I always feel a little uncomfortable saying I’m a fan of reality TV. It’s undoubtedly a titan of pop culture, but it’s also a genre that comes with a lot of problematic baggage. Exploitation, degradation, hypersexualization, heightened gender essentialism – the list is endless. The controversial issues the genre is mired in are an absolute nightmare to say the least, but I can’t stop watching it. It’s not just the drama (although I Love the drama too), I also like watching people just being human, you know? I feel connected to the authenticity on screen, when I see people’s emotions in their purest form.

This duality of reality TV is endlessly fascinating. What is my role as a viewer when I watch these shows? What systems am I participating in when I tune in? Self-described “thirst-person shooter” The Crush House aims to comment on the complexity of this relationship, and succeeds. It’s a satirical comedy that pokes fun at the superficiality and artificiality of the TV genre, and caps it all off with a cheeky wink and a peace sign. It’s entertaining, dynamic, and has something to say.

In The Crush House, you take on the role of a TV producer on a ’90s reality TV show who must film a cast of hot guys and their drama in a bubblegum-pink Malibu mansion for a hungry audience. You must film the cast every day – capturing their intimate conversations, mundane catfights, and steamy romances on camera – while also keeping an eye on what viewers want to see. You must reach a certain viewership number each day, as dictated by the ever-present “network,” and if you don’t hit those numbers, the show is canceled and you’re asked to leave.

Each day begins with you grabbing your camcorder from your dingy basement room (the fancy suits are reserved for the talent) and heading to the mansion. When you start recording, the audience will tune in and their comments will pop up in text bubbles in a live chat on the right side of the screen. Each group of viewers demands different things: The Drama Queens want to see the cast bicker, for example, or the Sexy Seekers crave an on-screen kiss. It can get pretty specific: Plants satisfy landscapers, swimming pools and sinks make plumbers happy, and the Butt Guys want to see, well, butts. Icons on the screen will indicate when you have a certain item or cast member in a shot, and your audience will respond. If you satisfy multiple viewers at once, icons and comments will start popping up in a feeding frenzy and your viewership will skyrocket.

Filming the right moments is fun and frenetic. One minute I’m filming nerdy Veer and quiet Milo (who are currently enemies, but I sense a flirtatious undertone), but suddenly I see girl-next-door Hannah and wildcard Prisilica getting cozy in the background. I sense something is about to happen, so I stop recording, run to the pool, and line up my shot just in time to get their kiss on camera. The Sexy Seekers and Girls for Girls viewers love it, the plumbers start chatting about pool filters, and I make sure to turn my camera to a dutch angle to satisfy the film students. The chat immediately picks up, the satisfying little icons pop out, and my views go through the roof. Perfection. I’m unstoppable. I’m the Kubrick of reality TV.

I love this twist on traditional FPS norms. Instead of racing around a map with a sniper rifle in hand, I’m racing through a sun-drenched Barbie mansion to get the perfect shot of two cute women making out. It’s not just about pointing the camera in the general direction of two actors, but maneuvering to get the best shot. Audiences get bored quickly, so you’re always on the move, trying to keep their attention. With each passing day, it gets harder to please them, and with the network constantly increasing the number of viewers you have to please per day, you have to be smart about what you film and how you film it.

Struggling to hold the viewership of an audience with the attention span of a toddler is a commentary in itself. My role as a cinematographer is essentially to objectify the performers and turn their experiences into consumable mass sludge. This means that it can be quite narratively disruptive when you can satisfy your audience without even filming the performers. The game’s system ensures that the audience won’t care in the slightest about the performers as long as you have a number of objects in a shot that resonate with them—which could be a commentary in itself, but really took me out of the frenzy of activity. It doesn’t happen often, but in these moments, the fantasy completely dissolves like a glittery bath bomb.

However, the game’s frenzied pace propels you along quickly and also offers plenty of distractions. It’s incredibly self-aware, particularly when it takes a tongue-in-cheek dig at reality TV. The cast down a seemingly never-ending supply of “Crush Juice” scattered throughout the mansion; the show’s mascot is a creepy, staring Furby who’s always watching; and when you’re not recording, grotesque commercials play, including Dogmilk (a hotdog sausage dipped in milk), a giant slow-motion butt for Butts TV, and a subscription to a funeral service. Everything is bathed in a pastel filter, and the mansion is complete with palm trees, neon hearts, inflatable flamingos, and 38-degree heat. It’s like you’ve been transported to a sun-drenched hellscape.

The cast only adds to how ridiculous it all is. At the start of each season (which lasts one game week), you get to choose four characters from a group of twelve. These hopeful hotties include stereotypical archetypes like Alex, the lovable himbo, Joyumi, the “sexy ice queen,” and Emile, a hairy, tall guy (who gave me the biggest fright when he proclaimed, “I can’t go two days without wetting my throat”). Personally, I’m a huge fan of the “save the drama for your mommy” chatterbox Ayo, whose thirst for TV time knows no bounds and who insists on getting his butt in the frame as often as possible.

All the classic reality TV archetypes are there, albeit with a lot more diversity across the queer spectrum in terms of how people express themselves—and also how horny everyone is for each other. Relationships, meanwhile, can change as quickly as the audience’s opinion of them. Blue-haired nightclub promoter Coco and wannabe crypto bro Gunther may confess their love for each other in the morning, but then argue fiercely over margaritas and hate each other by night. The drama starts on day one and continues every day until the season ends. There are a ton of different personalities and their petty dramas to get used to, but my love for the cast wavered when I learned that the dialogue isn’t limited to one character, but is shared by the entire cast. For example, if you replay days or replay the game, you’ll see the same conversations but delivered by different characters, which takes away each character’s own personality.

At the end of the first season, there’s a twist and you realize there’s something darker going on beneath the pastel pink surface. A strange voice crackles through your walkie-talkie, calling you to a previously closed elevator that will take you underneath the house. From there, things start to go off the rails and the facade of the perfect paradise starts to crack, including the cast. At night, when the show is off the air, they hang around the mansion and ask for favors that mostly have to do with how they’re portrayed on screen. Most of them want to be stars and are willing to take part in the entertainment industry circus to make that dream come true. You get a glimpse of their true selves before the mask is put back on – it seems human and is a real reality check. Of course, that’s not allowed, as the network’s two golden rules state: “Don’t talk to the cast” and “The audience is always right.” So what happens when those rules are broken?

The Crush House has multiple endings, but they all lead to an ultimate “truth” about the house and the reality TV machine in general. I’ll do my best to avoid spoilers, but if this Barbie-style mansion is a warped, disturbing alternate reality constructed for consumers, then what exists beyond the beaches of this tropical island? Jail Paradise? The ultimate conclusion of The Crush House focuses on how reality TV offers its contestants and viewers an escape from one reality to another – for better or for worse.

Even if some parts briefly shatter the illusion, The Crush House retains its glossy sheen of plastic perfection (which conceals a dark, sickly mass inside). It touches with sharp satire and wit on several facets of reality TV, including the nature of the relationships we have with the contestants on these shows, the industrial upheaval of people and their lives for our entertainment, and the truth about what’s captured on screen and what happens when the cameras are off. You should definitely tune in.

A copy of The Crush House was provided for review by Devolver Digital.