Council Estate Chic
An old, run-down tanning salon on a local high street gets bought out and refitted with vintage, unlabeled sunbeds. Women who use the beds start emerging with more than just a synthetic tan: their vocabulary shrinks, their taste in streetwear shifts toward matching grey velour tracksuits and thick fake lashes, and an unearned attitude slowly replaces their original personalities. You play as a tenant living above the shop who notices the neighborhood dynamic rapidly shifting.
Play as
A freelance graphic designer living in the flat above the former tanning salon, observant and slightly anxious, who works from home and notices everything.
How it opens
The high street was dead at 8:00 AM, save for the rain rattling against the corrugated shutters of the butcher’s shop and the idle rumble of the 214 bus. I pulled my coat collar up against the damp chill, balancing my morning coffee as she unlocked the side alley gate leading up to my flat. Across the narrow pavement, the old vacuum repair shop had finally been cleared out. A white van was backed up to the curb, its doors wide open to reveal wrapped, heavy plastic panels and a stack of faded neon sign letters sitting on a wooden pallet. A bloke in a high-vis vest stood on the pavement, sipping tea from a polystyrene cup while his mate unloaded a tall, curved fiberglass shell painted in a chipped pearl-pink. I paused with my key in the lock, watching them haul the heavy gear through the stripped-out glass storefront under a freshly painted sign that read Glow & Go.
Setting
A slightly seedy high street in a northern English town, where the newly opening 'Solaris Tanning Studio' has replaced a derelict shop. The street feels strangely quieter, and you notice more and more women emerging from the studio looking unnervingly similar.
A branch can end when
- You discover the true mechanism of the sunbeds and must decide whether to expose or escape.
- Your own personality begins to subtly shift after an extended period near the shop.
- The entire high street succumbs to the transformation, leaving you as the last unaffected resident.
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