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[[quoteright:313:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dishwasher-logo_7228.jpg]]
--> ''I am the humble dishwasher. It's my time to shine!''

''The Dishwasher'' is a side-scrolling BeatEmUp series released for the Platform/XboxLiveArcade by (formerly) one-man design team [[Creator/SkaStudios Ska Studios]]. The first game, ''Dead Samurai,'' went up for sale in April 2009, with the sequel, ''Vampire Smile,'' following suit two years later.

''The Dishwasher'' starts the eponymous Dishwasher, [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin a dishwasher]] working in a bleak world where humans are choosing to be mass-converted into cyborgs and the undead run amok. One day, he wakes up in the restaurant kitchen with mild amnesia, a big hole in his chest where his heart should be, and an army of cyborgs out for his head. For lack of anything better to do, he picks up a couple of meat cleavers and carves his way through a tale involving evil supercomputers, long-lost siblings, an alien chef, and [[NinjaPirateZombieRobot shotgun-wielding vampire cowboy assassins]]. The games' plots are presented as a series of gritty comic strips which can sometimes make it a challenge to see whether the story is taking itself seriously or not.

The games have attracted some flak for their art style and threadbare, usually ridiculous story, but also attract considerable acclaim for their frenetic combat (reminiscent of ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry'' and other combo-based beat 'em ups with scads of bloody finishing moves to boot) and impressive production values; everything from the cutscenes to the music are provided by Ska Studios. On top of a fairly involved story mode, both games also feature co-op play (although the first game's second player interaction is limited to a helper much like in ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy'') and Arcade modes consisting of fifty increasingly difficult challenges. Both are available for 800 MS points each on Xbox Live.
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!! This game contains examples of:

* AlienBlood: The Dishwasher's blood creeps through his veins despite the absence of, say, anything like a heart. [[spoiler: [[SuperhumanTransfusion It's nice to have such a magnanimous boss]].]]
* AmazingTechnicolorBattlefield: [[spoiler: The final battle in ''Vampire Smile.'']]
* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation:
** [[InvertedTrope Inverted]] - ''everyone'' has completely white skin, regardless of actual race and/or probable skin tone. The Chef is, according to [[WordOfGod the developer]], quite black, but appears just as ashen as everyone else.
** Confirmed that The Chef is black, in ''VideoGame/CharlieMurder'', another game by Ska Studios.
* AndYourRewardIsClothes: The Dishwasher gets a shirt after you beat the first game, and a nice hat if you beat it on Samurai difficulty.
* ArtEvolution: The second game's graphics are more on par with ''VideoGame/{{Braid}}'' or ''VideoGame/{{Limbo}}'' than the original, with marked improvements to everything from backgrounds to the Dishwasher himself.
* AsLongAsItSoundsForeign: Mixed with HeavyMetalUmlaut to make various stage names: Iffenhaus Prison, the banker Ömödö, Dishwasher's Dekkentozter, possibly other examples.
* AssimilationPlot: The cyborg conversion movement turns out to be this.
* AwesomeButImpractical: The Dishwasher's Dekkentozter in ''Vampire Smile'' is a ludicrous ImprovisedWeapon that consists of a squirt gun, a portable generator, and a toaster on the end of a wire. It does huge damage, especially if you soak the enemy first, but the generator severely hinders the Dishwasher's mobility and its range is far outstripped by the Violence Hammer.
* AxCrazy: The Dishwasher himself may be unsettlingly violent with all his beheadings and grenade-feedings, but the Prisoner Yuki is flat out ''messed up''.
* BadassBoast: "They call me the Dishwasher. I inspire fear among the fearless."
* BattleInTheCenterOfTheMind: Several in the sequel:
** Yuki's nightmares quickly turn into battles with her dream monsters.
** [[spoiler: The Invalid boss, with a heaping helping of InterfaceScrew.]]
** [[spoiler: The final battle against the Fallen Engineer and his mind control takes place on a spinning dish in a glowing red abyss.]]
* BetterToDieThanBeKilled: In ''Vampire Smile'', enemies in critical condition will often kill themselves if left alone for a few moments. Given what the protagonists tend to do to their opponents when they're dazed, this might be more sensible than it looks.
* BittersweetEnding: Yuki's ending in ''Vampire Smile''. [[spoiler: The Fallen Engineer is dead ''(again)'', but so is the Dishwasher, and Yuki doesn't much care what happens to the rest of humanity now that her mind has been purged.]]
