House Flipper Review (Nintendo Switch)

Game: House Flipper
Genre: Lifestyle, Simulation, Utility
System: Nintendo Switch (also on PS4, Xbox One, Steam, Windows, macOS, Linux)
Developer | Publisher: Empyrean | Ultimate Games
Age Rating: PEGI 3 | ESRB E (Everyone)
Price: UK £22.49 | EU €24.99 | US $24.99 | CA $33.06
Release Date: 12th June 2020

Review code used, with many thanks to Ultimate Games

For a game that’s all about risk vs reward, how did this port of an indie hit balance out?

Gameplay

I’m not sure how I feel about House Flipper. On one hand, it’s a super relaxed home renovation sim that allows building, demolition, decorating, and furnishing to your heart’s content. On the other, a disappointingly small range of design options and a limited number of both properties and mailed tasks reduces replayability and overall game time. You can re-flip houses after you’ve completed them all, but it’d be much nicer to have a different set of houses that unlocks after finishing the initial list.

There’s a decent range of tasks to perform, from cleaning to painting to plastering, and each is made nice and easy; for example, to paint you have to buy a tin of paint from the store, then use ZL to switch to painting mode. ZR is then the interact button to fill your roller and paint the wall. The left stick controls movement while the right controls the camera, and any other buttons are prompted as required. It feels very strange to play, whether on joy-cons or pro controller, and I’m still not sure whether I like the control scheme.

My favourite part of the game has to be the house flipping part; buying up properties, renovating them (and claiming your favourite as your new home!), and attempting to turn a profit when it goes to auction. The e-mail tasks are good for introducing you to the mechanics and earning some money, but there’s something really fun about gutting a completely wrecked house and completely redesigning it to your own specification as opposed to the often-questionable requests you get. It is very repetitive though, so if you hate doing the same thing over and over it certainly isn’t the game for you!

Graphics, Sound, and Performance

Both graphics and sound are very basic. The mellow, relaxing soundtrack provides a perfect backdrop for the game, as it enhances the chilled vibe while allowing you to concentrate on what you’re doing, which is definitely a plus! Concentration is a necessity when tackling the awkward angles and sometimes practically invisible areas you need to tackle. 

Considering House Flipper is a home renovation game I was hoping for some gorgeous decoration options, but lacklustre textures and jerky object edging made the general design unfortunately disappointing. The limited selection of objects should have made it easier to make the game much prettier, and in my opinion, it would benefit highly from the extra thought.

I’m still not sure whether the sometimes jerky movement is a result of the controls or the strain on the hardware, but either way, it got very annoying at times. For example: I’d be slowly moving down a wall, painting as I went, when I’d suddenly stop and then jerk forwards a section or two. It was workable though, just a little annoying. One thing I did notice, that required a complete shutdown and restart of the game, was that the tasks list just vanished on one of my jobs. It also didn’t re-appear for that job, or any others, until I’d shut down and re-opened the game. It’s presumably a bug, and one that interrupted the relaxing flow of the game significantly.

Difficulty

There isn’t much to say about difficulty, as it’s a game that isn’t designed to be difficult. Some things are hard to locate, such as dirt patches hidden behind objects or one random empty bottle on top of a fridge, but the joyous simplicity is what makes House Flipper such a chilled game. You have a list of tasks to complete, with upgrades available to make it even easier and quicker, and the button prompts are so liberal that they’re genuinely annoying. If I’ve done it once, I’ve done it a thousand times – I don’t need to be told how to fill my roller every single time I look at a tin of paint, or how to scan an item to sell every time I pull the scanner out. However, I can appreciate the usefulness for a younger audience, or someone who picks up and puts down the game frequently and therefore may need reminding, so I can’t complain too much.

Conclusion

I wanted to love House Flipper. I’m a huge fan of the building and design aspects of The Sims 4 and was looking forward to playing a game dedicated to such, but the limited options tampered my enthusiasm considerably. While the control scheme does feel bizarre – even after a good 2-3 days of play I was still trying to use A and B instead of ZR and ZL – it does work, and it doesn’t feel too cumbersome despite my fingers not being used to trigger work. The task list bug did wind me up, but was thankfully a relatively easy fix so I’m not too upset. 

I wanted to love it, but in its current state, I can only say I like it. It was fun, and I’ll be redesigning my early houses for ages to come, but for the price tag, I’d expected more options and variation for replayability – even having the DLCs included would have significantly elevated the game. If you’re a more careful decorator though, you could probably sink a lot of time into House Flipper and feel like you got a bargain.

Final Verdict: I Liked It