Game Theory - The Dirty Secrets of PowerWash Simulator

Episode Date: April 7, 2023

I was called out to see if I could find the lore in PowerWash Simulator by the Theorist community and Markiplier himself! Well, wish granted! PowerWash Simulator has layers, and I'm not only talking about the dirt and grime you are washing away. This game is DARK! Today I am loading my PowerWash with clues and secrets! You'll have to wash - I mean WATCH to find out more!

Given that this place is kind of next to a volcano, which is something lore-wise that we did see, which I do want to explore. I want a deep dive video from Matt Pat about the lore of Power Wash simulator. I have been summoned. Hello internet. Welcome to Game Theory. The show that's like a big try not to be dissatisfied challenge. You and our viewers both, Angelica Skyler. You and our viewers both. Dear theorists, I love this time of year, the sun, the BBQs, the family adventure, I just love the summertime. And heck, when it's nice out, I don't even mind outdoor chores. Some of you may have seen my Instagram stories where I had the monster task of cleaning our pool,

to which I was met with comments like, why didn't you go full dad mode and just buy a pressure washer? And the honest answer is, because I already have one. Boom! Big twist reveal. Last year I used it to clean every square inch of our driveway and porch and deck. This year, I was less enthusiastic. Can I get real with you? I'm just tired. It has been a long, long year. But man, power washing is great. The power. The washing? It's like Mario Sunshine in real life, cleaning the streets line by satisfying line. Heck, I'm sure we've all fallen in the trap of watching satisfying pressure washer videos on YouTube before, right? And now, we can all unleash our full dead potential and create our own satisfying content

thanks to the best indie game of 2021 Power Wash Simulator, because doing chores in video games is so much better than doing them in real life. This little indie title by Future Lab feels like it just sprung up one day and suddenly became a viral hit. The means to satisfy that primal need for things to be clean has finally become available to the masses. And people have really run with this thing, turning the game practically into its own art form. And I gotta say this thing is blissful, washing away dirt bit by bit, slowly regaining clean and orderly control over the chaotic and dirty world around us. But then, the inevitable happened. The illusion shattered. The creators added a story, told through text messages and little background details, and one YouTuber picked up on this and called us out.

I want a deep dive video from Matt Pat about the lore of Power Wash simulator. My favorite dining partner Markiplier. Let's put it on your little pretty head here, shall we? It's a big hat. It's such a huge head! I mean, look at that face. I can't say no to that. So I started to look deeper into the story and let me tell you, I think I've got something. Something that nobody has considered yet.

I think I've picked apart the muddy lore of Power Wash Simulator as much as I possibly can, and now it's time we make this puppy shine. Mark, this one's for you, buddy. So let's set the stage, shall we? We take control of a character who decides to start up a pressure washing business. The extraordinary Doctor Power Wash. Sorry, the Dirt Finder General. No, no, it's the Grime Bandits.

The Filth Amendment? It changes a lot, but always, always, with a bad pun mixed in there. Anyway, as we travel around the town of Muckingham... Jesus, game is more dad jokes than me. We clean up everything from cars to houses to skate parks. But nothing is quiet as it seems, friends. Okay, well, mostly it is. But as Mark rightly calls out, this isn't just any town. It has a volcano nearby. Not to mention a national park,

waterfalls, a big river. It's really an unusual location, practically a geological buffet. So where exactly is Muckingham located? Well, overall design, as well as clues sprinkled throughout the game, tell us pretty clearly that we're in the United States. Unfortunately, if you search for US states with volcanoes and national parks, you get, quite frankly, a lot of results, so we'd better find a more defining feature. Looking closer at the city's architecture doesn't give us much to work with. Feels like we're meant to be in a a generic any town USA style place. The most unusual feature is that you have all these weird British terms mixed in with the mission descriptions. Back garden instead of backyard.

