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Tech

This New 'Shower' Sim Makes You Wait for Soapy Digital Intimacy

In Robert Yang's "Rinse and Repeat," you give a new pal a deep scrub.
Image: Robert Yang

I was in the shower, minding my own business, looking at the schedule for "apocalyptic yoga" classes, when he walked in. A fresh-cut lawn of chest hair, a face reminiscent of Ben Affleck, and totally naked. He casually strolled into the showers as time slowed down, disco lights swerved at lounge speed, and a dreamy contemporary garage track kicked in. I also saw the title of the game materialize before me: Rinse and Repeat.

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The shower sim genre of video games seems to be taking off this year. A little while ago, Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015, a game about looking for your naked dad in the shower, fought Steam's censorship rules. Now Robert Yang, who also made a game about dick pics and the NSA, has released Rinse and Repeat on Itch.io.

Though your sud buddy bears a strong resemblance to the star of Succulent, Yang's popular popsicle-enjoying simulator, Rinse and Repeat is the spiritual sequel to his spanking game, Hurt Me Plenty. Like Hurt Me Plenty, this game is about an intimate interaction between hunks, but more specifically Rinse and Repeat expands upon the concepts of patience and consent. Both games aren't about what the player wants, instead asking you to follow the signals of a virtual partner, and both end with the player having to wait real-time periods, sometimes whole days, before being able to give the game another go.

"I wasn't satisfied with how I did the aftercare (in Hurt Me Plenty) and I got a lot of requests to let the player play as a submissive," wrote Robert Yang in his artist statement. "So this game is about caring for someone, but on their own terms: the game will only let you care for it at certain times, and it's up to you to make time for it."

After each bit of scrubbing, you listening to your friend's cues on how wide and hard you should wax with the soap, you're given a rating. My first two sessions, on the back and biceps, hovered around 44 percent and 60 percent, equivalent to Ds and Cs, but getting used to his desires I managed to jump straight to the honour roll on his abs and nips. Before I can finish my circuit, he's taking off, but he said he'll see me around. The camera then pans back towards the schedule from before, so I can mark my calendar for the next wet hot encounter.

"In sex, the notion of waiting is very important," wrote Yang. "Some people wait to have any sex until they are married, some wait to have sex depending on their menstrual cycle; some are tired, some don't feel like it, and some just plain don't want to. Foreplay and edging are common sexual practices that are about the fun of 'development,' where the delay of the climax is the whole point."

Rinse and Repeat is free to download and play, when the time is right.