appear out of order in the messages tab of the menu
  
• Unable to mute the game audio via the options menu
  
  

Update 03/03/22 from devs on sound:

Master Audio Not Working 0.8

Hey everyone, the master audio slider isn't working as intended, we're investigating. The master will not go to 0 on its own with some sound remaining.

A current workaround would be to lower the individual sound levels - water, ambient and non-diagetic. In the menu. If you want to mute them all, reduce all to 0.

Also you can lower the application audio by going into your volume mixer. Right click the speaker symbol in taskbar > open volume mixer and then lower PowerWash Simulator's application sound.

Sorry to anyone affected.

Thanks for reading, we hope everyone has an amazing time with the new content and we can't wait for all of the new lore theories following these levels. We have some exciting things to share that we have been working on in the background that weren't ready for 0.8 but are pretty massive that we can't wait to share in our weekly dev logs.

Have fun all!

If you want to vote on new game ideas, talk to the community, find some tough dirt - then join our Discord community: https://discord.gg/powerwashsimulator

Keep up with everything PowerWash Simulator by following our channels:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/PowerWashSim
Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/futurlab
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@powerwashsim?
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/powerwashsim/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/powerwashsim
PWS Wiki: https://powerwash-simulator.fandom.com/wiki/PowerWash_Simulator_Wiki