Merge Mansion: a muddled mystery

Graphic by Madison Dowell

Madison Dowell, Staff Writer

If you’ve seen any advertisements lately, you’ll know that they’ve gotten way more intense in recent years. An intriguing ad is for the app Merge Mansion, a merging game with a rather strange plotline. 

The story starts with Maddie, a blushing bride on the day of her wedding, who’s sad that the wedding was canceled by her husband-to-be for unknown reasons. Maddie’s Grandma, Ursula, lifts her mood by gifting her the family mansion that not only has fallen into disrepair, but has never been mentioned to Maddie before. Maddie is understandably surprised by these recent developments and by the secrets she is uncovering. Her grandma is as vague as possible, which leaves Maddie with more questions than before.

A great part of the lore comes from their ads, which are both cartoon and live-action. The cartoon ads started out innocent enough with its basic storyline of heartbroken Maddie, but they quickly escalated when Ursula was arrested for unknown reasons. As Maddie says goodbye outside of the cop car her granny is in, she realizes that there’s writing on Ursula’s hand. 

“He is alive.”

The live-action ads are strange, given they are for a basic mobile game, which usually means low budget ads. However, more attention is due to Granny Ursula’s actress, the famed Kathy Bates. Some theorized that the game’s creators may want to pursue a larger empire with their merging app, namely by making a movie.

The true captor of most audiences’ attention? The crazy life that Ursula seems to lead. In one ad, she’s seen raking leaves and (dun dun dun) daggers into a large pile with at least fifty blades. Maddie discovers that amount is duplicated by how many she finds sharpened and gleaming in the shed. Another video shows Maddie looking for her grandma when she stumbles upon a room with a dummy looking like Ursula. She looks out the window to find her real grandmother digging what suspiciously looks like a grave, only for Maddie to walk over and once again find the dummy in place of her granny. 

Clearly, there’s something deeply disturbing about Ursula’s hidden life, but no one knows what just yet.