The world of Great Pretender is urban and global: scams and cons take place in financial and tourist centers, where capital flow, ostentatious consumption, and illicit connections overlap. The action moves between sleek corporate offices, casinos, and luxury hotels, docks, and discreet warehouses, as well as less visible streets and neighborhoods that serve as logistical support for clandestine operations.
Central elements of the environment
- Social environment: a universe where visible wealth, ambition, and corporate corruption create profitable targets; elites and criminals share risky behaviors and secrets that encourage complex cons.
- Everyday spaces: high-end hotels, casinos, corporate meeting rooms, beauty salons, and bank offices function as recurring stages; there are also back offices, safes, and makeshift hideouts that support the logistics of fraud.
- Influential institutions: major corporations, investment firms, and transnational criminal networks are forces that shape motivations and opportunities; law enforcement and legal systems appear as limits to evade or instruments to manipulate.
- Forms of communication and coexistence: intensive use of false identities, electronic transfers, forged documents, contacts in hotels, and subtle signals among accomplices; trust among members is fragile and regulated by unwritten codes and personal secrets.
- Symbolic places and objects: passports and suitcases represent mobility and secrecy; elegant clothing, letters/invitations, and luxury items function as bait and status symbols exploited in scams.
- Cultural atmosphere and social pressures: westernized glamour, consumer culture, and the desire for social ascension pressure characters and targets; personal honor, emotional debt, and professional reputation influence decisions and alliances.
- Practical rules of interaction: the social game revolves around manipulating expectations (of trust, greed, and vanity); operations depend on precise timing, well-defined roles, and the ability to disappear after the con.
