The Crush House Review: A 90’s Reality-TV With A Dark Backstory

Crush House is one of the more unique games released in 2024 that has caught my eye. Its colorful palette set reflects the 90’s time period that the game takes place during. Although everything seems normal in this wacky, emotion-packed reality-tv show, there’s more than meets the eye when the mystery behind it all starts to unravel. With that said, let’s discuss the main aspects of the game in our Spoiler-Free Crush House review.

Jae, the Camerawoman

You step into the shoes of Jae Jimenez Jung, who’s the producer of the Crush House show tasked with filming the show and quenching the audience’s thirst. She’s a silent protagonist for the most part, just following the orders of a PA through a walkie-talkie. However, you do get some dialogue choices when talking to the cast at night; more on this later.

Jae is more than happy to have this opportunity to be the main person filming multiple seasons of the show. Whether the show becomes the hottest sensation in TV history or completely tanks in the first season is all up to her—or should I say, you.

Her useful PDA also comes in handy in letting her keep track of audience-type projections and keeping track of different tasks that you accumulate throughout the seasons. This adds a bit of a strategic layer to an otherwise just dumb-fun entertainment show.

Diverse Set of Cast Members

After your first tour of the Crush House set, the PA will tell you to choose four cast members on a PC in the crew room. The game features 12 sexy-singles cast members to choose from, each bringing a different personality to the show. Some are obsessed with their bodies, just in it to have fun, while some are just looking to incite drama. You’ll see all their complete profiles and a brief breakdown of psychology in the cast selection screen.

After entering in an elevator from inside the pool, the cast feels lively from the get-go. Their personality traits aren’t just for show; you’ll observe that their actions in each episode reflect their bio. Your job is to capture the emotions flying around and satisfy the audience while doing it.

We’ve had a few good laughs while also sometimes biting our nails, waiting for what comes next in the relationship between two cast members. It all feels natural, yet somehow, watching their low-res polygon faces unnerved us at times. With a cast loaded to the brim with the personality that reflects in their interaction with others, filming their daily routine becomes a little less of a chore.

Capture Thirst, Please The Audience

Crush House has a wide viewership consisting of different types of audiences. There are 35 types of audiences that watch the show, and each demand to see a different aspect of an episode. For example, Musicians demand to watch the show while Jae is close to the music source. Similarly, Film Students want Jae to use zoom and camera tits to add artistic flair to the filming of the episode. Others are just here to see some butts and girls.

The audience comments are as quirky and feel realistic with grammatical errors and asking to see two cast members get romantically involved. However, they also act as an indication of how you should frame your shot and what the audience demands to see.

Each episode in a season starts with one or three audiences, and this number increases in the next episode, giving you wide audience types to satisfy. In our experience, the more audience types are watching the show, the better chances of capturing multiple audience-interest stuff on camera. It quickly ramps up the views and increases chances of the episode being a success.

Keep Populating the Set with Props

Jae is a camerawoman by day, and there’s a different gameplay mechanic reserved at nightfall. This is the time when you’ll roam around the mostly empty set, purchasing props that will help you please more audience types in the day. If you aim to purchase a good amount of props for the set or at the request of a cast member, you’ll need to run ads to make money without compromising on audience satisfaction.

However, you’ll often spot some cast members awake at night that you can talk to. Even though with constant reminders of the first rule, “Don’t Ever Talk To The Talent Even If They Approach Jae.” If you choose to break the rules and talk to the cast, thankfully, there aren’t any repercussions.

However, the cast will sometimes request or demand a task you must fulfil. Some tasks are just dumb chores and filming instructions, while others require you to invest in certain props.

Doing these tasks will progress the story, so it’s up to you to ignore them or end the show after a few seasons. Or fulfil the cast members’ requests and get to the bottom of what’s really dealing with this show.

Ensuring the Show Lives on to Release Another Season

The show has multiple seasons, and each season consists of five episodes that go live from Monday to Friday. If you’ve made it to Friday, this means you’ve successfully gained enough audience satisfaction to reach the Season Finale.

Nail the last episode, and the audience will be sent down a success slide, which indicates the show was a success. There’s nothing much to achieve in the success slide portion except recording the heartfelt moments of the cast being grateful for the show’s success before jumping into the slide.

Now there are three main game modes that made our Crush House journey both a smooth breeze and really tiresome.

There’s Casual, which is just playing the game without worrying about show cancellation, even if you fail to satisfy the audience. In the Normal mode, you’ll have to satisfy the audience types by filming what they want to see. Otherwise, the show gets cancelled, everyone is sent down the Failure Elevator, and you’ll have to restart the day. The Hardcore mode is similar to Normal mode, but after the show cancellation, you’ll have to restart the entire season instead of just a single day.

We played our playthroughs in Normal mode, which is the one the game recommends. However, you can freely switch between the game mode/difficulties, given that you’ll have to restart that particular day.

Unnerving Mystery Behind The Show

While everything is jolly and filled with drama down at the Crush House, you can’t help but feel unnerved by a few things as you continue to shoot the episodes. Why aren’t you allowed to talk to the cast? It’s the first question that sparks the idea that there’s something sinister at foot.

As you progress through the episodes in the first season, the mystery slowly begins to unravel in the season. Now, we’re not going to spoil it, as you’ll have to play the game yourself to find out, but it really was something we weren’t expecting.

We’ve discovered two game endings to the Crush House. After meeting a few mysterious characters, you’ll be given a choice to commit to either one’s plans to get either of the endings. The twist at the end was definitely shocking and was a bit more than we were theorizing about. If you were always having second thoughts about the cheerful set and the thirsty audience, it’s safe to say your doubts were right.

If I explain more than this, I’ll be walking into the spoiler territory, which we all don’t want. So, I’ll end this section right here and let you experience the mystery yourself.

Verdict

So, concluding our Crush House review, the game captures the 90’s aesthetic quite nicely, with cast members acting and dressing up right for the role. Although some tasks from the cast members became outright hurdles in getting the episode past the finish line, the challenge definitely spiced things up for us.

The different mechanics, like filming the cast in the day and talking to them, and buying props in the night, gave us some Freddy Fazbear’s Pizzeria Simulator vibes. The Crush House requires you to learn what the audience wants and apply some strategic filming techniques to capture multiple audience interests at the same time. Juggling filming with opportunities to run ads to earn money added a strategic element to the game, which kept things fresh.

The cast members’ interactions with each other and forming either romantic ties, friendships or enmity with each other definitely felt forced at times. But since it’s a game about a live-reality TV show that more of a thirst trap than reality, that’s pretty much expected.

If you’re interested in the game, check out our guide on how to play Crush House with all its mechanics explained.