'The Crush House' review: A shallow reality TV show game with a dark twist
Indie game 'The Crush House' makes players reality show producers, but struggles to capture the magic of trashy TV.
There's something sinister about much of reality television. So often these shows appeal to our most hedonistic desires, deliberately stoking discord amongst their cast in pursuit of spectacle and commercial gain. Yet despite this, we just can't seem to stop watching.
Indie game The Crush House seizes upon this voyeuristic thirst for drama, positioning you as a reality show producer tasked with recording the flirting, fighting, and failed friendships synonymous with shows like Love Island, Big Brother, Too Hot to Handle, and the like. It also puts a menacing spin on such shows, lampooning our never ending craving for content. Even so, it unfortunately struggles to capture why people like reality television in the first place.
Welcome to The Crush House
Developed by UK studio Nerial, The Crush House is a self-described "thirst-person shooter" centering on a late '90s reality television show of the same name. In it, four young singles are put up in a coastal Malibu mansion for five days, with the assumption that interpersonal drama will inevitably follow. Of course, this isn't the only conflict transpiring in the deceptively bright and welcoming house.
You play as Jae Jimenez Jung, The Crush House's producer. You're also the show's casting director, props master, and advertising coordinator, though the vast majority of your time will be spent as the reality show's cameraperson. In fact, aside from a lone production assistant delivering instructions via a walkie talkie, it seems as though you're the only staff member working to ensure the show goes on.
Stave off cancellation for five straight days and you'll have completed a season.
This responsibility doesn't come with as much freedom as you might imagine. Unseen corporate powers monitor your daily performance, and will cancel The Crush House if you fail to satisfy enough audience groups by filming their preferred content. You also have to choose when not to record, so you can let ads run to earn money for props around the house.
Stave off cancellation for five straight days and you'll have completed a season, winning you and the cast a trip down the Crush House's swirly pink Success Slide. Then it's time to do it all again with a new cast — and further The Crush House's ominous persisting story.
The audience is always right. Weird, but right.
The Crush House's audience demographics will vary each day, and have different preferences regarding the subjects, action, and cinematic techniques they like to see on screen. Most of them are fairly straightforward, though it isn't always clear exactly what every demographic is after. While Foot Fans, Butt Guys, and Girls For Girls' desires were obvious, I still have no idea what the Glitched or Libertarians wanted.
Fortunately, continuing to pander to an audience you've already fully satisfied will grant overflow points into all the other demographics watching. So if you film enough exercise equipment to make the Gym Rats happy, their contagious joy will begin to impact the Fish Freaks, Art Collectors, and Divorced Dads as well. Filming three or more audiences' preferred content in the same frame also nets you a very satisfying bonus, helping you fill the gauges faster. As such, it didn't matter too much that I never figured out what made the Activists or Cynics happy.
I found the best strategy was to satisfy my audiences as early as possible, then simply put the camera down and let ads run until night falls and the day's episode ends. (Despite some discussion of voyeuristic sex, there isn't any risque after dark filming. It's all kept fairly PG-13, with nobody getting further than some enthusiastic kissing, while the residents sleep in unsexy pods kept in an off-limits area.)
Airing the same ad multiple times in one day does devalue it, making it pay out less. Even so, less cash is still cash, and there didn't seem to be any benefit of continuing to serve audiences once my quota was filled. It was also fun to see ads nodding to other indie games such as Cult of the Lamb and Mars First Logistics. I was typically able to net over $1,000 per day, which I used each night to buy audience-satisfying props such as karaoke machines and butt-shaped pillows.
Rules are made to be crushed
Nighttime is also when you can break one of the only two rules you're given as The Crush House's producer: Do not speak to the talent.
Cast members make requests regarding how you portray them on the show, creating an extra challenge on top of simply satisfying your audiences. Though never deep enough to stir up empathy or make you feel connected to the characters, these nighttime conversations further the game's progression while providing your best glimpse into the cast's personalities.
All 12 of The Crush House's rotating roster of sexy singles have individual profiles with separate likes and dislikes. Milo is the "volatile hippy kid," Ayo is a "scary gym chick," while Emile is described as a "French stud." The game encourages you to consider how their traits might interact when choosing four cast members at the beginning of each season. However, aside from surface level behaviour, these profiles seemed to have minimal bearing on how the housemates actually interacted.
The Crush House uses a "semi-procedurally generated dialogue system" which takes into account cast members' character traits and relationships when creating conversations. Yet they all tend to repeat the same base conversations, asking each other about their opinion on birds, starting fights over whether or not it's "margarita time," and failing to confess their affections to each other. People swing suddenly from enemies to lovers and back again at dizzying speeds, with no clear rhyme or reason to these changes. They'd also occasionally have conversations while in completely separate rooms.
The result is that, instead of feeling like you're in your favourite reality show, The Crush House feels more like watching chatbots talk to each other. I quickly stopped paying attention to relationships or trying to evaluate a cast's chemistry, simply choosing whoever I felt like tossing into the house next. Half my audience would prefer I film flowers, plumbing, or a drink dispenser than the cast's shenanigans anyway. In fact, I'd often ignore drama unfolding on the other side of the house in favour of filming a bush. What makes for well-rated television in real life in no way translates to The Crush House.
In a clever twist, the shallow and repetitive nature of the cast's conversations did begin to take on new significance as The Crush House's larger plot developed. It's always gratifying to see indie devs find clever approaches to managing their technical limitations, and in fact use such limits to enrich the narrative of their game. Even so, it still didn't make me want to listen to these conversations, nor compel me to care about the speakers.
'The Crush House' suffers from shaky early season syndrome
The lack of coherent in-universe cast plotlines and personalities is where much of The Crush House's untapped potential lies. The fun of reality television isn't just watching people fight or kiss. It's in getting to know the people and following their storylines, so you're elated when the couple you're shipping finally kisses or shocked when they betray each other.
While The Crush House's procedurally generated conversations do attempt to make each playthrough feel dynamic, they sacrifice such stories and audience connection. As a result even the most fiery exchanges had no significance or weight, with their participants easily interchangeable and their words meaningless. It made me wonder whether the game might have benefitted from a smaller cast with more curated, impactful dialogue and relationships.
Lacking such interpersonal dynamics, The Crush House relies on its darker underlying plot to try engaging players. Unfortunately, while this does add some interest with a clear narrative, its obvious predictability fails to make up for the lost potential. It's also difficult to become invested in the characters' fates when they feel so two-dimensional.
It took me approximately nine hours to play through to The Crush House's credits, and I didn't find much replay value unless you want to try rushing through a second playthrough to get the alternate ending. The game frustratingly auto-saves after you're already locked into one ending, so you have to go through the whole game again to see the other.
I do think The Crush House is an interesting title, particularly for reality show fans. A video game about filming a reality show is a fairly unique concept with undeniable potential. Sadly, it's such a big, fun idea that doing it justice is a difficult task. While the nature of reality shows is that they are largely unscripted, generated dialogue just doesn't have the same effect. There's a reason video game narratives and dialogue are typically carefully written and planned.
The Crush House is a short, sweet game that you can finish in a day, and reality show fiends will likely find it novel. But I can't shake the feeling that it could have been more.