When people talk about reality shows, you hear a lot of the same things. They're guilty pleasures. They're nothing but trashy. Their popularity proves we're culturally bankrupt. But there's one universal truth: if you put anyone in front of a confrontation between two house besties after one of them just voted the other out... they'll be enthralled.
We're all weak to interpersonal drama, and that's the basis of the entire reality show industry. We at the VGG HQ have been known to enjoy shows like The Circle and Survivor. We acknowledge that it's just as real as professional wrestling, but love getting sucked into the drama all the same.
So when Nerial announced they were putting players directly in control of a reality show of their own, The Crush House, we were excited by the potential of dictating the drama for ourselves. What shocked us was how involved a game that asked us to film butts could end up being and what it made us think about while filming said butts.
Just the Facts |
Developer: Nerial |
Publisher: Devolver Digital |
Platform(s): PC |
Price: $16.99 |
Release Date: August 9, 2024 |
Review key provided by publisher via Tinsley PR. |
I've got a crush on you, lemme film it
At first glance, The Crush House may seem like quite the departure for the UK-based indie studio Nerial. A team fresh off of 2022's Card Shark, a fascinating bit of historical fiction that was set in and artistically inspired by 18th-century France (and a VGG 2022 GOTY nominee), just to push into the ostentatious world of reality TV. But when you consider Card Shark's narrative — diving into the world of lying, cheating, and stealing your way to the top as a conman — you start to see how this might actually be the natural next step. Even when you consider the Reigns series, which Nerial is probably most known for, there's a lot of alliances and betrayal that sits at the core of that series, not unlike these shows.
What at first looks like quite the leap is actually the best fit. And with one of the industry's most fascinating minds, Nicole He, joining the team as director on the project... consider our interest piqued.
In The Crush House, players control the fresh-faced producer of the hottest reality show in of the pre-Y2K world in 1999. Jae Jimenez Jung steps out of an elevator and into her new life, following the strange embedded footsteps in the carpet ahead of her that mark previous producers' paths into The Crush House. Jae's job — your job — is to cast every season of the show with the group that'll provoke the most sparks, film the show in a way that meets the demands of various voracious audiences, and not question the strange rules set for her from Day 1: don't talk to the cast, and the audience is always right, so give them what they want.
As quickly as Jae settles in to her new world, a silent observer of the drama between cast members living in the glamorous house above her, do the cracks begin to show. Cast members start trying to talk to you, those weird footprints have you starting to ask questions, and what's really happening here becomes a bigger and bigger question mark for Jae and the player.
Just like any good reality show, there are layers to the narrative of The Crush House. There's that top layer of reality show drama: people fighting over margs, people making out right after fighting over margs, people falling in love way too fast, and people questioning their existence on live TV. Under that, there's the mystery about what's really happening here: from the mysterious wobbling Furby-like toys known as Chorbys (all my homies hate Chorby) to the footprints in the floor in your office that lead to the desk, to the bed, and back again. And hidden deep under that are some short story character arcs that reveal some complexities about the kind of people who'd show up to bare themselves on a show like this.
From the soft and sensitive types — the golden retriever Alex or the "sunshine and rainbows girl" Charlie — to the ones here to party, smooch, and throw all worries aside — like the "famous with wine moms" Frenchman Emile or the butt-poppin' gym girl Ayo — The Crush House covers all the ground you'd expect. But the minute you get to see them with the cameras off, no matter how slight it is, their true character is almost always more interesting than you'd first expect.
Reality TV is more than meets the eye
The Crush House is a silly comedy with a surprising dash of niche thriller, but I was surprised by the thoughts provoked by a game that asked me to film someone's feet for minutes at a time. The game explores the voyeurism of being a person in the room objectifying these people through a camera lens; the performance of the cast members who are all too aware you've got a camera shoved in their face; the demands of an audience that, if not fulfilled, mean the show gets cancelled and everyone gets fired. The state of reality television to a T for sure, but it's also hard not to see the state of the games industry reflected in it, the highs and lows of social media in it, the dehumanization of personalities on the internet.
Yes, it's a game that asks you to catch people making out on camera — but when you think about what it's asking you to do and how it presents it, it's almost jarring how easily you slot into the role of willing participant because games gotta game. How dystopian it feels amidst the silliness.
But let's not let my English major-like musing steal the focus here. Dark comedy or not, The Crush House is very funny. The commentary from the strange audiences that dictate your actions: butt lovers demanding to see cheeks and libertarians begging to see a man who understands FREEDOM. The way a pair can go from squabbling over how patronizing they find each other to begging to take the other to their room later in mere moments. How the creative interpretation of audience desires leads to things like filming the visible portion of someone's G-string — a whale tail, if you will — to satisfy fish lovers in the audience just as well as fish in an aquarium can. It's saucy and silly, and the dynamic nature of how the game unfolds makes it constantly unpredictable.
At times, the systems that dictate how and when things happen make the story feel a little less authored and handcrafted in ways I didn't expect and ultimately was disappointed by. Seasons of The Crush House could look and feel so similar at times (which may be commentary about the nature of reality TV on the whole), but I was hoping for a little more. That, tied to Jae's very light presence as a protagonist — she's blank enough to project onto but has enough teases of narrative intrigue that it feels like they had bigger plans for her — were my main drawbacks narratively.
