Every game designer loves talking up a protagonist's apartment as a reflection of their character. While it's mostly obvious pictures of backstory or a scattering of hobbies, I usually don't put much thought into it.

Playing literally only a few minutes of the Prey demo though did make me smile at how Asian Morgan Yu's apartment is without feeling over the top. But maybe I'm just easily impressed. Though I'm not Chinese like Morgan, I did find some commonalities.

You rarely see a rice cooker in games (probably in Yakuza or Shenmue) but Morgan has a super nice one. It's retro and futuristic. No Asian household is complete without one. Though I'm sure a ton of non-Asians have rice cookers, the rarity in games and its positioning as a main focus of the kitchen is too true. This also might actually be some other kitchen appliance I'm blanking on. Hope not, would ruin my entire point...anyway. (Possibly a electric bamboo steamer. Actually probably totally is one. @49th is right.)

A very nice tea set. I don't own one because I'm a slob. But notice the lucky pocket beside it. The game opens sometime in late March 2032 meaning Chinese New Year is in February of that year. And Morgan just has that lying around. It's been a month. Though to be fair I have one on my night stand alongside some letter right as I'm typing this. So maybe Morgan is a slob like me.

No shoes in the house. It always weirded me out as a kid (and still kind of does) to see people walking in their houses with shoes. Also not a completely Asian thing but I always felt it was a difference whenever I went to a non-Asian person's house. Morgan is wearing socks though in the demo. Personally I would have gone with some slippers.

Finally Morgan's closet. Some postcards from Austin and the Kennedy Space Center alongside one with a Chinese shuttle and the Great Wall. And more lucky pockets! Wish I had a collection like that. I didn't think to keep them.

Just something neat I found about Prey. An Asian character who actually feels Asian. But maybe I'm reaching and putting too much thought into. I don't know. I just like it.

I seriously didn't know that the main character was Asian. These are some nice observations! One thing though, people wear their shoes inside the house? I thought it was a universal rule that you take shoes off when at home.

I'm pretty sure that's not a rice cooker, it's an electric bamboo steamer.

I'm pretty sure that's what he was talking about. It's in the west that people (sometimes) wear their shoes indoors. In the east, it's a huge no-no. In many restaurants and all schools and homes there are no outdoor shoes allowed!

@urbansanta: It's entirely possible I just knew some weirdos who wore shoes inside.

@49th: You're probably right on that.

But it's the future! Maybe it does both? Or I'm just a dummy?

I like dim sum but I've never known anyone who actually owned an electric bamboo steamer so I just assumed. That's on me.

I'm pretty sure that's what he was talking about. It's in the west that people (sometimes) wear their shoes indoors. In the east, it's a huge no-no. In many restaurants and all schools and homes there are no outdoor shoes allowed!

As a Canadian, I grew up thinking that Americans wearing shoes inside the house was just a conceit use in sitcoms to keep the sets clean, but no, it's actually a thing they do. It's weird.

What kind of barbarians wear shoes inside their own house? Is this an American thing?

As an Asian guy who just had dim-sum for lunch...

I didn't know electric bamboo steamers were a thing. I may need to order one.

I don't own a rice cooker and my parents never did. We just did the finger/knuckle trick. But we were a smaller family.

I still have lei see hanging around my house. As a kid, my parents really never let me accept them from family. This led to fights where an uncle/aunt would shove the envelope in my coat pocket, or hide it in my hood. This led to me finding it at home, which led to my parents taking it away. So, once I hit adult hood, I just never bothered with the red envelopes with checks in them.

Also, it could just be the art, but those red envelopes look like they haven't been used yet. They're also not exclusive to Chinese New Years. There's also the thing about married people giving them to unmarried folk, or giving them out instead of receiving them at a certain age.

I remember always being freaked the f out that people wore their shoes in their homes. And it was always the immaculately clean homes that smelled of potpouri that shoe wearing was cool. In the spring/summer, you can't step ten feet in any direction without finding a goose whose bowels exploded all over the grass, and you're saying you want those shoes on your sparkling clean carpet? Huh.

Why wouldn't you wear your shoes in your house? Are you people eating off of the floors that bringing in a little outside dirt is an actual issue for you?

I dunno how folks can wear shoes indoors. Like, around your front door area a bit past your mat or what-have-you, fine. But fully walking around your home with shoes? Why. Why would you do that.

As an american. I take my shoes off when I go inside.

I love how this thread just turned into a discussion about wearing shoes indoors.

Man, I don't get paid to put my shoes on and take them off all day! I put them on once in the morning and take them off when I know I don't need to go anywhere else for the day. Y'all are wasting a non-insignificant portion of your lives futzing with your shoes for no real purpose. On your death-beds you're going to have a flashback about how much time you spent tying and untying laces unnecessarily, and you will overcome with deep regret, and shame.

@probablytuna: Me too.

Really I'm just here to sow chaos.

Taking your shoes off outside/just inside is the most inconvenient thing ever. Maybe it makes your house marginally cleaner, but like run a mop and a vacuum over it once in awhile. It's better than having to awkwardly take your shoes off at the damn door.

It's nice to see little details like this in games.

its definitely not a canadian thing. at least in the majority of households ive been in.

Hey thanks, this was a really interesting read. I spent a good amount of time looking at the great set dressing in the apartment but I didn't have this context before so a lot of these cool details were lost on me.

If you compare this to the typical Japanese mansions (apartments) it's not at all like it, definitely nothing like mine.

I got more of a New York or London studio apartment vibe.

My family pretty much never took our shoes off in the house unless we knew we were going to be inside for a while. We always were popping in and out (my dad always comes inside to check something on his computer then heads right back to the garage, my mom might do the same for the yard/garden). If we took our shoes off every time we entered we'd be putting them back on again 5 minutes later.

