Developer: Empyrean, Empyrean Games
Publisher: Frozen District, PlayWay, Merge Games
Platform: Switch, PC, PlayStation 4, Xbox One
Tested on: Switch
House Flipper Simulator – Review
During the pandemic, many people used their time well to do chores around the house. But what if you are too lazy to do anything and rather pay someone to do it? This is what House Flipper Simulator is all about. Do chores for people to earn cash, so you can buy, renovate and sell houses to other people. While this game is a pretty decent title on PC, its Switch port shows as much damages as the early houses in this game.
Story
The game starts with you portraying a poor fella that lost about everything. Having to move into a rotting shack with only your laptop, you decide to create a website where people can request tasks. They will ask you to clean their house and renovate certain things. These small jobs will grant you experience and cash to progress with your main goal: having enough money to buy and flip houses. You will start small and as you do great deals, you will be able to buy, renovate and sell larger houses.
While a true storyline is absent, you make the story how you want it to be. Do you just keep on doing small jobs for people to renovate your house and call it quits? Or do you rather want to end up in a large villa with a swimming pool?
Graphics
If you like comedy, then you will love the following joke. Those are the graphics, there aren’t any. The visuals are so bad, that it will make you cry. If you have seen some other reviews about shovelware on the Switch, then you know what route we are taking. There are barely any details whatsoever, graphics are very simple and things like posters are unreadable due to them being such low quality. The one thing that is cool is that the many mini-games are well animated, unlike the cleaning and painting stuff.
Sound
Just like most of these simulator games, the sound is just neutral. There is a generic soundtrack playing in the back, which can become annoying after a while, yet if you don’t pay attention it won’t bother at all. You have some sound effects corresponding to your actions, but nothing special.
Gameplay
House Flipper Simulator is a simulator game where you buy, clean, renovate and sell houses to earn a good living. You will start out as a poor sod who gets dropped in a shack and he/she starts their own company. Customers will send a mail to request you to help them out in their household. These jobs mostly consist of cleaning the house, removing trash, and installing new furniture. These missions will lean you the ropes for renovating your own locations. Each mission has a threshold that when met, you can complete the mission, each progress made after that will give a heavy bonus so it is interesting to always 100% complete the missions. Along with money, you will earn experience during your tasks, so you can work more proficiently, get paid more and get better tools.
When the money starts flowing and you get good at your chores, you might want to start buying new houses, renovating them and selling them to interested buyers. The cool thing about this is that you can move your office to new houses, so you are not limited to your first shack. The cheaper houses all need a lot of work and investment, so you will have to spend a lot of time making them in perfect order. Potential buyers will also respond to your actions as they will either like or dislike it (painting or placing furniture for example). Having good relations with the buyer is important as the better you fill their wishes, the more they will pay for the house.
Controlling the game is pretty broken, controls feel distant, as they are slow and unresponsive. Some mini-games work well, others are pretty shabby. Playing the game feels like a chore due to this and while the concept is good, the many limitations that the Switch has made it so that this title has too many shortcomings.
Conclusion
House Flipper Simulator might be a great concept, the execution on the Switch is far from perfect. Hardware limitations make that this title does not run that smoothly and most of the graphics are bad and controlling the game doesn’t always go too well. If you want to be a house flipper, then grab it for the PC, but if you have no other option and don’t care about the many bad sides, then it could be a viable option.
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