Using Ian Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric (2007), this paper demonstrates how Palace 1985 makes an argument about wealth and agency. The game’s procedures—waiting, watching, moving to preordained spots—rhetorically suggest that high-status living is not freedom but a more comfortable form of labor. The player works to maintain an image of leisure, consuming videos that they cannot influence. Thus, the software critiques the very aspirational lifestyle it depicts.
In the Palace 1985 ecosystem, status was measured by what you held in your hand. The "New Release" wall was the stock exchange of cool. Ghostbusters? Sold out until Tuesday. Beverly Hills Cop? The last copy is in the hands of the family that just walked in.
The lifestyle necessitated hustle. You learned the delivery schedule (usually Thursday for Friday releases). You made friends with the clerk to get them to hold a copy of The Terminator behind the counter. The ultimate power move was the "VIP Card" that let you rent a new release for three nights instead of one.
Entertainment here was scarcity. Because you couldn't stream, you committed. If you rented a dud (looking at you, Ninja III: The Domination), you watched it anyway. You had to. The movie was $4. The late fee for returning it by noon Saturday was $10. Pussy Palace 1985 Video
In the pantheon of retro pop culture, few touchstones evoke as much mystique as the legendary Palace 1985 Video. More than just a location or a brand, "Palace 1985" represents a pivotal moment where opulent, old-world luxury collided head-on with the neon-lit, pixelated dawn of the digital entertainment age. To step into the world of Palace 1985 is to step into a year where the champagne was chilled, the joysticks were hot, and the lifestyle was nothing short of cinematic.
Perhaps the most significant aspect of the Palace 1985 Video lifestyle was the social ritual. Friday night was sacred. You would pile into the family sedan, drive to the strip mall, and enter the fluorescent-lit kingdom.
The lifestyle involved:
This lifestyle is dead in the streaming age. We no longer negotiate with family members over which two movies to rent for the weekend. We don't experience the disappointment of "Out of Stock" or the thrill of finding the last copy of a cult classic.
Though Palace 1985 never achieved commercial release (existing only in prototype form, according to retrocomputing forums), its DNA appears in:
The paper suggests that Palace 1985 was not a failed game but a successful prophecy: the future of digital entertainment would not be action, but atmosphere; not challenge, but choreography. Using Ian Bogost’s concept of procedural rhetoric (2007),
Pussy Palace operates less as a linear narrative and more as a collage of vignettes: party scenes, intimate conversations, performance sequences, and staged tableaux. It centers on a group of women who take over a derelict social space and transform it into a temporary haven — a palace of autonomy where desire, humor, and politics intermingle. The film’s tone balances raucous exuberance with tender vulnerability, using humor and nonjudgmental eroticism to challenge conservative cultural scripts about female sexuality.
Shot on a low-budget format typical of 1980s underground cinema (likely Super 8 or 16mm), Pussy Palace favors handheld camerawork, grainy texture, and raw, immediate framing. The cinematography privileges proximity: faces, bodies, and gestures fill the frame, emphasizing community over spectacle. Interiors are lit with practicals and colored gels, creating a nightclub-like aura that feels both intimate and ritualistic. Costume and production design borrow from punk, queer DIY aesthetics, and feminist performance art — thrifted clothes, bold makeup, and improvised sets that foreground personality over polish.
