House Flipper (PC) Review

Starting from a measly shack, and with your laptop being more expensive than everything else in your room, your mission will be to make some money by doing some cleaning and fixing in various houses, in order to buy, renovate, and then resale other properties. All is done in first-person perspective, and via very easy controls. Generally, unlike many other sim games, House Flipper throws you into the "action" right away, but is super-easy to learn in a matter of minutes - so easy that most will barely need to read the small tutorial screens. You click on garbage to dispose them off, hold the button to paint or cover holes with plaster, drag-and-drop furniture around, and so on and forth.

Needless to say, this won't appeal to just anyone. The one writing this enjoys the whole cleaning, putting-everything-in-its-right-place, aligning-furniture, obsessing-over-every-minor-detail… deal, but those who get tired just by the thought of all that should better stay away. And it is monotonous. Like many of its ilk, it's a simplified version of the real thing, so you are basically click on things for as many hours as you feel like. It's a clicker game, but the kind that's relaxing. A zen kind of experience - again, as long as you enjoy this sort of thing.

Whether you take simple jobs, or start refurbishing a bought house, the goal is to make money, and expand the business, meaning being able to do much more than paint a few rooms or clean the dirt. A tablet is always at one's disposal, where furniture, decorations, and electronic equipment can be purchased to spice the place up, or to meet customer demands, as each one likes and dislikes different things, something that affects the final price. Skills get unlocked while working, which can make one clean faster, waste less paint, find dirty spots easier, and so on and forth. Truth be told, though, it's a weak progression system akin to the "+3 attack" perks in RPGs.

As enjoyable as the whole thing is, there's not much replay value on offer. After a while you'll end up doing the same things all over again, fixing up and selling houses to the same 10 or something potential buyers. Also note that the developer has left its creation with a bunch of - thankfully minor - bugs, as well as some performance issues, and has focused on pumping pricey DLC after DLC, with most of them simply adding more stuff to decorate your homes with. Simply put, while tons of fun, you are likely to get bored soon.

It should be noted that a great deal of the fan factor lies on what you want to do. If you just want to get the job done, and just complete the objectives of each job, then you won't really enjoy House Flipper. You must be willing to enjoy yourself and use your imagination to create houses with your own personal touch. It's even possible to create pictures out of images from your hard drive - perfect for building your own man cave, gaming den, or cool artsy bedroom. Too bad players are not allowed to revisit their past creations, though. In all honesty, quite the oversight for such a title.