When you go to the playground, the merry-go-round is called a roundabout. On vehicles, tire is spelled with the Y. Now, obviously Future Lab is a British-based company, so that explains a lot of it. But as far as in-game lore is concerned, our character is British, and he's not the only one. The Park Warden uses the phrase swings and roundabouts, a British phrase. Plus there's Algernon Evans, the quintessential British snob, a posh character that offers you a threpany for your troubles, which is an old British coin. All of this is to say that there seems to be a heavy British influence on the dialect, but we are meant to be in an American town. So if we're going to identify where Muckingham is, we need to cross-reference our list of states containing a volcanic state park,

with states containing the highest population of British Americans. From there, we should have a good approximation for where in the world Muckingham is located. Utah comes in at number one with a 29% British-American population. However, their national parks are more on the rocky side than the foresty side like we see in the game, so they're out. Next is Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont, which all have a lot of British people and a lot of volcanoes, but they're all dormant, which doesn't line up with the smoke that we see billowing out of the volcano in the game. We then come to Wyoming and Idaho, which has volcanoes, national parks, and a lot of Brits, but look closer and you start to see that the volcanoes don't match. Idaho's craters of the moon have several mount tops, and Wyoming's famous Yellowstone is a caldera rather than a big rocky mountain volcano.

So that sends us down to our seventh place winner, Oregon. With 13% British American population, Mount Hood, creating that signature volcanic skyline, and many national parks, waterfalls, and lakes, I think that Oregon is our best real-world location for Muckingham. So we're a British person in the Oregon-based town of Muckingham trying to get our business off the ground. But now that we know where we are,

it's time to dig into why we are. Time for that sweet, sweet lore, baby. The meat of today's episode. You see, this game is building to two major twists. Twifts that, unless you're meticulously putting the pieces of this game's puzzle together and also researching the ethics and science of power washing, which, let's be honest, who isn't these days, would go completely unnoticed by the casual player. So pull out your hoses and get ready to pressurize because we're about to spray that lore all over your screens. One of the early side stories that comes up is that of the haunted house,

owned by the superstitious Ora Smith and Jenny Pebbles. They bought a dirty old house that was once owned by the movie star Esther D'Eth. Esther deeth? Really, guys? Anyway, there are stories that the property has become haunted by Esther's spirit after she disappeared from the National Park. Never to be heard from again. And to be sure, creepy things do happen around the house. We get texts about a mysterious rumbling noise. On the side of the house, we see bizarre symbols that were told as the language of angels.

So I don't know about you, but it sounds to me like it's time to start theorizing. Just as I was about to decipher the message by looking up Anokian, the cult that the language originated from, the game sends us a text. Turns out it's not a mysterious heaven language at all. Rather, just a builder's diagram to let the plumbers know where the overflow pipes are going. Same thing happens with the rumbling noise. It's just Jenny putting the laundry on a spin cycle. When you finish the job, you get a final text from ORA saying, there was this screech from the attic, so I opened that latch and something whooshed past my face,

followed by a grubby gray feather floating mysteriously down. I think it was Esther's soul leaving, finally at peace. Screeching? Something flying past you? Grubby gray feather? Hate to break it to you, but I think it was a pigeon. So, uh, yeah, that's not a theory. that is a mild interpretation of the lore of the game feeds you when you 100% complete the house. Thanks for watching. Your next little side plot, though, requires a bit more to piece together.

In the National Park, if you look past the area that you're cleaning, you can see muddy footprints going from bush to bush. It's easy to overlook, but becomes hugely important in the newest update to the tree house level. In this level, we're introduced to Hunter Lode, a missing link researcher, aka Bigfoot Hunter. This would be a perfect place for Sasquatches, just like that, the nurseries or the cribs that we see in other parts of the country. Side note, these people have been searching for Bigfoot for 12 seasons of television.