I think it says a lot about me that in a game whenever I am given an apartment to play inside that allows me to interact with the objects in it, I try and trash the entire room and throw every object on the floor.

Also as a non-Asian I have a few lucky pockets from a family friend, they're pretty cool!

It snows like six months of the year here. You take your fucking shoes off when you walk in a house. I lived with roommates who would not; carpeting made wet with snow slush blackened by mud and car exhaust fumes is a nightmare. A wet non-carpeted area is also supremely fucked up though at least it doesn't start smelling bad. Fuck that.

@dinosaurcanada: Lucky pockets are cool, and I'm not just saying that because of the money! (Mostly)

They've even started putting recognizable characters on them like Hello Kitty, and Spongebob.

@wynnduffy: I didn't mean it's an Asian apartment as in it's an apartment you'd find in Asia, just it's decorated appropriately for how I imagine the character lives given their background.

@paulmako: Mind you I'm an expert in literally nothing so it's all personal conjecture but I'm glad you liked it!

I came for the original post about the accurate and interesting finer details in the game.
I'm staying for the shoes.

The shoes one takes off that is.

This is pretty cool though, I live small fine details in games, they can really make or break immersion. Shows the love that the devs put in.

I take my shoes off when I'm done with them for the day or for when I know I won't need them for an extended period. The idea of taking your shoes off and putting them on all day long is totally ridiculous to me. Like, I guess if you're drudging through mud and cow shit all day or something, but I'm walking on sidewalks/offices/my own home, my shoe at most collects some dust or a leaf or something. If it's raining, dry your shoes on the mat before coming in. If you've got a super nice carpet or something (no thanks, gimme an easy to clean hardwood floor) then I can see it being slightly more of an issue, but clean your fucking house if that's a problem.

So inconvenient and for basically no benefit unless you live somewhere where shoes getting gross is actually a part of life. Which is 100% is not here in most of the Bay Area.

@xbob42: I guess they are exaggerating for comic effect, but the number of times the Bombcast has mentioned 'human waste' in the Bay Area makes it absolutely sound like a place where you don't want to transfer the outside world into your home.

Outside is dirty.

Inside is clean. (Theoretically)

Take your shoes off....

My family isn't East Asian, but South Asian, and we now live in the Boston area - shoes come right off when entering a house, and all of us are normally barefoot. We won't leave the house without closed-toe shoes, but I've spent so long barefoot that I really dislike wearing just socks without shoes.

We didn't have a rice cooker - just used a stove and pot - but we did have a Japanese hot water dispenser and cabinets stock-piled with tea.

Maybe another indicator for an archetypal Asian dwelling is the lack of milk? Americans and Europeans seem to treat milk as a normal drink, but my family exclusively used it in cooking or to add to tea or coffee. The concept of pouring a glass of milk seems incredibly alien to me.

The more carpet there is in a (American) home, the less likely the owners want you wearing shoes.

Let's put the issue of dirty outside shoes aside for a moment. Aren't your feet more comfortable in slippers or just socks compared to sneakers, dress shoes, or boots?

Don't your feet deserve comfort in the comfort of your own home?

Floors are dirty.

The "human waste" is, yes, exaggerated, but also limited mainly to San Francisco because of how tiny the city is in a geographical sense and how many homeless people (and people with serious issues) are crammed into said tiny city. The other dozens of cities in the Bay Area do not have anything resembling this problem. I'm 30, and I think I've seen what I assumed to be a human turd outside just once, and I sure as shit (hurr hurr) didn't step in it or anywhere near it. In fact, outside is like... dirt. Inside your home, where your bedrooms and kitchen and such are crammed in with your bathrooms, there's going to be way more filth per square inch than outside, where people simply walk by and don't live permanently. It doesn't matter how many cleaning products you use, your house is essentially a literal den of filth, and pretending otherwise is dishonest!

No. If your shoes are not comfortable, you're doing something wrong.

I really appreciate these little details. Thanks OP for pointing them out.

Nah it goes either way. We often do at the family house for instance but sometimes I'm just in the house for a minute or whatever and I have shoes on. I keep most of my shoes in my upstairs room, not the front of the house, so sometimes I am walking through going out. And we never make a guest take their shoes off or anything.

@veektarius is right on with the carpet comment though because I know that mattered probably how much of a thing it was at my house in the past. We have mostly hardwood now.

I think it's basically just less of a cultural assumption here, but it's common.

It's kind of interesting how having shoes on or off can be a sign of respect depending entirely on cultural context. Asian style shoes aren't really anything special they're just to keep your feet clean, and it's important to them to show respect to important places. Wearing shoes is like saying "this place isn't good enough for my feet." Western shoes are traditionally expensive and take a lot of craftsmanship. They were worn mainly to work and to church and other meaningful gatherings. Taking your shoes off is like saying "this isn't important enough for me to look like I give a crap". Western people taking their shoes off in their houses is a modern contrivance by the type of people who can't take 10 minutes out of their day to clean their house. Any time I've been invited to someone's house and they made me take my shoes off they've never failed to provide me with a microwave dinner.

Shots fired. This post was like one of the Giant Bombcast Beef series of emails lol.

what are you trying to say about people from melbourne

This thread was in danger of getting stale, but @bloocat kept it very fresh. Like my floors, where shoes fear to tread.

You wanna wear shoes indoors you better be my electrician or plumber or something. Shoe rack is there for a reason.

If it's a carpeted floor shoes off, if not shoes on. Those are my terms.

the age-old discussion of using outside footwear indoors...