Ashi Wash - what's new?

Hi folks!

We've got an all new version of Ashi Wash coming out April 30th! It's going to be releasing on Itch.io and Steam for $3.00, so we wanted to talk about what's new and improved (by the way, if you buy the new Ashi Wash on Itch.io, you'll get a Steam key).

First, the house is an entirely different layout and has a lot more detail than "Ashi Wash Classic" (that's what we're calling the game jam version of Ashi Wash we released in 2016). The house now has a fireplace, a deck giving you a pleasant view of nature at twilight, and art work on the walls hinting at the history of the house (ooh, ~lore~). It's all filled out with furniture and little details, making it a more pleasant space to inhabit. We've also tried to leverage some of the graphical features of the Unreal Engine to make the game all nice 'n' pretty.

We've add an entirely new type of filth to be cleaned. You'll have to play the game to find out what it is and how to clean it. We've also improved the behavior of all the original tools so they're more fun and less clunky to use. The filth and tools have also undergone cosmetic facelifts to look nicer (or grosser). 

The Foot has quite a bit more dialog. The Foot will be giving you a lot more information (and puns) so that you always know what's happening. And remember those flies you had to swat? They now have voices, too. We hope you laugh a lot at the new lines. Speaking of dialog, we have optional subtitles throughout the game (for the non-VR mode only).

There's now a vintage record player in the living room. There are a few vinyl records scattered around, so you can now change the background music by swapping out one vinyl record for another (which means there's lots of new music in the game, too!). You can also turn the music off by taking the record off the record player.

Ashi Wash has a proper menu screen, unlike Ashi Wash Classic which launched right into the timed round as soon as you launched the app. Ashi Wash also has fun animated ending sequences instead of the simple ending "cards" of Ashi Wash Classic.

The single biggest feature we're excited about is the VR mode!  We think the core idea of Ashi Wash lends itself to VR, but we still spent a lot of time refining the VR experience to make it feel great. Now the big nasty foot will be right in your face, just like you've always dreamed! There are a couple of tools that are different between the VR and non-VR modes. Those specific tools were just really awkward when translated to VR, so we created VR specific tools that we think are a lot of fun. We've tested the VR mode with the HTC Vive and Windows Mixed Reality and those headsets work great. We haven't tested the Oculus Rift or other VR headsets but we suspect that anything that works with SteamVR should work okay, we just can't confirm that.

I'm probably forgetting a lot of things, but hopefully that gives you an idea of what's new in Ashi Wash. It's taken a long time and many scrapped ideas to get here and we're excited to finally release this game. We hope you enjoy Ashi Wash and that you stick around for our next game!

-Troy