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Late last week came the release of first-person male showering game Rinse and Repeat. This is the latest game in the burgeoning "wet, naked man" genre, preceded by Shower With Your Dad Simulator 2015.
Designed by indie game developer and academic Robert Yang, the download is at once "a steamy first person showering game about giving a hunk a helping hand," according to its official description, and an exploration of male homosexuality.
Yang, who is queer himself, elaborates on the process behind the development in an entry on his blog, in which he talks about the issue of consent and power dynamics at Rinse and Repeat's center. He also, appropriately, talks a lot about showering.
The post is fascinating from an academic standpoint, both in terms of how Yang intends to represent gay male sexuality in-game, as well as how his creation confronts the concept of "‘body awareness,'" which he explains is "the idea [in gaming] that we need to give first person players some sort of visible concrete body instead of an invisible implied body."
But what is most fascinating is the amount of work that went into crafting a game that, in the most basic terms, tasks you with scrubbing someone down in a public shower.
For those who would like a preview before you take the plunge, Yang uploaded censored, but still not work-safe, game footage. The video shows off the locker room setting and features lots of muscles and bare butts, while showing just how consent and comfort comes into play.
Yang's previous games include Hurt Me Plenty, which he refers to as "a short game about spanking the heck out of some dude" on its website and Stick Shift, "an autoerotic night-driving game about pleasuring a gay car."
You can download Rinse and Repeat at any price you want. The game is available for Linux, Mac and Windows PC.