Filming a toilet has never been more thrilling
As the lead producer, camera person, and casting lead for The Crush House, Jae's got a lot on her plate. At the start of a new week and a new season, Jae's job is to pick out a cast. Each cast member has their own traits, for example: "likes conflict, dislikes boring people" or "likes reading, dislikes criticism." These characters clash in unique ways depending on these traits, but it does seem to boil down to "sexy and confrontational" versus "dorky and kindhearted." There are enough small specificities that make them more than those traits, but especially a few weeks in, you start to see that the game treats them as one of those two groups.
Once you've selected your cast, you've got to get filming. And filming is all about making audiences happy, gaining enough points with each to hit a particular milestone or else see the show cancelled. A la Dead Rising, what you get in frame is what matters to different audiences. They'll comment throughout the show to guide you to specific goals, but it's mainly straightforward.
Pyromaniacs love flames, so you've got to try to film enough of the bonfire or tiki torches to appeal to them. Foot Fetishists love feet (self-explanatory). There are some sneaky ways to appease some of them, but follow audience hints and common sense and you'll get there.
You're never appeasing just one audience, as the game asks you to appeal to more and more audiences as you go. Toward the end, I had to make eight unique audiences happy, which meant running to and fro to make sure I captured enough to make each one satisfied with every shot.
To help with that, you can purchase new things for the house and add new pieces of flair for specific audiences. To make that money, though, you'll have to run advertisements in between the filmed shots for the show. Choosing when to film to capture the drama and when to stop to rake in the cash is a fascinatingly dynamic gameplay loop.
The balancing act between audience needs, cast member tasks — small objectives you unlock to help specific castmates — and advertising money becomes a hectic task a few seasons down the line. I first imagined this to be a game where I would sit around and watch drama unfurl around me, taking in the fun bits of writing and being just in sync with the narrative of the season alongside the audience watching. Instead it became a game where I sat in the bathroom and stayed completely still while filming a toilet and a plant beside it, to satisfy the plumbers and nature freaks watching, hearing the drama transpire in the room below me.
The Crush House is in fact a reality show sim, but it's not the reality show sim you think it is. It's the action puzzler of being a person behind the scenes and juggling the needs of the many while insipid silliness unfolds in front of you. It's running to catch the perfect shot before you lose it. It's taking slightly longer ad breaks whenever you possibly can. I'm sure somewhere out there, some TV producer is breaking out in a cold sweat at these sentences, even if the way you do it here is a bit sillier and more purposefully chaotic.
If you were here just for the drama, know that this is a much more system-driven game than you might be expecting. You've got to really learn the ins and outs of appeasing these audiences if you want to survive each day, and your focus has to be on running around to film all you need to film. It's way more hands-on than the relatively casual consumer relationship we normally have with reality TV, so be prepared to put in the work. It's way more difficult than you'd expect, in ways that make it more frustrating than fun at times, especially when you're stuck on a particularly difficult pack of audiences to satisfy.
Reality isn't all its cracked up to be, but at least it's pretty
On the technical side, we did experience a handful of bugs, from crashes to music disappearing to menus failing. These were prevalent to warrant a mention, but we were told early on that the team was aware of a few major issues and would be actively bug-fixing in the lead up to launch, and we have already seen some patches, so Nerial is certainly working to make it the best it can be.
Visually, the game's soft rounded edges and flat textures with bright vibrant colors all feel built to be as pleasant as possible, both in-universe and for the players. I appreciated the diversity in character design and the choice to set this in the aesthetic nostalgia of that late '90s era that we all desperately strive to return to. Even the way these characters are animated, Sims-like in nature, taps into that nostalgia in fun ways.
Each character talks in their own Animal Crossing-like babble and has their own unique catchphrases and specific labels for their love interests (Emile calls them bebe, Gunther calls them kitten) that just really seals the deal. It's like watching Animal Crossing villagers that move into a Sims house but they're all just there to fuck.
Special shoutouts to a few final things. The Crush House soundtrack hits, with tracks that range from sexy R&B to ska to lofi classical. Each of these have an effect on your audiences as well and toe that line between inoffensive reality TV show background noise and legitimate bops perfectly. And finally, I loved the in-game advertisements that all honor some indie legend across the industry. From Octodad to Immortality, there are some surprising nods to be found, and each one was a treat.
In a lot of ways, The Crush House was not what I expected. It's a systems-driven gameplay experience that turns the passivity of watching reality TV into a surprisingly hectic and fast-paced one, where meeting the needs of your audience is more important than any bit of drama that might unfold in the house. Through some genius decisions from Nerial, The Crush House is also a slyly thought-provoking time, making you reflect on how you consume media and why.
At the same time, it's exactly what you'd expect. It's silly, sexy, and has all the pieces to be as satisfying to watch as the best in reality TV. Sometimes the things that make it enjoyable to watch make it less enjoyable to play, and vice versa, but Nerial has a one-of-a-kind gaming experience on their hands with this reality show sim either way.
All I've got to say in the end is: if you've got any footage of Chorby doing weird shit, send it to me. We've got to put that guy away.
Video Games Are Good and The Crush House is . . . GREAT. (8/10)
+ a fast-paced reality show sim that's fun to play, a narrative that has you thinking about a lot more than whose butt is best to film, Y2K nostalgia and bright colors are just nice to look at
- harder than you'd expect and probably would like, technical issues to look out for, less about the drama than you'd think
Thanks for reading this Video Games Are Good review. If you're interested in learning more about our review rubric, click here! Wanna join our Discord, where you can discuss reviews and get early views at upcoming articles? Click here! Thank you for supporting our coverage!
Comments