Breaking clean Gromit! With today’s release of the PowerWash Simulator Wallace & Gromit Special Pack, we hope you are prepared for a spectacular day out cleaning up the world of Aardman’s incessantly creative team.
Grab some cheese and crackers as FuturLab’s Mark Ginbey, who writes PowerWash Simulator, and Animator Alannah Meek, who creates the game’s endearing animations, show us how they brought the pack and the WASH LAD to life. We collaborated closely with our partners at Aardman Animations to faithfully recreate the world of 62 West Wallaby Street in PowerWash Simulator. You can explore the nooks and crannies of their garden, kitchen, dining room, and basement in the special pack’s five new levels before blasting into space to clean the Moon Rocket!
Get Cracking!
Determining the cause of the initial mess is a crucial step in creating any PowerWash Special Pack. Following a mechanical breakdown, the Wallace & Gromit pack’s situation at 62 West Wallaby Street has taken a turn for the worse. This is the largest tragedy since the cracker disaster of 1989!
Ideas came to Ginbey as easily as porridge from a broken AutoChef. “Writing the story for such beloved creations was quite a frightening notion, but fortunately, they are a mucky couple that readily find themselves in all manner of sticky circumstances,” Ginbey explains.
We only needed to place the two in a number of familiar settings and ask ourselves, ‘What could possibly go wrong here?’ There was no need for any complicated overarching plot. After that, it was simply a matter of letting the dirt speak for itself.
Surprisingly, Finbar Hawkins, Aardman’s talented writer, also assisted us in polishing the script and lending credibility to our concepts.
Well Done, Lad
Together with their very own industrial washer, the WASH LAD is fully energized and prepared to help you with your cleaning adventures.
The WASH LAD has been modified in a few ways to better fit this specialized work. It is based on Wallace’s original LAD (Labor Assistant Device), which initially surfaced in Wallace & Gromit’s World of Invention. In order to give the elbow grease required to slough off the muck in the pack, we modified the original arms to hinge at the elbows. To give our WASH LAD the complete range of motion to reach up, crouch down, and clean every crevice, we replaced the wheels with legs.
According to Meek, “we developed a completely new character model for Wallace and Gromit, preserving as many aspects of the original LAD character as we could.” A new set of animations was made to better fit the LAD character after it was skinned to the PowerWash Simulator character rig, with the primary goal being to make it seem more robotic than the PWS character.
You will notice a noticeable height difference from the standard PowerWash Simulator character model as you maneuver WASH LAD’s robust and durable chassis. You will also hear the metallic sounds of the hydraulics that drive the little bot. Joining your pals to fight the filth as a little robot army is entertaining.
Level Deep Dive
Let us take a look at our creative friends’ cozy homes, starting with the kitchen and dining room, before we all curl up with some cheese and crackers in front of the TV.
Wallace & Gromit’s Dining Room & Kitchen
In order to fully immerse yourself in the action, you can interact with moving elements like the train set and recognize references from throughout the brand’s history.
“The toy train was difficult to set up animation for the toy train!” adds Meek, “We had to come up with a new way to animate the train and ensure that all the carriages follow the train tracks smoothly with a spline curve because washable objects in PowerWash Simulator cannot use the regular animation setup. It is hoped that the toy train will be enjoyable for the participants as they travel around the circuit.
Wallace & Gromit’s House
This level allows you to enjoy the tranquility of the British suburbs while hosing down Wallace & Gromit’s charming front yard and the front façade of their iconic two-up-two-down. As you sneak inside Gromit’s kennel and search through his possessions—all for the sake of cleanliness, of course—you will also be walking in the footsteps of a legend!
Like in A Close Shave, you can flip the pond to finish the driveway, in addition to a few famous inventions like the Soccamatic and Shopper 13.
The Knit-O-Matic
The Knit-O-Matic needs some TLC (tender-loving-cleaning) because it is a little tangled. There is not a second to waste cleaning the notorious device, so head down to the basement!
Check the technical (and not-so-technical) drawings and power up the goliath machine to give it a complete service!
“Adding an added layer of detail for the gamers to enjoy and bringing life to the setting is the animation of washable goods like the Knit-O-Matic,” Meek continues.
With its high ceilings, large machinery, and abundance of basement-dwelling odds and ends, this spacious area is ideal for settling down. Turn on the auto-washer to give yourself a pat on the back when you are finished! Automatic washing is overrated.
Wallace & Gromit’s Vehicles
In the often rainy English environment, a rare day without rain can only mean that it is time to give the automobile a thorough cleaning! Wallace is not one for routine, but his car collection is not your typical hatchback.
Even the classic Techno Trousers require some soapy help—just do not put them through the improper spin cycle—because everything is covered in grime, from the Snomanotron to the Top Bun bakery van!
The Rocket to the Moon
In the pack’s last level, return the Moon Rocket to its previous state of brie-lliance. The pair’s spacecraft has seen better days and is covered in more than just stardust. Before stepping inside to revitalize the cozy cockpit, blast off the dirt that has covered its paintwork.
While you are up there, you might also want to take a short look at the aftermath of a specific extraterrestrial picnic.
We hope this all-access look at our new Pack has been enjoyable. I will put the kettle on, and we will have a fantastic cleaning adventure at 62 West Wallaby Street!
PowerWash Simulator is the default game that Xbox Game Pass subscribers can play as part of their subscription. A copy of PowerWash Simulator is needed to play the Wallace & Gromit Special Pack, which can be purchased separately on the Xbox Store today.
