“It's a great wide shot,” says Chris Daly, a reality TV producer for more than 17 years, generously. “It helps the actors not feel like they're being watched, and it helps the audience think that this isn't a staged shot. It's not a staged shot, it feels more 'real.'” Playing the demo House of CrushIt's a reality-TV-inspired dating game developed by Nerial and published by Devolver Digital, and I'm trying to please a specific audience: voyeurs. Daly watches me play via Discord stream and contributes her expert knowledge as I try to create a hit series.
House of Crush casts you as Jae Jimenez Jung, a producer with a handheld camera who captures the lives of four young chicks living in a colorful Malibu mansion. You cast the cast, decide when the commercials run, and cleverly design your camera angles to please a wide range of audiences, from wine moms to voyeurs to moviegoers. Although you can't control how the cast behaves, House of CrushYou'll need to carefully monitor the live stream of viewers' reactions to make sure you're catching the best, most engaging lineup, or your show may be canceled.
Daly has been in reality television for so long that she could write a book about it. She has worked on hit series like Jersey Shore, Project Track, Big Brother, Ex-Girlfriend on the BeachAnd Floribama Shore—all shows that I have intimate knowledge of thanks to my decades-long obsession with low-level media. He is the perfect person to have in my passenger seat Love House game: when the cast gathers around a Crush Juice-themed water cooler, he offers some notes on branding (“Try to stay away from any branding or labels, especially if it's a trashier show.”); when party girl Priscilla and homebody Charli get into a slapfight, he launches into a long monologue about the real-life rules of reality TV fistfights (“If it's a show where there's going to be a fight, security would be on set or a producer would come in and break it up. If it's a show where a man and a woman are fighting, the man would be thrown out immediately. If it's a show where a man and a woman are fighting, the man would be thrown out immediately. Big Brother there's only the cast in the house and no one else there, and we're yelling over the loudspeaker 'split, spread out;.' and when Emile lights a cigarette, he laughs sarcastically (“We're not actually showing the cast smoking”).
I only made it to day four of Crush House, and after failing to please three different audiences, the series was eventually cancelled. Daly and I have a lot of fun comparing the in-game drama to our favorite reality TV moments. Love Rock with Bret Michaelsjustification Vanderpump Rules' Hosted by Ariana Madix Love Islandand his undying love for the Kardashian family. We love the vibrant decor of the Malibu mansion, and we giggle when the game’s plant-loving viewers want us to take more photos of the garden, or when the wine moms go crazy for a tight shot of Emile’s ass. I’m sad that the in-game demo was cancelled, because I wanted us to scream for more drama or laugh even louder when the camera zooms in on Emile’s juicy ass while he’s arguing with anti-social Alex. “I want to go back and play it myself so I can see if I can get the photos they want,” Daly says as the game ends. A Devolver PR rep promises to give him a code.
I played for over an hour and didn't even get a chance to open it. House of Crush's dark, twisted secret. I think it'll happen in the next episode…
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