* BladeLock: during a Messy Kill finisher, several of the more dangerous enemies will raise a weapon in defense, leading to this. You'll have to power past them with a [[PressXToNotDie Quick Time Event]] to deliver the coup de grâce. This also happens if Yuki initiates a [[ChainsawGood Chainsaw]] [[SingleStrokeBattle Duel]] with a Cyborg Pumpkinhead.
* BossSubtitles: Every boss [[spoiler: save the Fallen Engineer]] has them in the second game. Some examples:
** Goreface: [[MookMaker Pile o' Rotten Flesh]]
** The Invalid: [[NotSoHarmlessVillain Vegative]] [[MindScrew Neuromancer]]
** Squidface: [[PersonalSpaceInvader Symbiotic]] Swordmaster
** The Warden: Iffenhaus Pain Administer
** The [[UsefulNotes/BritishPrisons Gaoler]]: Dealer of Crooked Justice
** The Nightmare: [[spoiler: [[MoreThanMindControl Your Psychotic Stepsister]]]]
* ChainsawGood: The Dishwasher gets a chainsaw in the first game. Yuki gets one grafted to her arm in ''Vampire Smile''. Both do everything one could expect a chainsaw to do.
%%* ChefOfIron: The Chef.
* ChekhovsGunman: The masked rider in ''Dead Samurai'' [[spoiler:is a well-camouflaged early appearance of the Big Bad.]]
* ConservationOfNinjutsu: Red Freaks are often sent in very large numbers. They, in turn, [[ChunkySalsaRule die in large numbers as well.]]
* CrapsackWorld: It's always dark and rainy, and there are cyborgs and zombies everywhere. [[spoiler: In the sequel, it's revealed that the Dishwasher and Chef basically burned the world down and tried to start over on the moon.]]
* CyberneticsEatYourSoul: Literally. [[spoiler: The architect of the transhumanist movement engineered the cybernetics this way.]] Cyborg bodies even poison the soil, causing the dead to stir.
* DeadpanSnarker: The Dishwasher in the sequel is a little more sanguine about his situation, leading to some very dry wisecracks every now and then. In particular, he's totally nonplussed by zombie sharks.
* DegradedBoss: The chainsaw-wielding Pumpkinhead mini-bosses from the first game show up as normal, if especially tough, enemies in the sequel.
* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Limited Palette variant. Enemies, for the most part, have very bright, colorful lights on their person, so the player can spot them through the chaos of battle better. Blood, and particularly imposing scenery are also colorful.
* DissonantSerenity: The main reason Chef stands out like a sore thumb is his default expression; a placid smile. Anyone having a cheerful disposition, it needs to be said, is in ''very'' short supply in this series. This makes it all the more jarring if [[spoiler: Yuki kills the Dishwasher]], since he sort of freaks out.
* DynamicEntry: Present in both games from different sources:
** In the first game, Blue Freaks can land on you from above, though they're fairly small and are relatively easy to dodge.
** In ''Vampire Smile'', however, there are the Shoguns: huge, armored, halberd and rocket launcher wielding minibosses that come down with a fairly large shockwave. Problem is, they can do this over and over again while swinging around the aforementioned halberd.
* EasyModeMockery: [[EasierThanEasy Pretty Princess]] mode, unlockable in ''Vampire Smile'' by dying five times in a row in the same room. In it, everything is covered with a pink filter, hearts float through the air, and enemies all bleed hearts and rainbows. Also, it's actually quite a challenge to even die on this mode.
** The achievement you get for unlocking it, named "Game Reviewers Shall Be Pleased", is also a TakeThat to the infamous game critics who score games poorly due to their inability to get past obstacles.
* EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep: Main characters are referred to by a title, such as the Dishwasher and the Chef. In the second game, Yuki is referred to as "the Prisoner." Just about all the villains are addressed this way, too: there's the Doctor, the Banker, the General, and the Judge. [[spoiler: And the Fallen Engineer.]]
* ExcusePlot: The whole revenge plot pretty much gets pushed off to the side right after being brought up, and even in Yuki's ending she basically says that she doesn't really care as long as she has her freedom.
* FinishingMove: A key point of the combat system. Once an enemy starts sparking, you are to finish him off with the attack button indicated over his head - either a Clean Kill (read: [[HighPressureBlood blood-fountaining]] DiagonalCut) or a [[CruelAndUnusualDeath Messy Kill]] (A NoHoldsBarredBeatdown, usually with a side order of HoistByHisOwnPetard). Doing so properly will restore your health and sometimes net you a [[LimitBreak Dish/Blood Magic Skull.]]
