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An independent project designed using the XNA development suite and rewarded with a publishing contract on Xbox Live Arcade Marketplace via a win at the Gamefest 2007 Dream-Build-Play contest.

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a 2-D stylistic action platformer showcasing fast action, deep gameplay, and a unique visual style. An undead samurai dishwasher in a dystopian universe is on a quest for revenge against the evil cyborg army. To dispatch hordes of zombies, cyborgs, and robots, the Dishwasher has at his fingertips a devastating array of attacks using ancient blades, disturbing machinery, and screen-obliterating Dish Magic. Compete with the rest of the world in a variety of speed run and high score challenges to become the most formidable Dishwasher yet!

Genre: Action

Publisher: Microsoft

Developer: Ska Studios

Online Play: 2 Co-op

Local Play: 2 Co-op

March 31, 2009 –
The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is winner of Microsoft’s Dream Build Play contest, which rewarded the developer of the best community-built game with an XBLA contract. There’s a lot riding on The Dishwasher as it’s validation for Microsoft’s XNA community. After all, there’s no reason other community games can’t live up to whatever standard The Dishwasher sets. Though it may have begun as a community game, the truth is that The Dishwasher is being released as an XBLA game and therefore must be compared to other Arcade titles. And while this might run rings around many of the community games being released, The Dishwasher doesn’t favor well against Bionic Commando Rearmed, Braid, Castle Crashers or other great Arcade offerings.

The core gameplay of The Dishwasher is fun and compelling and serves as basis for what could be a great game. You play a former dishwasher who is now a samurai who, I guess is dead? It’s hard to say as the story is told through blurry comic-book strips with obscure narration. Not that story really matters for a game like this. You have a sword (and cleaver and chainsaw and shotgun) magic “Dish powers” and a will to use them all against the forces of evil.

This is a button masher that seems heavily inspired by The Behemoth’s Alien Hominid — from the enemies to the insane difficulty to the humorous violence. The action is the type that will have your hand throbbing after a bit. But it’s a good kind of pain if you’re the type that enjoys seeing bodies vivisected and blood splattered across the screen.

Your arsenal is fairly small, with just a handful of weapons to unlock, including a machinegun/shotty combo that’s a lot of fun. Each weapon can be upgraded by spending points collected from dead enemies and by finding rare guitar picks in the world. Oh, did I forget to mention you’re an undead samurai dishwasher who likes to rock out on the guitar? I thought that would have been obvious. The hacking and slashing includes the need to constantly roll-dodge to avoid damage. If you don’t play defensively, you will die. Often. And then you’ll throw your controller and curse that I could ever suggest this game could possibly be any fun. See, it’s just like Alien Hominid!

Check out IGN’s video review of The Dishwasher.While this is a fairly standard button masher (with extra coats of blood) there are some very bizarre additions to the single-player game. You can gain amulets to allow other friends to join in as a variety of odd entities, including a scythe-wielding spirit and a guitar. Yes, a guitar. You even need to use a guitar peripheral to play, dealing damage as you rock out. Keep in mind, this is the “single-player” game. Local co-op is actually just an arena survival mode. If you want to play through the story with friends, you’ll need to first find some amulets, then have your buddies over to your couch.

Though the idea of a roving guitar sounds great, it doesn’t come off so well in practice. The guitar hovers near the Dishwasher, with the guitarist playing random chords to fire out bolts of energy. Lift up on the guitar for a spinning uppercut that does massive damage. It looks fun, but it’s not. In fact, the IGN quality assurance test assured this was a dud. Five (yes five) IGN editors gave the guitar a go and most put it down after just a few minutes. It’s not much better playing as a second character, because the more characters that pile onto the screen , the more cluttered things become with overdone effects. It becomes difficult to follow the action and the camera can’t decide who to follow.

The story mode is a decent length and there is an arcade survival mode as well as an online Dish Challenge mode to add to some extra gaming hours. But it all starts to get a little repetitive after a while. The zaniness isn’t charming and doesn’t add anything to the action. In fact, the game feels a little disjointed as everything and the kitchen sink is thrown in as if no idea was allowed to be left on the cutting room floor.

The visual style of the Dishwasher is certain to catch people’s eyes. The characters look like a mix between the art styles of The Behemoth and comic-book artist Jhonen Vasquez (Squee, Johnny the Homicidal Maniac). There are a lot of “inspired by” characters though, like the ED-209 robot and the men in black from Alien Hominid. At least there’s blood aplenty. Though I do like some of the designs, the backgrounds are generally very boring. Everything just seems thrown together without any thought to a cohesive visual design. Even some of the effects, like the cool lightning strikes from ED-209 look out of place against the other visuals.

Closing Comments
The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is an enjoyable button masher and a commendable effort considering it