This virtual laundry game is utterly pointless, and that’s what makes it fun

Pewdiepie is a big deal on the internet. The Swedish video game commentator has the most-watched channel on Youtube, and a single feature by the internet-celeb can send your indie game skyrocketing, as it did for Flappy Bird back in January this year.

Pewdiepie – whose real name is Felix Arvid Ulf Kjellberg – is making full use of his celebrity status by teaming up with online indie game platform Gamejolt to host a game jam called “Indies vs. Pewdiepiew.” Its theme is “fun to play, fun to watch” with an emphasis on making people laugh, and the top 10 rated games will be played by Kjellberg on his channel.

One of the more interesting made-in-Asia games submitted for the jam that we’ve come across is Washed Out, a washing machine sim created in 72 hours by Lionfish Studios, a new four-man development team from Singapore.

In Washed Out, your job is to man the washing machine and get dirty clothes washed. Developed on Unity and available to play on the PC, it involves the solo player adding appropriate levels of water and detergent to the laundry, and then spinning it clean. Sending out a load of clean laundry nets you coins, which, as far as we can ascertain, do nothing. Not doing your job properly, however, gets you a kick in the washing machine, which reduces your health.

And that’s it. The game ends when you get bored or when you run out of health. Washed Out is reminiscent of coin dozer games, where you play without a true goal in mind. Sure, it might seem rather pointless, but Washed Out did make me grin – and that’s what the Indies vs. Pewdiepie game jam is all about.

I like that Washed Out has one undeniably Singaporean visual, by the way. One of the items you have to wash is a pixelated camouflage cap – the exact same one that our local National Servicemen wear to army camps.

You can try Washed Out here and vote for it if you like.

See: 17 famous games you didn’t know were made (or partially made) in Singapore