12 seasons. We get a lot of squatch action, especially in the fall. No, you don't get a lot of squatch action because Bigfoot doesn't exist. 100 episodes of this. Anyway, Hunter claims that pranksters are coming to his hideout and making unearthly noises, chucking stinky mud around. I mean, it could be pranksters, or it's exactly what he's been looking for, Bigfoot. We even see Big Footprints up on the deck of the tree house and hear thuds off in the distance.

Is Bigfoot real in this universe? And this game seems like it wants us to think that, but just like with the haunted house, I'm not convinced. You see, earlier in the game, we do a job for H&G Hexen Yeager, who live in a grotto and make gingerbread. So yes, this is meant to be Hansel and Gretel

from the children's nursery rhyme. G even refers to H as Hansel in one of her texts. Now, these two are interesting because they're currently in hiding. They're living out in the forests, pretending to be bakers because Hansel robbed a bank. I mean, if the graffiti on the side of the house didn't make it clear enough, Gretel practically tells us this outright, but why would this be relevant to the Bigfoot storyline? Well, we also get this detail from Gretel. Quote, Hansel has a huge beard, long, unruly hair, and defeated eyes.

So, picture this. We have Hansel trying to hide out in the woods looking like a big grizzly man. In a fast glance, easily confused for Bigfoot. And something tells me that an outlaw on the lamb wouldn't take too kindly to all the cameras hunters set up around his house trying to catch a squash. Hence the yelling and throwing mud to try and scare him away. Yet another example of something supernatural explained away by mundane elements found in the game. If you consider dangerous criminals hiding out in the wood mundane, I suppose. As far as other plot lines in the game, there's also a childhood romance storyline going on in the background. When you get to the skate park level, you find a piece of graffiti that depicts a love heart with the initial CM and FP.

The CM is referring to Kelvin Miller, one of our recurring characters who keeps spot in the mayor's runaway cat around town. When he first moves into his new home, he reminisces about a former resident of the house, a girl named Floraine. Floreen Perez, FP, his ex-girlfriend. Seems like a throwaway detail until Kelvin gets saved by the fire department atop the volcano. And you'll never guess who the pilot is. The final text chain ends with Kelvin saying, It's rude to text on a date. So it seems like CM and FP have found each other again,

and their romance is rekindling. But now it's time we talk about the main overarching story within the game. The mayor's missing cat. Is this what you wanted, Markiplier? Is it? This riveting take on modern storytelling? I mean, the cat one here is pretty easy. Our friend Harper informs us of the cat's disappearance and the whole town is now on the lookout because without him,

the spring festival can't take place, for some reason. This explains the cat pause that we see throughout many of the levels, as well as the missing posters often seen in the forest levels. The fire chief, Denver Drill, claims that there is no cat, and that the whole thing is a conspiracy to distract the town away from a mysterious pipeline that the mayor's building. And while that certainly could be true, there is most certainly a cat. In our second mission, we see a ginger cat jump off the shed roof. And again, much later on, we receive messages from Calvin when he's climbing the volcano that he sees a ginger tomcat with a funny leg.

Once again, proving that the cat is real. Do I think there might be something sinister with the mayor's pipeline? Sure, but as far as I can tell, the cat has nothing to do with it. Unless, of course, the whole town is hallucinating thanks to volcanic gas. But based on everyone's behavior, seems unlikely. So, there you have it, I guess. The story of Power Wash Simulator. I mean, it's fine, but it doesn't feel like there's a whole lot of mystery going on here.

Every time I got close to something, the game just kind of gave me the answer, or debunked itself. But you've all been watching me for long enough. You know that I wouldn't just leave it there. You know that I had to keep digging. The eyes of Markiplier were upon me. I couldn't just let him down. And so guess what I found? Here's the twist, folks.

