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Car Wash Simulator’s trailer takes a dark turn

This game is about running a business, getting cars clean, and also avoiding the attention of the authorities.

There’s something satisfying about a trip to the car wash: You arrive with your ride covered in road dust and dirt, and leave with that new-car shine. But as we all learned in Breaking Bad, a car wash can also serve a darker purpose, and Car Wash Simulator covers both sides of this particular business.

Car Wash Simulator is about starting and running a business as the owner of a small neighborhood car wash. You start with an empty lot, and build it up from there by constructing wash bays, buying and upgrading equipment, and of course, washing cars. It’s all in first person, a bit like this year’s House Flipper, and you’ll use soap guns, sponges, and vacuums to clean and detail the cars that arrive at your car wash. And as you grow, you’ll have to compete for customers with your local rival businesses.

The trailer gives you a sense of all that, and it starts out looking like one of those amusing curiosities that regularly pop up on Steam. There’s something soothing about performing these unheroic tasks, and games like House Flipper can be surprisingly engrossing.

But not everything is as it seems in Car Wash Simulator. Here, check out the trailer to see what I mean:


Yes, it seems you’ll have to handle clients who dabble in less-than-legal businesses as well. Near the end of the trailer, just as our hero is closing up shop and shutting out the lights, the camera turns to a parked car with the trunk slightly ajar. A bloodied human hand dangles from the gap, and the police arrive.

Check it out: Our list of the best PC simulation games

So it’s a simulator game that covers both car washes and murder, which is a combination that’s perhaps best suited for videogames. You can add Car Wash Simulator to your wishlist on Steam now, but there’s no release date for the game set yet – the page says only that it’s “coming soon.”

It’s being developed by 1Z Games, who are also making a game called Plastic Rebellion – that one’s about fielding a team of plastic army men against an evil, out of control 3D printer. Who says there aren’t any new ideas any more?