* GlassCannon: When you engage [[spoiler: the Chef]] in ''Dead Samurai,'' he can kill you in seconds but drops in two strong combos. [[spoiler: But as far as future battles and [[GameplayAndStorySegregation the plot]] are concerned, he's NighInvulnerable.]]
* GatlingGood: Yuki gets one of ''these'' on her arm, too, and it's implied she can switch between it and the chainsaw at will.
* {{Gorn}}: The first game splashed ''floods'' of gore across the screen, and the second amps it up even further. Finishers nearly always involve some form of dismemberment or someone getting ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice. In ''Vampire Smile,'' one of Yuki's boss finishers turns the entire screen red for a couple of seconds.
* HighPressureBlood: ''But of course''. Old samurai movie-style blood fountains shoot out of freshly defeated enemies defeated by blades.
* HoistByHisOwnPetard: The Dishwasher has at least one finisher per enemy in ''Dead Samurai'' that involves killing a cyborg with their own weapons. Of particular note is the one where he pulls a grenade out of their belt, calmly flips it around, and ''[[EyeScream rams it into their eye socket.]]''
* HooksAndCrooks: The [[EliteMooks Freaks]] of ''Dead Samurai'' use a pair of somewhat long hooks, though they replace them with long straight-bladed ninja swords in the sequel - probably in response to what the ''Dishwasher'' did with them: the [[FinishingMove Messy Kill]] against the Freaks involves [[ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice impaling them with the blunt end]] of the hook and setting it upright on the ground for display.
* IHaveManyNames: The final boss of ''Dead Samurai'' is called, alternately, [[spoiler: the Fallen Engineer, the Masked Rider, and if you go by the achievements list, That Guy on the Horse.]]
* ImprobableWeaponUser: Something of a recurring theme in the series' arsenal is The Dishwasher or Yuki picking up some potentially dangerous object and comfortably and gracefully using as a weapon as though there were a thousand-year old martial art behind its use.
* InterfaceScrew: [[spoiler: One boss in ''Vampire Smile,'' the Invalid, is a wheelchair-bound hospital patient who turns off the TV and turns it back on with the game in a different ''genre''. He uses the distraction to leap out of his chair and strangle you while screaming his head off.]]
* KudzuPlot: The plot of the second game is confusing enough if you've already played the first game, but try playing it without playing the first and see how many times you ask yourself what the hell is going on.
* LudicrousGibs: The ways that you can turn enemies into hamburger meat and blood are truly astounding. Sometimes you don't even need to be the one to kill them.
* TheMentor: The Chef is something of a mentor and protector figure to the Dishwasher, appropriately enough. He's effectively the one who kicks the journey off by rescuing him from the Sinthesis, and of course is a rare source of exposition.
* {{Metaphorgotten}}: "Diaboldi's corpse looks like it's been hit by a truck... with knives welded to it... Maybe some sort of mulching mechanism."
* TheMinionMaster: The Doctor in the first game is a fairly weak boss who can summon hordes of high-leveled enemies more or less indefinitely. In Arcade mode, you fight two at once, which makes things a little hectic.
* NoodlePeople: The protagonists are pretty scrawny, especially considering their hideous feats of strength. The BigBad, however, takes it into BodyHorror territory.
* NotUsingTheZedWord: Well, the game doesn't like calling Yuki a vampire, but she's got BloodMagic, CuteLittleFangs, and often tears open enemy throats with her teeth as a finisher, so if the shoe fits...
* OneToMillionToOne: Yuki's method of TeleportSpam. A particularly nasty example since she is simply shredded into a full body version of PinkMist instead of transforming into a swarm and is implied to feel all of it, every single time she uses it.
* OntologicalMystery: The Dishwasher in ''Dead Samurai'' wakes up in a kitchen with no idea how he got there and his heart cut out. It doesn't last long, though, because his memory starts coming back.
* OrcusOnHisThrone: Averted in ''Dead Samurai.'' [[spoiler: The Fallen Engineer personally leads the initial attempt to retrieve the Dishwasher, and serves as the first boss. It backfires, badly, since the Dishwasher steals his Shift Blade.]]
* PunchPunchPunchUhOh: The dynamic "grab" moves used on sparking foes are invariably one-sided-beatdowns-par-excellence. In the sequel, however, a rare few of Yuki's foes will let her know, [[PunchedAcrossTheRoom quite harshly]], that they're not nearly dead enough for ''that'' to work on them.
