When I started playing House Flipper 2, I knew that this game was not for me. Coming from JRPGs, Fighting Games, and Action Games, I can confidently say that I didn’t expect to enjoy this title.
In the end, my skepticism only proves that this game is something else, cause I enjoyed my time with it. House Flipper 2 is a solid game that understands its niche. It performs its job with such passion that it can even appeal to someone who never considered trying it, like me.
What to Expect From House Flipper 2
This is one of those games that you can take your time with. Although there might be a few game elements here or there that will ask you to be quick, like unlocking an achievement, this is not a game about speed, precision, or any other usual gamer skills. The game essentially involves taking an old, dirty, or broken home, or even one that’s all three, transforming it into a beautiful place to live, and then selling it.
There don’t seem to be significant changes in this version of the game. House Flipper 2 is very much the House Flipper people used to love, but it has more things to do, more tools, revamped tools, more options, and better graphics. If you found House Flipper boring, House Flipper 2 might not amaze you, but if you are looking for a better version of the first House Flipper, this is it.
A Clean Floor at the Touch of a Button
It’s hard to express the satisfaction of pressing a button and watching all the dirt vanish. I don’t know what it is, but if you know what it’s like to clean an entire house, you will probably like seeing stains magically disappearing in front of you. House Flipper 2 doesn’t break new ground. It anticipates that you will enjoy this aspect of the gameplay. You will get into old and dirty properties and will spend a lot of time cleaning windows, taking out the trash, selling broken and ugly furniture, and whatnot.
That said, I believe the most gratifying part of the game is working on your own house. You clean houses, perform renovations and then get to use the payment from all those jobs to do whatever you want with your place. Change the furniture, paint the walls, decorate it, and make it a dream home. You can keep working on it for as long as you want, or you can sell it and use the money to buy some other place and start over.
You can own multiple properties at once and interact with them in various ways, which makes sense. Players might end up wanting to have many different properties and different decoration and architectural styles. I can’t say this aspect directly appeals to me. I prefer the sense of completion and moving on to the next task, but I’m confident that Frozen District understands its player base better than I do.
Renovation, Relaxation, and Profit
While House Flipper 2 may seem like nothing but a renovation simulator, it remains a video game and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. You will have to do things yourself by walking, collecting the trash, breaking walls, and using the right tools for each task. You also have the Flipper Sense, which is a special sight that helps you see missing stains, trash, and items that you can sell. You also have many perks that make you clean faster or collect more trash at once.
These perks will never be so powerful as to completely alter the way the game is played. These perks are more like small performance boosts to make players feel like they’re improving at the craft. They also might unlock new tools, but in the end, you won’t find anything such as a build or an optimized way to play this game. It doesn’t even try to tell you what is right or wrong as long as you keep the place clean.
House Flipper 2 isn’t trying to judge you or teach you anything. It lets you do your thing and enjoy your time with it without many constraints. Ultimately, the developers aim to provide a relaxing experience where you can forget about everything else, demolish some walls, redecorate, and simply enjoy the game. They don’t intend for you to feel stressed, retry tasks, restart jobs, or anything of the sort.
Despite the presence of game elements, quests, and currency, Frozen District understood that the key to the game’s success lay in ensuring that objectives could be met without the player feeling judged or restricted to a very specific approach. Does this give the game a somewhat loose feel at times? Indeed, it does, but that’s not a bad thing at all. Until you get there, there will be plenty of jobs offered to you via phone call for you to gather money and work on your stuff eventually. On that note, the most challenging aspect of the game is tolerating the poor voice acting when an NPC calls you. Luckily, this doesn’t happen often.
The Verdict
House Flipper 2 delivers a satisfying experience for players who want a casual, relaxing game for people who seek a very specific kind of experience. Although I can’t see it ever becoming a sensation that manages to attract people who don’t care for its genre, House Flipper 2 will surely become a reference among those looking for a casual, relaxing, house-flipping simulator. This game turns the mundane experience into a satisfying gaming escape, and the developers should be commended for that. There’s no denying that the developers understand their game’s niche and how to craft a product for it.