You are the villain of Power Wash Simulator. Yep, it's that classic game theory twist. The hero of the story was actually the villain all along. Our power washing protagonist joins the ranks of Mario, Phoenix Wright and Kirby, as well as the handful of other characters we've been misled about over the decades, and I've got everything I need to prove it. It all begins with why everything's so dirty. Just like Mark said, it's the volcano. In the Bungalow Mission, we see a volcano smoking away in the background, and quite close, I might add. The smoke tells us that the volcano is currently active.

Now, we don't see anything dramatic, like lava spewing out of it, but that doesn't mean it isn't erupting. There's a type of eruption that can happen called Freyatic. eruptions. These eruptions are caused by the heat from magma interacting with water. They therefore produce a lot of steam, toxic gases, and most importantly, ash. This is what I believe the black substance around town to be. It's billowing out of the volcano and covering these houses. And we have proof. Notice all the rust on the vehicles and metal parts of the houses? Well, ash is abrasive and causes corrosion of metals. It would also explain the dermatitis that the children are getting by playing on the

dirty playground, as ash is also a potential skin irritant. Meanwhile, the toxic gases emitted from the friatic eruptions could make Kelvin hallucinate while climbing the mountain. However, all of this is small potatoes. The people of Muckingham might need to be worried about more than just their dirty patios because if the volcano is doing this, they could be in for some serious trouble. Remember, this takes place in Oregon, with the main volcano there being Mount Hood. Although Mount Hood hasn't erupted in a long time, along the same volcanic line is Washington's volcano, Mount St. Helen, which did erupt in March of 1980. This eruption was similar to what we see happening in the game, a friatic eruption. Definitely dangerous but not incredibly life-threatening.

However, two months later, something major changed. Mount St. Helen went from a friatic eruption to a magmatic eruption. More specifically a Plinian or Vesuvian eruption, and you can probably guess where it got its name from. These are massive eruptions that spew a huge amount of smoke, toxic gas, and ash into the air, causing pyroclastic flows. These are dense, fast-moving flows of solidified lava pieces. volcanic ash and hot gas. They are fast and they are deadly, especially given how close the town is to the volcano.

I mean, it's these pyroclastic flows that destroyed and preserved Pompeii. And with the proximity to Mount St. Helen, scientists have predicted that the same thing could happen at Mount Hood as well. So I wouldn't be surprised if by the end of Power Wash simulator, all your work is for naught and the volcano erupts.

Maybe the result of the mayor's pipeline. And all your clean houses and gardens and fences are destroyed in a massive final volcanic eruption. The evidence leading up to this is all there. But fear not townspeople because we will be there to clean all that muck away. Or will we? Ha ha, surprise twist number two.

As satisfying as it is to carve our way through dirt with pinpoint accuracy, our company's existence might be causing issues that are worse than just having a dirty car. Cities actually have to organize special disposal of volcanic ash, and they have to do it fast. In 1980, when Mount St. Helen erupted, it cost the city of Yakima, Washington, $5.4 million, and took seven around-the-clock days to remove and dispose of all the ash. Why is it such an issue?

Well, you see, ash isn't water soluble, meaning it doesn't dissolve in water, and therefore can't simply be washed away. The water just carries the ash elsewhere, either onto the street or down drains. If it ends up on the street and dries, it could be picked up by gusts of wind and end up in ventilation systems and air conditioning units. And with ash being toxic to inhale, you can see why this quickly becomes a problem. If it ends up down the public drainage systems, then it causes block. leading to backups, burst pipes, and overflow onto the streets and into clean water supplies.

This is why volcanic ash has to be disposed of professionally, and not just washed off by some schmuck with his pressure washer. So without exaggeration, you are the villain of Power Wash Simulator, improperly disposing of volcanic ash. And while it may be satisfying to clean all your neighbors' surfaces, you're endangering the lives and lungs of everyone around you as the ash gets kicked up and circulates through the air and water systems. But who cares? You're all about to dine a volcanic. eruption anyway, now try playing the game. I guarantee no nozzle is gonna be able to wash away that existential dread. But hey, that's just a theory. A game theory. Thanks for watching.