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The Crush Houseis a delighfully unique title that’s part social sim, part mystery, and part hilarious vaporwave fever dream. The “thirst-person shooter” comes from developer Nerial Games, which previously worked onCard Shark, and indie publisher Devolver,known for work on games likeCult of the LambandThe Talos Principle.Crush Houseis wholly entertaining and genuinely unique in the way it blends genres, sense of humor, and fun aesthetics, with only a few issues of bugs and repetition getting in the way.
Players assume the role of Jae Jiminez Jung, a producer of the titular 1999 reality show that follows the lives of four cohabitating contestants for a week. There are 12 characters available for casting every season, with almost 500 different combinations that will result in varied drama via the game’s emergent narrative system. Each day, a growing number of distinct audiences must be satisfied - if not, the show is canceled. However, as time goes on and Jae begins helping contestants,it becomes clear there’s more to the show and its locale than first meets the eye.
The Crush House
Jae, a reality TV producer, is tasked with creating the most captivating seasons ofThe Crush House, a hit 1999 show filled with romantic entanglements, explosive drama, and hidden dangers. As she navigates the chaotic dynamics of the cast, darker secrets about the show’s manipulation and addictive “Crush Juice” begin to surface.
Satisfying Crush House Viewers
The Audience Is Always Right - & Always Weird
The game has 35 different audiences that may be tuning in each day, and Jae will be tasked with fully satisfying a certain number of them. Some are very specific and straightforward - for example, Pharologists, who just need shots of lighthouses, and the self-explanatory Foot Fetishists, are very easy to please.Others require more experimentation, like Divorced Dads, whose taste ranges from things like grilling to babes in bikinis, and Schadenfreuders, who many find different things cringey on any given day.
As players film, icons for each group will appear indicating enjoyment at certain things, and pleasing three or more at the same time will result in viewership being On Fire, speeding up overall fulfillment. Even after being completely fulfilled for the day, if fans continue to see content they enjoy, they can help pump up the numbers of others, raising extra hype and mobilizing communities to tune in.Strategizing how to best line up a shot is one of the biggest mechanics in the game, and becomes a really fun puzzle of combining subjects and angles.
Players can simultaneously satisfy an audience of Voyeurs, Foot Fetishists, The Motion Sick, Film Students, and Plumbers, for example, by filming a scene from an unseen place while low to the ground - to capture exposed toes - keeping the camera still and at a Dutch angle with the house’s pool in the background. There are nearly endless ways to try to capitalize on these wants each day, and finding creative new ways to do so is always satisfying. Players must also balance running ads throughout the broadcast in order to earn money, which can in turn be spent on props.
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Smart casting each season is another angle of strategy in the game, with each contestant bringing different brands of drama to the show. All 12 have a hyper-specific, amusing archetype, like “architecture school dropout weirdo” or “nervous Brit geek,” and personality quirks that make them more likely to clash with or crush on others. Jae can track the relationships and attractions between contestants from day to day,strategizing which pairings would be best to follow to capture fights or makeout sessions.
Making Progress In Crush House
New Furniture, Fresh Drama, & Underground Mystery
At the end of each day, players will unlock new purchasable props, music tracks, and ads to run during the show, all of which can help with progress. Props can be used to facilitate new interactions and further please audiences, ranging from smaller pieces like art and comically offputting, Furby-like objects called Chorbys, to bigger things like karaoke machines and saunas. A partial prediction of audiences for the next day lets players strategize through these objects as well - ahead of a day I knew Divorced Dads would be watching, for example, I rushed to purchase a new grill.
At the beginning of each season, the two rules of the house are made explicitly clear to Jae:neverspeak to the contestants, and the audience is always right. While this second maxim remains true,the first is quickly broken as contestants begin to come to Jae with specific requests for their on-camera time. Some of these can be achieved fairly easily, like keeping a character on camera for three minutes straight, while others are multipart, like recording a character making a friend, an enemy, and kissing another contestant, or extremely tricky, like not filming butts for an entire day.
The way the game manages to combine such seemingly disparate elements of filming mechanics, a humorous homage to classic reality television, and an unsettling storyline is genuinely impressive and consistently entertaining.
This is yet another wayCrush Housemanages to add depth and strategy: not only must players satisfy audiences, they must also determine how to achieve the goals of other characters. The way the game manages to combine such seemingly disparate elements of filming mechanics, a humorous homage to classic reality television, and an unsettling storyline is genuinely impressive and consistently entertaining. Though much of it revolves around filming, the title does have an overarching story that occurs over the course of about 10 hours - longer if players want to unlock everything and see new events.
After helping a character for the first time, the voice of a mysterious woman reaches out to Jae over walkie talkie, inviting her down into the Crush House’s basement. Without giving too much of the story away, a duo shrouded in darkness task Jae with continuing to secretly aid the cast,slowly revealing to her the dark truth behind the show as they grow to trust the producer more. Though there are certainly spots that perhaps could’ve used more elaboration, the narrative also doesn’t overstay its welcome, and even offers multiple endings.
Final Thoughts & Review Score
4/5 - Great By Screen Rant Standards
The overall drama that unfolds day-to-day inCrush Houseis very true to reality television, with contestants just as quick to conflict as they are to kissing. Sometimes, even with the emergent narrative mechanics - which are overall quite impressive - the same conversations will play out between characters, though this is more so a problem in the beginning of the game when not many props are owned. This repetition would feel more detrimental if the game wasjustabout watching these interactions, but much like real reality TV, it’s more about how it’s framed by the production.
Even in repetitive moments, I could always shift focus to getting a perfect shot as things played out. In a recentinterview withThe Crush House’s directorNicole He, she mentioned that even from a developer’s perspective, contestants would still manage to do things that felt surprising and organic, and that certainly rang through in my playthrough.There were times I was sure I was about to witness a fight only to see two characters passionately embracing instead, and this emergent storytelling paired with managing audience satisfaction and ads kept me consistently engaged.
One of the best parts ofThe Crush Houseis simply how it manages to be weird on several levels simultaneously, blending mechanics like artfully capturing feet alongside an overarching sense of vague eeriness. The contrast between the mansion during the day and at night after filming ends feels subtle at first, but the more players learn about the world the starker this feels. Brightly-colored, drama-filled days contrasted against dark nights void of interaction as gentle howls echo in the distance feel increasingly disparate - an entertaining concept to ponder while deliberating what prop could improve the viewership of Butt Guys.
The game also showcases a great sense of humor on every level, from eccentric gameplay and entertainingly-nonsensical arguments to small details like its ads, which are designed by fellow developers and feature Easter eggs for othergames likeCult of the Lamb. Especially considering the game’s $16.99 price, it’s easy to overlook some of its flaws, like repetition or a few buggy conversations where characters spoke too far apart, when it’s so genuinely clever on every level.Crush Housedoesn’t require a preexisting love of reality TV to enjoy - only an appreciation for true ingenuity.
Screen Rantwas given aCrush HouseSteam code for the purpose of this review.
