Recently, while stuck inside sick with Covid-19’s new FLiRT variant, I honored its ridiculous name with a binge-watch of Love Island USA. I dabble in reality TV, especially when sick; a single season graciously offered 36 hours of no-brain-cells-required entertainment. It was my first time watching the show, and one moment has stayed with me above all else: A group of contestants gathered around a phone, eyes glued to a compilation video of their onscreen significant others with other women. Cue the tears and howls of betrayal.
As television, it is a peak moment of voyeuristic entertainment—a combination of actions slamming face-first into consequences, the real-time reactions to the taboo of cheating, a moment typically reserved for private moments between partners. It’s also a tactic on the producers’ part so manipulative that it feels like psychological torture. This is good reality TV.
When Nerial announced Crush House, a video game about a reality TV show, it appeared to be a funny, goofy take on a genre many people do not take seriously. Players step into the role of a producer named Jae who just started working on 1999’s biggest reality TV show. Jae selects four cast members for each new season and aims to capture them fighting, flirting, and scheming to stay in the spotlight.
Much like the grim realities of reality TV, however, Crush House is something far more sinister than its colorful, cupcake aesthetic would have you believe. If reality TV is a pact between performer and audience—a person craving fame at any cost, and the viewers willing to give it to them mob-rule style—is the relationship truly symbiotic, or something worse? Viewers will have their pound of flesh, whether reality stars are willing or not.
At the start, Crush House’s goal is simple: Keep the show on air, Monday to Saturday, by attracting ratings high enough to avoid cancelation.
It sounds easier than it is. The difficulty ramps up quickly as players have to juggle new daily audiences, from fans who crave drama or wholesome moments, to those who just want to see a lighthouse, or maybe some feet, in the shot. Each new season is harder to top than the last thanks to increasing audience demands and network pressure, delivered in-game via a faceless superior over a walkie-talkie. The only way to succeed is to get clever with the camera, figuring out how to satisfy multiple demands in one frame before the day ends. Running ads during the show will help you earn cash to buy helpful props; these can be anything from a statue that makes everyone horny for makeouts, to a saxophone for one specific character to play.