* ReverseGrip: How the Dishwasher holds his Shift Blade in both games, and Yuki does the same with her sword Conviction in ''Vampire Smile''.
* RoaringRampageOfRevenge: This drives the Dishwasher in ''Dead Samurai.'' Also drives Yuki in ''Vampire Smile'', though she's noticeably more vengeful about it.
* SequelHook: [[spoiler:If the dialogue at the end of the Dishwasher's campaign and the co-op campaign in ''Vampire Smile'' is of any indication, the Fallen Engineer he just killed was another fake decoy, and the real one is probably out there.]]
* ShortRangeShotgun: Both games feature shotguns whose optimal range is kissing distance. In ''Vampire Smile'', at a range it won't be much stronger than the submachinegun, but point blank it's powerful enough to OneHitKill several mooks.
* ShoutOut: Many.
** Your biggest hints that the game isn't taking its revenge plot seriously occur within one minute of the reveal of the underlying revenge plot itself: A girl with a Japanese name, on a quest for revenge, [[Film/TheMachineGirl has her arm replaced with a chainsaw]], and, after escaping from a prison whose name means "the house of If", the people she's going after [[Literature/TheCountOfMonteCristo are a general, a banker, and a judge.]]
** [[Manga/{{Gyo}} Weaponized zombie sharks mounted on robotic legs.]]
** A boss in ''Vampire Smile'' is called [[WesternAnimation/TheVentureBrothers "the Murderfly."]] The developers were not aware of this reference but instead the Murderfly is intended as an homage to a logo by Ska Studios' Michelle Juett drawn in 2008.
** An [[CosmeticAward achievement]] in ''Vampire Smile'' references ''Franchise/MortalKombat'' (the method of initially unlocking the item that lets you get the "achievables" required for it, which involves pressing Start after [[ItMakesSenseInContext cat's head pops out of the corner of the screen when you juggle enemies in a specific area]], [[spoiler: which in turn transports you to a BossRush with the developers' heads pasted on the bosses]]), ''WebAnimation/RedVsBlue'' (specifically the "achievements PSA", with Caboose saying "I also have my own achievables!" or "I have so many achievables!" whenever you unlock one, along with the name of the achievement as well as the fake achievement popup being straight from the short) and the overall concept of silly achievements (3 of them consisting of opening a present, double jumping and shooting an enemy with the AwesomeButImpractical weapon described above).
* SinisterScythe: The paired kusarigama (Kamas in ''DS'', Kama-Kazi in ''VS''), used alternatively like nunchaku and just plain sickles by the Dishwasher in ''Dead Samurai'' and then by Yuki in ''Vampire Smile''. They take the role of the token DualWielding, quick, finesse weapon - in the first game, they effectively replace the cleavers.
* SociopathicHero: The Dishwasher doesn't have many compunctions about killing for someone who spent his life scrubbing plates (...[[ButtMonkey on the other hand, that's not so surprising]].) His sister in the sequel is even less stable; several of her finishers have her killing the enemy with her ''teeth.''
* SuspiciouslySpecificDenial: Yuki's Buster Sword-lookalike Cloud Sword "harnesses the power of clouds [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII and has nothing to do with anything else.]]"
* TeleportSpam: The Dishwasher can blink forward in a smoky cloud with his Shift Blade; in the sequel, his sister Yuki can manage it at will. Players ''will'' need to learn to rely on it.
* UnfriendlyFire: While co-op partners can't hurt each other, enemies can end up smacking each other with attacks if they get in the way. They can even end up [[FinishingMove slicing a weaken'd comrade in half.]]
%%* TheUsualAdversaries: Cyborgs.
* WalkingShirtlessScene: The Dishwasher in both games. He gets a shirt in ''Dead Samurai'' after you beat the Story mode.
* WakeUpCallBoss: The Viking in ''Dead Samurai'' is the first boss who doesn't bat an eye at TeleportSpam, and his attacks are unpredictable, cover wide areas, and deal huge damage. When his health gets critical, he'll go berserk and start hacking up the entire screen in an attempt to take you with him.
* WardensAreEvil: The Warden, the first real boss of ''Vampire Smile'', is a hulking man with arm blades and is called [[BossSubtitles Iffenhaus Pain Administrator.]] Not exactly a nice sounding title. [[AuthorityEqualsAsskicking He's also the most dangerous opponent in the prison]], and he even manages to slice off your arm in his final moments.
* WhereItAllBegan: [[spoiler: The final level of ''Vampire Smile,'' the Stagnant Nightmare, is a twisted version of the first level of ''Dead Samurai.'']]
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