House Flipper 2 Review

As I sit down to begin writing this review for developer Frozen District’s latest title, House Flipper 2, I realise how late at night it is. I need to be up early for work tomorrow, I’ve not done anything to help around the house that I said I’d do, and my dog is snoring away on my (now numb) leg. The reason for this apparent jump through time is not due to a tear in the spacetime continuum, but this very game I’m meant to be reviewing. That’s a very long-winded way of saying that House Flipper 2 is incredibly addictive, and though not without its faults, I’m already itching to boot it back up and paint just one more wall.

Upon starting the game, you’re given two options: New game or Sandbox mode. Let’s start with looking at the standard game mode, where your main goals are to complete tasks given to you by the citizens of Pinnacove, as well as buy and renovate your own houses in order to turn a profit. It’s a very simple premise, with the missions acting as structured lists of what a particular client is asking for, whilst you have free rein to design your own places as you see fit. It works in the same way as the original game, just with a lot more polish (and I don’t mean the table cleaning kind) and an overall sense that the sequel had a much larger budget.

If you’ve not played House Flipper, the missions can range from a quick cleaning job of scrubbing some walls and throwing away old pizza boxes, to constructing new walls in order to give the client that en suite bathroom they've always dreamed of. The majority of the tasks are scattered throughout every mission, so there’s always some variety between each home you’re renovating. These items on your to-do list come with a wide arsenal of cleaning essentials, and some much improved animations to go with them! As litter magically disappeared in the first game, now you’ll fill up a rubbish bag as you go, depositing any full ones into a bin (10 points if you can get it in from across the kitchen!) Likewise, painting now feels much more enjoyable; instead of simply painting one strip of wall at a time, now you can, well, paint a wall. Sure, I went outside the lines a few times and painted an adjacent wall, but if that isn’t realism, then I don’t know what is. Then there’s the Unpacking-esque task of taking items pre-purchased out of boxes and fitting them into the house as you’d like, and whilst this does save time having to go in and out of the store menu to keep buying new items all the time, it does restrict the players' ability to add their own touch of individuality to each house.

If you prefer tackling the jobs over renovating your own houses, then House Flipper 2 may not take you too long to finish. With just over 20 missions — some being over in a matter of minutes — it only took me around six hours to complete them all to 100%. However, there is much more substance within each dilapidated home, as your clients will often call you mid-mission, asking for additional help or just to see how things are going. I was role-playing as a super efficient cleaner who just so happened to be incredibly rude to his customers, which was rather amusing. This mainly serves as a slow approach to teaching you all the game's mechanics, and it works well in that regard, whilst providing some entertaining tasks that allow you to start making money.

On the more open-ended side is the buying and selling of houses, which you’re able to decorate to your liking. Furniture, wallpaper, and practically everything else feels lacking compared to the original title (and that’s not including the wealth of DLC items) and although I have no doubt Frozen District will support this game for years to come, with free updates and DLC, it’s still a bit disappointing that the vanilla experience is a little light on decorative items. The removal of the mini-games when adding installations such as radiators or sinks was also a step back, and although some may be glad to be rid of these “hold down left click to turn the screw” interactions, I feel it detracts from the game and makes it less engaging.

Graphically, the game looks noticeably better than the first, with things such as improved lighting and higher detailed textures. In combination with the aforementioned increase in animation details and tool usage, it’s hard to go back to the first game, as it just looks drab and simplistic in comparison. The whole game is vibrant and full of colour, even if you’re stepping into a ramshackle house with dull wooden walls!

In addition, the soundtrack and audio effects aren’t too different from House Flipper, with the main theme being a slight remix of the original. Still, it’s hard to poke holes in this, when the majority of the time you’ll be hearing the thud of a hammer against a wall or the whir of a vacuum cleaner.

Some minor quality-of-life changes include the grid tool, which, for someone like me, is an absolute blessing when wanting to align the TV perfectly to the sofa. Sure, you could just buy all the items necessary for one room and dump them wherever, but I take House Flipper very seriously and will think less of you for it. The extra modes of the Flipper Tool are also very useful for those of you that want to add the same object multiple times, or to copy the style of one particular object onto another, and altogether these small alterations to the mechanics make for a much smoother, and more precise, simulator.

Finally, there’s Sandbox mode, an empty space where your imagination can run wild. Want to create a home that’s snug deep within a chasm? Why not build a hedge maze surrounding the house? It’s all possible in this mode! And though it may be overwhelming with just how many tools and options you have, experimenting and figuring everything out was a lot of fun. You can even use this to create your very own quests and upload them to mod.io, as well as browse the community-created content, and with a good amount already available, this could potentially keep fans of the main game's missions coming back for a long time to come.

Though House Flipper 2 may not differ greatly from its predecessor, realistically, how much can be changed in a game about home renovation? The quality of life additions are nice, but the omission of a lot of items and installation of fixtures is a bit of a shame. Still, this is a big improvement and will be adored by fans of the original as well as newcomers who want to experience all the joys of house renovation, without the astronomical costs, spilt paint, and mortgage broker fees.