Twelve sexy contestants. One tacky mansion in Malibu. An eager audience breathlessly watching every episode as the flirting, drama, and heated conflicts unfold—alongside lots and lots of buttshots. Yep, reality shows have been a staple of TV since the '90s, and the next one is coming to your PC.
In The Crush House, a "darkly comic thirst-person shooter," as it's described by developer Nerial (Card Shark, Reigns) you don't have to settle for watching the action when you can film and broadcast it yourself. You're the cameraperson for The Crush House, but as you'll see shortly your job involves a lot more than just pressing the record button.
Start by picking four of the 12 sexy cast members, each who have their own personality traits—Joyumi is a competitive "sexy ice queen" who hates criticism and likes the finer things in life, Alex is "a human golden retriever" who surfs and avoids commitment, Bea is a sarcastic "wild card" and dislikes being complimented—and stick them in The Crush House for season one. They'll quickly start interacting with each other: talking, arguing, flirting, and eventually even kissing or having slap fights.
What happens on The Crush House isn't really up to you, at least not at first. You're recording the show on your hand-held camera, following the cast members around as they hang out in the mansion. But when the four singles split up into duos and head to different spots in the house, that's when you'll need to decide what you'll film and what you won't. One show, one camera.
The show is streaming live and the feedback from the audience is instantaneous—and these viewers are demanding. They'll request things, like more butt shots. Adjust your zoom or camera angle to film more of the contestants' butts and that particular segment of the audience will love it, filling the meter of an icon on your screen. The challenge is in keeping different segments of the viewing audience happy at the same time. Some viewers are interested in gardening, for example, so if you can get a shot of contestants standing in front of plants and showing their butts, you'll make two groups happy at once. Keep enough viewers interested and you'll be able to film more episodes and eventually more seasons with different contestants.
Butt fans will absolutely love it.
But remember, this is TV: you can't just broadcast sexy people 100% of the time. You also need to make money, so anytime you're not actively filming you're showing a commercial. A fun detail when it comes to these little ads is that they've been created by other indie devs for their upcoming Devolver games: one commercial was for walking simulator Baby Steps. The commercial showed a big, jiggling butt. Butt fans will absolutely love it.
When the daily shoot is over, your job isn't done. When night falls, the money you've earned from ads can be used to buy new items for the mansion, and this can come into play in future episodes. One prop is a statue of two people fighting, for example, which may goad your contestants into having actual fights when they're near it. If you have viewers who like watching slapfights, this is a great way to increase their happiness in the next episode.
But even when the night is done… your job still isn't done. There's a bit more going on in this Malibu mansion than meets the eye, and you'll start receiving mysterious messages from an unknown sender, as well as encounter cast members who want you to do them favors on the sly—even through the one rule of your job is "Do Not Speak To The Talent." Something strange is definitely going on behind the scenes of The Crush House, and you'll need to find out what… as if you didn't already have your hands full with bratty contestants demanding viewers.
There's no specific date for The Crush House yet, but it's planned for a 2024 release. Here's a few more screenshots to check out:
