Rock, Paper, Shotgun

By Nathan Grayson on February 1st, 2013 at 9:00 am.

Sometimes, it takes a true visionary to notice a gaping hole in the entertainment landscape and jam a cork into it, quivering with purpose. Who’d have thought BioShock would work except Ken Levine? Or heck, even Mario’s a positively mad idea on paper. And jeez, whoever first suggested we should try stuffing tiny, pixelated games into monitors was probably insane on some level. So who am I to say Legend of the Knightwasher – which is, in fact, about a washing machine who’s also a medieval knight – won’t take the world by storm in the same fashion? It’s just crazy enough to be the next big thing. Or maybe just the next small thing, but clad in glorious, gleaming plate that’s probably gone through at least three rinse cycles. Either way, it looks positively bonkers. Trailer after the break.

Yes, it’s real. And, with some fine-tuning, the physics-based washing machine joust-flopping even looks like it could be kind of fun. But come on, we all know why you’re really here. That’s right: for the heavy hitting, Game-of-Thrones-worthy drama.

“At the end of the barbarian wars one of the King’s knights betrayed his brothers. He marched through the city, through the gates to the royal castle, murdering every knight in his wake. As he arrived to the throne room there stood the Knightwasher, general and advisor of Crownwasher, the King and also the noble lord Torl the Redshredder. The battle was short, Darkwasher, the evil knight had employed services of unknown washers. The beastly machines in his service were near immortal and their strikes shook the ground.”

So basically, Knightwasher and Crownwasher died, but Crownwasher gave Knightwasher a second lease on life by wishing for a loophole in Death’s rules and… yeah, it actually sounds kind of great. It’s true what no one has ever said they say: washing machines really do make everything better!

Moment-to-moment, it sounds like Legend of the Knightwasher will be a co-op-friendly hack ‘n’ slash ‘n’ washer. So expect exploration, loot, party members, and honestly I have no idea what else because we’re kind of in uncharted territory here.

Developer Detocroix is aiming for a June 2013 release, but LotK’s Steam Greenlight page claims something playable will awkwardly tip over on its side while attempting to storm our walls sometime before release. You can go see a bit more of it there, if you’d like. Including poetry! Indeed, have you ever clapped eager eyes on finer odes to vengeance-fueled undead household appliances? Wait, really? Where? I want to go to there.