As we are frequently reminded at this time of year by game-of-the-year lists and annual awards shows, interactive entertainment can alter our perspective on the world, maybe even change us. House Flipper 2 has zero interest in any of that. It is, much like the equally great PowerWash Simulator, the digital equivalent of popping bubble wrap, with the added treat of numbers that go up for especially good popping. With its Sims-like home design creative palette, this isn’t the sort of gripping, emotive adventure that’ll be the highlight of anyone’s festive season – but it does provide some magical half-hour chunks of relaxing busywork.
You start the game as a relatively broke professional fixer-upper residing in a run-down house gifted to you by your parents. In other words, even the starting point is millennial wish fulfillment. Via email, you’ll take various jobs in the town of Pinnacove; in an early assignment you might clear trash and scrub pawprints after a nightmarish raccoon incident. As you progress, you’ll graduate from cleaning to painting, tiling, furnishing or demolishing walls to alter floorplans, and more. Once you’ve learned the ropes, you can use the money you earn to buy dilapidated buildings and turn them into dream homes one lick of paint and a “live, laugh, love” sign at a time, then flip them for profit.
Each of these tasks is its own simple minigame. Cleaning is a case of holding down a button to scrub stains from walls or floors, while rubbish collecting is just filling a bag by clicking items, tying it, then popping it in a wheelie bin. Doom maestro John Romero once talked about shooters as a sort of screen-cleaning exercise, harnessing the inherent satisfaction in clearing a level of messy enemies. Environmental design, checklists, and, yes, the primal gratification of turning a messy surface into a sparkling one all combine here to make something hypnotically moreish. It doesn’t hurt that each of the game’s tools, from sledgehammering walls to squeegee-ing filthy windows, is satisfying in its own right.
The game has two great tricks that really make things shine. First, an instant scan button removes any stress by highlighting hidden stains, errant crisp packets and destructible walls. This spells out the game’s intent as a methodical and meditative checklist, rather than a frustrating hidden-object hunt. Second, while you’ll often have to buy specific items or unpack boxes of trinkets, how you arrange these things is up to you. As long as you meet a client’s needs, you’re free to leave the required furnishings scattered nonsensically around a room, or arrange them with care. What surprised me was how often I felt a sense of obligation to give my potential clients somewhere nice to live, even picking up fallen lamps or colour-coding books. House Flipper 2 turned me into a renovation philanthropist, and I consider this a greater exploration of morality than Bioshock ever was.
It helps that the game looks much nicer than its predecessor, making the transformation of a bare-walled attic filled with detritus into a lovely three-bedroom space that much more satisfying. There are even experience points and perks, because if Assassin’s Creed is an RPG now, why not a game about arranging sofas, too?
Is this a realistic insight into property ownership and management? Probably not. But it yields a good time nonetheless, and one that obeying the property ladder advice of cutting out avocado toast might actually help you to afford.